The central theme of this book is the nexus between the self, the social, and the sacred in conversion and recovery. The contributions explore the complex interactions that occur between the person, the sacred, and various recovery situations, which can include prisons, substance abuse recovery settings and domestic violence shelters. With an interdisciplinary approach to the study of conversion, the collection provides an opportunity for a better understanding of lived religion, guilt, shame, hope, forgiveness, narrative identity reconstruction, religious coping, religious conversion and spiritual transformation. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of lived religion, religious conversion, recovery, homelessness, and substance dependence.

Drinking, Fasting, and Tattoos reveals the problematics of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies via Lived Religion (LR) by using qualitative and collaborative methodologies. It offers LR as a potential recovery for the tensions across different disciplines of gender and women’s studies, theology, migration studies, and religious studies. It also problematizes major assumptions about Islam that have led to the current scholarship, such as churchification of Islam in Europe. It breaks a tripled silence around women, refugees, and unaffiliated Muslims. It draws attention to permeable boundaries between academic disciplines, secular and religious, researcher and researched divides while challenging current paradigms in academia, particularly the ones that still validate Euro-American frameworks. More specifically, Syrian women refugees whose representations can be expanded to Muslim women migrants in the Global North, present firsthand accounts regarding their faith-based practices and interpretations of Islam. The accounts reveal empowerment, resilience, and post-traumatic growth, and thus agency in unlikely places.

INTRODUCTION.. 3 PART I 25 CHAPTER I 27 Glimpse into Conceptual Toolbox CHAPTER II 47 19th Century Reforms: The Tragedy of Turkish Soul CHAPTER III 91 Transformation of the AKP: A Puzzling and Eventful Journey Part II 95 CHAPTER IV.. 97 Reformism and Co-habitation with Secularist Establishment (2002-2007) CHAPTER V.. 135 Consolidation of Power and Disarticulation of Secularist Establishment (2007-2011) CHAPTER VI 175 From Electoral Hegemony to Systemic Domination (2011-2016) CHAPTER VII 207 2016-2021: Systemic Domination AKP IN POWER: A DIZZYING JOURNEY THROUGH CONSERVATISM.. 265 In this insightful book, Fatih Ceran offers a retrospective analysis of the two decade rule of AKP in Turkey and explores into the question on everyone’s mind: "How did we get here?" Putting the Securitization Approach of Copenhagen School at work and employing critical discourse analysis at every level Ceran provides a nuanced examination of the complex political and social dynamics that shaped contemporary Turkey. Samim AKGÖNÜL, University of Strasbourg With a focus on democratic rights that have been promoted and demoted by the same political figures as their collective and personal interests changed, the book provides on how the AKP first reformed and then drifted down the authoritaran path. İştar Gözaydın, ELIAMEP Fellow, Winner of Human Rights Award of University of Oslo This book sheds new light on Turkey’s transformation from an imperfect parliamentary democracy to an a la Turca presidential system and puts forward a multidimensional analysis on how the Political Islamists made inroads into country’s secularist political system and then obtained full contol over it. Ceran’s masterful and meticulous analysis is a must read for students and scholars of contemporary Turkey. Ahmet Erdi Ozturk, London Metropolitan University

How do people in poverty and homelessness change their lives and get back on their feet? Homeless shelters across the world play a huge role in this process. Many of them are religious, but there is a lot of diversity in faith-based non-profits that assist people affected by poverty and homelessness. In this timely book, the authors look at three homeless shelters that take more or less intensive approaches to faith, community, and programming. In one shelter, for instance, residents are required to do a program of classes that includes group Bible study, worship, and self-evaluation. The other two examined are significantly less faith-based, but in different ways and with different structures. The authors show how the three shelters tackle homelessness differently, drawing on narrative biographical interviews and case studies with residents, interviews with staff, and case study research of the three shelters. Entering into significant debates in social theory over religion, agency, cognitive action, and culture, this book is important reading for scholars and students in religious studies, sociology and social work.

Meditation techniques, including mindfulness, have become popular wellbeing practices and the scientific study of their effects has recently turned 50 years old. But how much do we know about them: what were they developed for and by whom? How similar or different are they, how effective can they be in changing our minds and biology, what are their social and ethical implications? The Oxford Handbook of Meditation is the most comprehensive volume published on meditation, written in accessible language by world-leading experts on the science and history of these techniques. It covers the development of meditation across the world and the varieties of its practices and experiences. It includes approaches from various disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, history, anthropology, and sociology and it explores its potential for therapeutic and social change, as well as unusual or negative effects. Edited by practitioner-researchers, this book is the ultimate guide for all interested in meditation, including teachers, clinicians, therapists, researchers, or anyone who would like to learn more about this topic.

The need to reimagine religion and belief is precipitated by their greater visibility in public life. Meanwhile, social policy responses often see them from a problem-based, rather than an asset-based, approach. However, with growing diversity of religion and belief in every sector comes the potential for new dialogues across previously impermeable policy and disciplinary silos. This volume brings together leading international authors to critically consider these challenges within legal and policy frameworks, including security and cohesion, welfare, law, health and social care, inequality, cohesion, extremism, migration and abuse. It challenges policy makers to re-imagine religion and belief as an integral part of public life that contains resources, practices, forms of knowledge and experience that are essential to a coherent policy approach to diversity, enhanced democracy and participation.

The often-tenuous relationship between law enforcement and communities of color, namely African Americans, has grown increasingly strained, and the call for justice has once again ignited the demand for criminal justice reform. Rebuilding the trust between the police and the citizens that they have sworn to protect and serve requires that criminal justice practitioners and educators collaborate with elected officials and commit to an open, ongoing dialogue on the most challenging issues that remain unresolved but demand collective attention and support. Reform measures are not limited to policing policies and practices, but rather extend throughout the criminal justice system. There is no denying that the criminal justice system as we know it is flawed, but not beyond repair. Global Perspectives on Reforming the Criminal Justice System provides in-depth and current research about the criminal justice system around the world, its many inadequacies, and why it urgently needs reformation. Offering a fully fleshed outline of the current system, this book details the newest research and is incredibly important to fully understand the flaws of the criminal justice system across the globe. The goals of this book are to improve and advance the criminal justice system by addressing the glaring weaknesses within the system and discuss potential reforms including decreasing the prison population (decarceration) and improving police/community relations. Highlighting topics that include accountability, community-oriented policing, ethics, and mass incarceration, this book is ideal for law enforcement officers, trainers/educators, government officials, policymakers, correctional officers, court officials, professionals, researchers, academicians, and students in the fields of criminal justice, criminology, sociology, psychology, addictions, mental health, social work, public policy, and public administration.

This book focuses on the power of the ‘ordinary’, ‘everydayness’ and ‘embodiment’ as keys to exploring the intersection of trauma and the everyday reality of religion. It critically investigates traumatic experiences from a perspective of lived religion, and therefore, examines how trauma is articulated and lived in the foreground of people’s concrete, material actualities. Trauma and Lived Religion seeks to demonstrate the vital relevance between the concept of lived religion and the study of trauma, and the reciprocal relationship between the two. A central question in this volume therefore focuses on the key dimensions of body, language, memory, testimony, and ritual. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of sociology, psychology, and religious studies with a focus on lived religion and trauma studies, across various religions and cultural contexts.

Bringing together disciplines across the arts, humanities and social sciences, this Handbook presents novel and lively examinations of the dynamic ways religion, gender and sexuality operate. Applying feminist, intersectional, and reflexive approaches, the volume aims to loosen imperialist and exclusionary figurations that have underwritten and tethered religion, gender, and sexuality together. While holding onto the field of inquiry, the Handbook offers contributions that interrogate and untie it from the terms and conditions that have formed it. The volume is organized into thematic sections: - Forces and Futures - Activisms and Labors - Agencies and Practices - Relationships and Institutions - Texts and Objects Chapters range across religious, geographical, historical, political, and social contexts and feature an array of case-studies, experiences, and topics that exemplify the reflexive intention of the volume, including explorations of race, whiteness, colonialism, and the institutional intolerance of minority groups. Contributors also advance new areas of research in religion including artificial intelligence, farming, migrant mothering, child sexual abuse, mediatization, national security, legal frameworks, addiction and recovery, decolonial hermeneutics, creative arts, sport, sexual practices, and academic friendship. This is an essential contribution to the fields of religious studies and gender and sexuality studies.

Powerful religious elements for living in the aftermath of trauma are embedded within North African Christian hagiographies. The texts of (1) The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, (2) The Account of Montanus, Lucius, and their Companions, and (3) The Life of Cyprian of Carthage are stories that offered post traumatic pathways to recovery for its historical readership. These recovery-oriented beliefs and behaviors promoted positive religious coping strategies that revolved around a sense of safety, re-establishing community relationships, an integrated sense of self, and a hopeful story beyond trauma. This book vividly demonstrates that hagiographies played a vital therapeutic role in helping early Christian trauma survivors recover and flourish in the aftermath of disastrous persecutions.