Hikmet Kocamaner

Hikmet Kocamaner is an Associate Professor of Anthropology.

Prior to UNCW, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Brandeis University, a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard University, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston University.

Dr. Kocamaner is a sociocultural anthropologist whose ethnographic research has explored the intersection of religion, media, gender, and politics in Turkey since 2012.

His first research project explored the involvement of Islamic authorities with secular and neoliberal governance in the regulation of gender and the family in Turkey.

His second research project examines the ways in which media and digital infrastructures are integrated with organized religion and how they facilitate the incorporation of Islam into governance in Turkey.

Bridging the infrastructural turn in anthropology and the material turn in the study of religion, Dr. Kocamaner is finalizing a book manuscript provisionally titled, Religious Infrastructures: Islam, Gender, and Governance in Contemporary Turkey.

Dr. Kocamaner's articles were published in Anthropological Quarterly (2017), MERIP (2018), American Ethnologist (2019), Birikim (2021), Oxford Handbook of Religion in Turkey (2024), and American Anthropologist (forthcoming).

He teaches courses on cultural anthropology, gender and culture, religion and public life, anthropological theory, ethnographic research skills, and career-preparedness for anthropology majors.

Education

Ph.D. in Anthropology & Middle Eastern and North African Studies (dual Ph.D. degree), University of Arizona

M.A. in English Literature, Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey)

B.A. (valedictorian) in English Language and Literature, Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey)

Specialization in Teaching

Dr. Kocamaner teaches the following courses:

ANT 206 Cultural Anthropology
ANT 303 Gender and Culture
ANT 318 Religion and Public Life Across Cultures
ANT 351 History of Anthropological Theory
ANT 451 Anthropology after Graduation
ANT 500 Practicing Ethnography

He also supervises honor's theses and directed independent study projects on diverse topics within cultural anthropology. Contact him if you would like to work with him on an independent study or honor's thesis.

Research Interests

Hikmet Kocamaner's research explores the intersection of religion, gender, politics, media, and infrastructure with a focus on Turkey. In addition to various internal grants, his research has been externally funded by a Dissertation Development Fellowship by the Social Science Research Council (2010), a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant by the Wenner-Gren Foundation (2012), and a Post-PhD Research Grant by the Wenner-Gren Foundation (2023).

Selected List of Publications:

Kocamaner, Hikmet (forthcoming) “Religio-governmental Infrastructures: Infrastructure, Islam, and Populism in Contemporary Turkey” American Anthropologist.

Kocamaner, Hikmet (2024) “The Directorate of Religious Affairs, Professionalization of Female Religious Authority, and the Politics of Gender and the Family in Turkey” Oxford Handbook of Religion in Turkey. Eds. Fabio Viccini, Caroline Tee, and Philip Dorroll. London: Oxford University Press.

Kocamaner, Hikmet. (2019) “Regulating the Family through Religion: Secularism, Islam, and the Politics of the Family in Contemporary Turkey.” American Ethnologist. 46 (4): 1–14.

Kocamaner, Hikmet. (2018). “The Politics of Family Values in Erdogan’s New Turkey” Middle East Report (MERIP), 288 : 36-39.

Kocamaner, Hikmet. (2017). “Strengthening the Family through Television: Islamic Broadcasting, Secularism, and the Politics of Responsibility in Turkey,” Anthropological Quarterly, 90 (3): 675–714.

Professional Service

Hikmet Kocamaner has served as a peer reviewer for journals (e.g. American Ethnologist, Current Anthropology, Comparative Studies in Society and History), book proposals (e.g. Cambridge UP and Edinburgh UP), and grants (Wenner-Gren Foundation).

His book reviews have also appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as American Ethnologist, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, among others.

Community Engagement

Dr. Kocamaner taught a course at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on “Religion and Politics in Turkey, USA, and France"

Honors & Awards

2023 Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Post-PhD Research Grant

2012 The Wenner-Gren Foundation, Dissertation Fieldwork Grant

2010 Social Science Research Council, Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship

2005 Fulbright IIE, Foreign Language Teaching Fellowship