Leichtman, Mara A.
(Ph.D. Brown University, 2006)
Assistant Professor

310 Baker Hall
Phone: (517)432-7048
Fax: (517)432-2363
mara.leichtman@ssc.msu.edu

Transnational religion and migration; globalization; community change; Islam; politics, culture, and identity; ethnicity; state/society relations; West Africa (Senegal); Middle East and N. Africa; UK

MARA A. LEICHTMAN joined the anthropology faculty in 2005 and is helping to build the new specialization in “Muslim Studies.” Her research highlights the interconnections among religion, migration and politics, and conversion to Shi‘i Islam, through examining Muslim institutions and the communities they serve.

Shi‘i Islam has been expanding in West Africa through the migration of Lebanese and African conversion due to the missionary activities of these resident migrant communities and the spread of Iranian revolutionary ideologies. Dr. Leichtman’s book manuscript in progress, Becoming Shi‘a in Africa: Lebanese Migrants and Senegalese Converts, investigates the location of Shi‘i Islam in national and international religious networks, the tension between Lebanese and Iranian religious authorities in West Africa, and the making of a vernacular Shi‘i Islam in Senegal. The book provides an account of the everyday lives of the predominantly Shi‘i Lebanese community in Senegal, focusing on their changing religious, ethnic and national identities. These identities are placed in the context of the politics of globalization, post-colonialism in Africa and conflict in the Middle East. In addition, in the past two decades, Senegalese began to “convert” from Sunni to Shi‘i Islam, but their Shi‘i identity was linked to an intellectual and textual tradition of reformist Islam. Shi‘i Islam for Senegalese was a means to bypass the authority and power of Sufi leaders and create their own agency and following. Being a Shi‘i minority in Senegal does not unite Lebanese migrants and Senegalese converts, which challenges notions of a universal Islamic umma (community of Muslims).

While her book manuscript explores networks between south-south Islamic establishments, Dr. Leichtman’s new research project considers such relationships from headquarters in the north. She takes an in-depth look at Shi‘i institutions in the United Kingdom, such as the al-Khoei Foundation, originally founded by Ayatollah al-Khoei to serve the Shi‘i Muslim population which fled the Iranian revolution, Iraq-Iran war, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, civil war in Lebanon, Iraq-Kuwait war and violence in Iraq. She analyses how these non-governmental organizations carry out the transnational normative vision of the marja‘iyya, the institution of the supreme Shi‘i authority, when new challenges arise with a growing second generation of Shi‘a born outside of the Middle East and Asia. This research aims to illustrate the role of London as a “global city” in furthering the proliferation (and democratization) of Islamic globalization through the institutions, technologies, practices and interests of the West. New forms of governmentality emerge as Islamic NGOs become integrated into the British Home Office and the Labour Party’s policy organs.

She is also the co-editor (with Mamadou Diouf) of New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power, and Femininity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). This interdisciplinary collection of essays represents a break from the established literature on “Senegalese Islam,” and brings fresh perspectives, alternative methodologies, and provocative theories on transnational Islam, religious conversion, revisionist histories, and patterns of conspicuous consumption in relation to gender and Islam. Chapters highlight discourses and practices in the context of broadly defined sites: conversion, education, politics and economics, sexuality, popular culture and architecture, and their impact on the multiple and changing articulations of Muslim identities.

Dr. Leichtman teaches courses and seminars on the anthropology of religion, Islam, globalization, transnational migration, Africa, the Middle East, and ethnographic field methods. She co-led the “Culture, Society and Islam” study abroad program in Senegal.

During the 2007-2008 academic year, Dr. Leichtman was a visiting fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin, Germany and the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World in Leiden, the Netherlands. She is currently working on a collaborative project entitled “Transnational Islam in the West: Identities, Networks, and Movements in Public Life,” funded by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Recent publications include:

• New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power and Femininity (with Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming January 2009.

Journal Articles

• “Migration, War, and the Making of a Transnational Lebanese Shi‘i Community in Senegal,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, forthcoming 2010.
• “Revolution, Modernity and (Trans)National Shi‘i Islam: Rethinking Religious Conversion in Senegal,” Journal of Religion in Africa 39(3):1-33, 2009.
• “(Still) Exporting the Islamic Revolution: Senegal’s Relationship with Iran,” Shia Affairs 1:79-105, 2008.
  
• “The Legacy of Transnational Lives: Beyond the First Generation of Lebanese in Senegal,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28(4): 663-686, 2005.

Book Chapters

• “The Authentication of a Discursive Islam: Shi’a Alternatives to Sufi Orders,” in Mamadou Diouf and Mara A. Leichtman, eds, New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power and Femininity, In Press, Palgrave Macmillan.
•  “The Intricacies of Being Senegal’s Lebanese Shi’ite Sheikh,” in Frances Trix, John Walbridge and Linda Walbridge, eds, Muslim Voices and Lives in the Contemporary World, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 85-100.
• “Shiite Lebanese Migrants and Senegalese Converts in Dakar,” in Sabrina Mervin, ed., Les mondes chiites et l’Iran, Paris: Éditions Karthala et Institut français du Proche Orient, 2007, pp. 211-240.

Articles Under Review

• “From the Cross (and Crescent) to the Cedar and Back Again: Transnational Religion and Politics among Lebanese Christians in Senegal.”
• “Transnational Scholarly Family Networks: The Role of the Shi‘i Marja‘iyya in London and New York.”
• “The Africanization of Ashura in Senegal.”

Book Manuscript in Progress

• Becoming Shi’a in Africa:  Lebanese Migrants and Senegalese Converts