My first major research project asked after the moral and ethical lives of Kurdish Muslims who turn away from piety while sustaining complex relations of attraction and aversion with different dimensions of Islamic traditions, and ongoing relationships in everyday life with Muslims who take up the path to piety. My account of these ethical lives emphasizes the context of recent Islamist movements in Iraqi Kurdistan as well as a longer history of poetic production. In addition to articles published in American Ethnologist and the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, this project culminated in my book, Between Muslims, published in 2020.
My second project is a study of the various legal forums in which husbands, wives, and others adjudicate questions of divorce in Iraqi Kurdistan. Beginning with observations of the proceedings of a Fatwa Council in 2014, I went on to study Islamic legal traditions as well as Iraqi Personal Status Law in 2019-2020. Under the working title, A History of Husbands in Islamic Law, I want to understand how the figure of the husband has been empowered, villainized, punished, and rehabilitated through legal procedures.
My second project is a study of the various legal forums in which husbands, wives, and others adjudicate questions of divorce in Iraqi Kurdistan. Beginning with observations of the proceedings of a Fatwa Council in 2014, I went on to study Islamic legal traditions as well as Iraqi Personal Status Law in 2019-2020. Under the working title, A History of Husbands in Islamic Law, I want to understand how the figure of the husband has been empowered, villainized, punished, and rehabilitated through legal procedures.
