Research page Samuli Schielke 1
Curriculum Vitae /2 Research
projects / 3 Lectures
/ 4 Films
/ 5 Writings / 6 Contact
I am a social and cultural anthropologist working mainly on contemporary Egypt. I was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1972.
After finishing school in 1991 I spent some time travelling around Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
I tried my luck in journalism but wasn't good at it, and after trying out unemployment and work as waiter, I went in 1994 to study
Arabic and Islamic studies in Bonn, Germany, from where I graduated in 2000.
I did not feel home in the philological world of Orientalism, and changed to the discipline of anthropology
with the help of a PhD position at the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM)
in Leiden, the Netherlands, and in 2006 I received my PhD thesis in social sciences from the University of Amsterdam.
I worked as a postdoc at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies in Mainz, Germany
and in the University of Eastern Finland. Since 2009, I work as a
researcher at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin, Germany. From 2010 to 2014, I directed the
research and exhibition project In Search of Europe:
Considering the Possible in Africa and the Middle East, which is not about Europe. In 2017, I received the title of
a docent in social anthropology from the University of Tampere,
Finland. Since 2018, I'm also a primary investigator at the
Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies.
I am a keen amateur photographer, and I have been
involved in some documentary and experimental films.
You can follow my unfinished research work in process on my blog A Book of Unfinished Theories. For publications of completed research, look further below.
My current research circles around questions about personal trajectories, class and global inequality, morality and religion, and economic growth, as well as the relationship between intimate lives, literary imagination, political economy, and moral strivings. I'm also interested in the relationship between destiny and freedom, and in general I'm curious about contradictions, ambiguities and shifts in human lives. I'm interested in understanding powerful structures and discourses from the point of view of living a life marked by them.
The Dream of Stability: Egyptian migrations and homes in the age of disruptive growth
At the heart of this project is a central paradox of the age of globalisation: the possibility of a stable,
normal life at home relies on destabilising processes of growth, expansion, and mobility.
Imagining a different life. Migration, labor, and politics. A podcast interview about my book Migrant Dreams,but it ended up being more about the new book I'm writing, which tells about the impossible equation of a good conservative life in stability that is based on destabilising means of growth, mobility, and constant transformation. Released 24 June 2024 by Podcast Café & Politik. Listen. Looking away from Europe. Podcast interview about Eurocentrism, people’s hopes and dreams of a better life and the limits of economic growth and natural resources, released 18 September 2020 by the EuroStorie centre of excellence at the University of Helsinki. Listen. The power of God. Four proposals for anthropological engagement. Lecture to the workshop “The 'Ethical' and the 'Everyday': Interrogating analytical turns for/in the study of Islam and Muslims in Europe” at Cambridge University, 29 November 2018. Watch. Secular powers and heretic undercurrents in a God-fearing world. Lecture at the conference of the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network, King's College London, 5 July 2018. Listen or read.
قصة
علم الإنسان.
حوار
مع أحمد سعد
زايد في مركز
الجزويت الثقافي،
الإسكندرية، 20 فبراير 2017.
Stability as a utopia. Revisiting Egyptian youth as they grow older, and the future tense as time passes. Lecture at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, 21 September 2016. Listen. Dreaming of the Inevitable. How Money, Morals and Destiny Come Together When Young Egyptians Search for Love and Marriage. Lecture at Boston University, 8 February 2016. Listen. The Secret Capital. With Mukhtar Saad Shehata. 28 min. Egypt, 2013. Watch the film online The Other Side. With Mukhtar Saad Shehata. 9 min. Egypt and the Netherlands, 2010. Watch the film online Messages from Paradise #1, Egypt:Austria, About the Permanent Longing for Elsewhere. With Daniela Swarowsky. 44 min. Austria and the Netherlands, 2010. Watch the trailer online "This Is Tanta: Or What I Learned from Acting in an Unprofessional Manner during Fieldwork." In: Rethinking the Anthropology of Islam Dynamics of Change in Muslim Societies. In Honour of Roman Loimeier ed. by Katja Föllmer , Lisa Maria Franke and Ramzi Ben Amara. De Gruyter 2024, pp. 39-48. Download/Read online "Destiny as a relationship and a theory." In: Handbook on Home and Migration ed. by Paolo Boccagni. Edgar Elgar 2023, pp. 581-594. Download/Read online With Aymon Kreil: "The wheel of production must turn: The striving for normality as a commitment to reality in post-2011 Egypt." Zeitschrift für Ethnologie vol. 148 (2023), nr. 1, pp. 41-58. Download/Read online Samuli Schielke, Johannes Becker, Katrin Bromber, Sana Chavoshian, Ahmad Moradi, Antoinette Ferrand, Aksana Ismailbekova, Jasmin Mahazi and Tabea Scharrer: "Silence, secrecy, ignorance, and the making of class and status across generations." Zmo Programmatic Texts 15 (2023). Download/Read online "Between home and accommodation: migration and housing in the Arab region between circular ideals and diasporic lives." In: Handbook on Home and Migration ed. by Paolo Boccagni. Edgar Elgar 2023, pp. 581-594. Download/Read online "عن المنافي والبدائل. الفصل الأخير من هوامش مشتركة" (On exiles and alternatives: The final chapter of Shared Margins, in Arabic). Written together with Mukhtar Shehata, Translated by Abdelrehim Youssef. Mada Masr 2 March 2022. Read online
With Mukhtar Saad Shehata: Shared Margins: An Ethnography with Writers in Alexandria after the Revolution.
ZMO Studien, vol. 41, 2021.
Migrant Dreams: Egyptian Workers in the Gulf States.
American University in Cairo Press, 2020.
"Travel: A post-Covid-19 fantasy." A utopian contribution to the collection “Post-Covid Fantasies” ed. by Catherine Besteman, Heath Cabot, and Barak Kalir, editors, American Ethnologist website, 27 July 2020. Read online "A Bigger Prison: Egyptian migrations and the experience of limited movement." Suomen antropologi vol. 44 (2019), nr. 2, pp. 40-58. Download/Read online "Where is Alexandria? Myths of the city and the anti-city after cosmopolitanism." In: Hilal Alkan and Nazan Maksudyan (eds.), Urban Neighbourhood Formations: Materialities, Networks and Contested Places. Routledge. Download/Read online "Wie, es gab eine Revolution? Niederlage, Mythenbildung und Kontinuität in Ägypten nach 2011." In: Martin Sabrow (ed.), Revolution! Verehrt - verhasst - vergessen (Helmstedter Colloquien; 21) Download/Read online "Is prose poetry a conspiracy against the Noble Qur'an? Poetics, humans and God in contemporary Egypt." Historical Social Research, vol. 44 (2019), issue 3, pp. 101-126. Download/Read online "The power of God: Four proposals for an anthropological engagement." ZMO Programmatic Texts, vol. 13 (2019). Download/Read online "Islam." Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2018. Read online "Destiny as a Relationship." Afterword to the special section Anthropologies of destiny: Action, temporality, Freedom. HAU: Journal for Ethnographic Theory vol. 8 (2018): pp. 343-346. Download/Read online "لا بد من الدم: ترقُّب العنف وأخلاقياته في موسم مصر العاصف" (There must be blood: The expectation and ethics of violence in Egypt's stormy season, in Arabic). Transl. Mustafa al-Fiqi. Ma'had Dirasat al-'Alam 18 July 2018. Read online "A City of Walls. A Photo Essay on Writing on Walls in Alexandria, 2011-2017." Égypte/Monde arabe vol. 17 (2018): Everyday Alexandria(s) — Plural experiences of a mythologized city, ed. by Youssef El Chazly, pp. 157-191.0. Download/Read online "أين تقع الإسكندرية؟ .. أساطير المدينة والمدينة النقيض بعد المرحلة الكوزموبوليتانية." (Where is Alexandria? Myths of the city and the anti-city after cosmopolitanism), transl. Abdelrehim Youssef, Tara al-Bahr 3 (2017), pp. 12-27. Read online "There will be Blood: Expectation and Ethics of Violence during Egypt's Stormy Season." Middle East Critique 26 (2017), pp. 205–220. Download/Read online
"حتى
ينتهي النفط:
الهجرة
والأحلام في
ضواحي الخليج
."
(Until the End of Oil: Migration Dreams in the Suburbs of the Gulf),
Transl. Amr Khairy. Safsafa, 2017.
"
في
أحد أيامي الأخيرة
في الدوحة، عام
2009
،
صادفت زيد المشرف،
أمام البنك،
وكان يتحدث على
الهاتف إلى ابنه
في مصر.
بعد
المكالمة، بدا
عليه التأثر.
قال
لي:
"أنا
تعبت.
أنا
تعبت هنا.
نفسي
أرجع.
لكن
مقدرش أرجع،
هنعيش منين؟
لازم أستحمل
سنة كمان."
كان
زيد وقتها في
قطر منذ سبع
سنوات.
تزوج
بالفلوس التي
ربحها هناك،
وكانت أسرته
تعيش على دخله.
عندما
انتهيت من مسودة
هذا الكتاب في
ربيع 2015
كان
ما زال في قطر.
وقبله،
كان والده الراحل
قد عاش في قطر
لعقود كعامل
مهاجر.. في
اليوم التالي
قابلت زيد وعنتر،
المشرف الآخر،
عند البنك،
وسألتهما إن
كانا سيعودان
قريبًا حقًا.
أجابا:
"إحنا
قاعدين هنا حتى
آخر ريال.
لغاية
ما النفط يخلص."
"On one of my last days in Doha in 2009, I encountered Tawfiq's supervisor Zayd outside the bank,
speaking on the phone with his son in Egypt. After the phone call he was visibly moved. He told me:
"I can't take it here anymore. I want to go home so much. But I can't return yet,
what will I live on? I will have to hold on for one more year." Zayd was in Qatar since seven years.
He had married with the money he had earned there, and his family now lived from his income. Last time
I heard of him in spring 2015, he was still in Qatar. Before him, his late father had lived for decades
in Qatar as a migrant worker as well. The following day, I met Zayd and the other supervisor Antar again
in the bank, and I asked them whether they really were going back soon. They answered:
"We will be here until the last rial. Until the oil runs out.""
"The Writing of Lives: An ethnography of writers and their milieus in Alexandria.",
by Samuli Schielke and Mukhtar Saad Shehata.
ZMO Working Papers 17 (2016).
Download/Read online
"Can poetry change the world? Reading Amal Dunqul in Egypt in 2011.",
In: Islam and Popular Culture. Edited by Karin van Nieuwkerk, Mark LeVine, Martin Stokes.
University of Texas Press, 2016. pp. 122-148.
Download/Read online /
Buy the book
"دفاعاً
عن معاييرنا
“العالمية”
المزدوجة:
الأخلاق
والنقاء والارتباك
والعداوة بين
“نحن” و”الآخرين”
" (In defence of our "universal" double standards: Morality, purity,
confusion and enmity between "us" and "them"). Transl. Amr Khairy.
Qira2at 9 March 2016.
Read online
"In defence of our universal double standards."
Allegra Lab 7 December 2015.
Read online
"Living with unresolved differences: A reply to Fadil and Fernando."
(My reply to an ongoing debate on anthropology, Islam and everyday life)
Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 5 (2016), pp. 89–92.
Read online
Egypt in the Future Tense: Ambivalence, Hope and Frustration in Egypt before and after 2011.
Indiana University Press, 2015.
"I want to be committed: Short-lived trajectories of Salafi activism in Egypt."
Ricerca Folklorica 69 (2015).
Read online
"هل
يقدر الشعر على
تغيير العالم؟
قراءة أمل دنقل
فى 2011."
(Can Poetry Change the World? Reading Amal Dunqul in 2011), transl. Amr Khairy, al-Shi'r 155 (2014), pp. 82-89.
Read online
"عيد
الحب في مصر: قراءة
في الجدل الديني
والثقافي."
(Aymon Kreil and Samuli Schielke: "Valentine's Day In Egypt: A Reading in Religious and Cultural Debate"), transl. Omria Sultani, Marased 7, Bibliotheca Alexandrina 2011.
Download/Read online
"هتتأخر
على الثورة:
دفتر
يوميات عالم
أنثروبولوجيا
شهد الثورة
"
("You'll be late for the revolution!"
An anthropologist's diary of the Egyptian Revolution). Transl. Amr Khairy. Al-Nafisa, 2011.
Download/Read the book online
In Search of Europe? Art and Research in Collaboration: An Experiment.
Daniela Swarowsky, Samuli Schielke, Andrea Heister (eds.). Heijningen: Jap Sam, 2013.
Buy the book
"The Writing on the Walls of Egypt."
With Jessica Winegar, Middle East Report 265 (2012), pp. 13-17.
Read online
The Global Horizon: Expectations of Migration in Africa and the Middle East.
Knut Graw and Samuli Schielke (eds.). Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 2012.
Buy the book
Ordinary Lives and Grand Schemes: An Anthropology of Everyday Religion.
Samuli Schielke and Liza Debevec (eds.). New York: Berghahn, 2012.
Buy the book /
Download/Read the introduction online
The Perils of Joy: Contesting Mulid Festivals in Contemporary Egypt.
Syracuse,NY.: Syracuse University Press, 2012.
Buy the book /
Download/Read the conclusion online
"Surfaces of longing: Cosmopolitan aspiration and frustration in Egypt.A photo essay."
City and Society 24 (2012), pp. 29-37.
Download/Read online
"Being a non-believer in a time of Islamic revival: Trajectories of doubt and certainty in contemporary Egypt."
International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 44 (2012), pp. 301-320.
Download/Read online
"Living in the Future Tense: Aspiring for world and class in provincial Egypt."
In: The Global Middle Class: Theorizing through Ethnography,
Carla Freeman, Rachel Heiman, and Mark Liechty (eds.), Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, pp. 31-56..
Buy the book /
Download/Read the chapter online
"Second Thoughts about the Anthropology of Islam,
or how to make Sense of Grand Schemes in Everyday Life. "
ZMO working papers, Vol. 2 (2010).
Download/Read online
"Ambivalent Commitments: Troubles of Morality, Religiosity and Aspiration among Young Egyptians,"
Journal of Religion in Africa Vol. 39 (2009): 2, pp. 158-185.
Download/Read online
"Being good in Ramadan: Ambivalence, fragmentation and the moral self in the lives of young Egyptians,"
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Vol. 15 (2009):
Special issue 1 (Islam, Politics, Anthropology), pp. S24-S40.
Download/Read online
"Policing Ambiguity: Muslim saints-day festivals and
the moral geography of public space in Egypt,"
American Ethnologist Vol. 35 (2008): 4, pp. 539–552.
Download/Read online
"Boredom and Despair in Rural Egypt"
Contemporary Islam Vol. 28
(2008): 2, pp. 251-270.
Download/Read online
Georg Stauth and Samuli Schielke (eds.): Dimensions of Locality:
Muslim Saints and Their Places (Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam; 8),
Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2008.
Buy the book.
Read the introduction(PDF document).
"Mystic States, Motherly Virtues, Female Participation and Leadership in an Egyptian Sufi Milieu"
Journal for Islamic Studies (Capetown) Vol. 28
(2008), pp. 94-126.
Download/Read online
"Hegemonic encounters: Criticism of saints-day festivals
and the formation of modern Islam in late 19th and early
20th-century Egypt" Die Welt des Islams Vol. 47
(2007), number 3-4, pp. 319-355.
Download/Read online
Review article of Charles Lindholm: The Middle East: Tradition and Change,
2nd ed., Oxford: Blackwell, 2002,
in The Muslim World Book Review, Vol. 26 (2006), number 3, pp. 70-72.
Download/Read online
"Sakralisierung des Alltags und Banalisierung des Heiligen: Religion und Konsum in Ägypten"
Working Papers of the Department of Anthropology and African Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz Vol. 69.
Download/Read online
"On Snacks and Saints: When Discourses of Order and Rationality Enter the Egyptian Mawlid"
Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions vol. 135 (2006), pp. 117-140.
(This is a revised version of the article first published in the edited volume
Archeology of Sainthood.)
Read online
"Mawlids & Modernists: Dangers of Fun" ISIM Review 17 (Spring 2006), pp. 6-7.
Read online
Review article of Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Histoire d'un pélerinage légendaire en Islam:
Le mouled de Tantâ du XIIIe siècle a nos jours, Paris: Aubier, 2004, Die Welt des Islams
Vol. 46, Number 1, 2006, pp. 105-107.
Read online
"Habitus of the Authentic, Order of the Rational:
Contesting Saints Festivals in Contemporary Egypt"
Critique. Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 12 (Fall 2003),
Nr. 2, pp. 155-172.
Link to journal homepage (subscription required)
" Review article of Marco Schöller:
"Methode und Wahrheit in der Islamwissenschaft" (in German), DAVO-Nachrichten
15 (Juni 2002), pp. 114-115.
Read online "Pious
Fun at Saints Festivals in Modern Egypt", ISIM Newsletter
7 (2001), p. 23.
Read online "Johdatus
yleiseen sikailuun. Sikailuteoreettinen perspektiivi filosofiaan
sekä politiikkaan narratiivisen struktuurin kreatiivisen destruktion
kontekstissa" (A travesty of the history of philosophy and political
theory. Deconstructs just about everything. In Finnish. Sorry.) In cooperation
with Harri Juntunen. Originally published 1997 and 1998 in various Finnish
student magazines. Read
online |
Copyright 2001-2014 by Samuli Schielke / Link to the unscientific section