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’a Islam, through examining Muslim institutions and the communities they serve. Her book manuscript in progress, Becoming Shi’a in Africa: Lebanese Migrants and Senegalese Converts, analyzes the localization of transnational Shi’i movements in Senegal. She investigates the location of Shi’a Islam in national and international religious networks, the tension between Lebanese and Iranian Shi’a authorities in West Africa, and the making of a vernacular Shi’a Islam in Senegal.

While her book manuscript explores networks between south-south Islamic institutions, her new research project considers such relationships from headquarters in the north. She takes an in-depth look at the Al-Khoei Foundation, originally founded by Ayatollah Al-Khoei to serve the Shi’a 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. 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. In order to promote their own goals of linking south-south religious institutions, leaders of certain organizational headquarters in London cater to the West and publicly identify themselves as against terrorism and Islamic extremism. New forms of governmentality emerge as Islamic NGOs become integrated into the British Home Office and the Labour Party’s policy organs.

Dr. Leichtman teaches courses on the anthropology of religion, Islam, Africa, the Middle East, globalization, and ethnographic field methods. She also 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.

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.
• “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.
• “(Still) Exporting the Islamic Revolution: Senegal’s Relationship with Iran,” Shi’a Affairs, forthcoming 2008.
•  “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.
•  “A Day in the Life of the Khoei Foundation: A Transnational Shi’ite Institution in London,” The Middle East in London, 3(5):5-6, November 2006.
• “The Legacy of Transnational Lives: Beyond the First Generation of Lebanese in Senegal,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28(4): 663-686, July 2005.

Book Manuscript in Progress

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