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, US

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 between religion, migration, and politics, and conversion to Shi’a Islam, through examining Muslim institutions and the communities they serve.  Her book manuscript in progress, Transnational and Local Trajectories of Shi’a Islam in Africa:  Lebanese Migrants and Senegalese Converts, analyzes the localization of transnational Shi’a movements in Senegal. She investigates the location of Shi’a Islam in national and international religious networks, the tension between Arab and Iranian Shi’a authorities in West Africa, and the making of an indigenous 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.  “A Transnational Shi’a Institution in London:  Global Islamic Proselytizing and Politicking from the West” takes an in-depth look at the Al-Khoei Foundation, originally founded 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.  She will study how refugee and diaspora populations who were once victims of violence are working towards (re)building and (re)imagining their communities.  In order to promote their own goals of linking south-south religious institutions, leaders of organizational headquarters in London must now cater to the West and publicly identify themselves as against terrorism and Islamic extremism.  New forms of governance emerge as Islamic NGOs become integrated into the Home Office of the British Labour Party.

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

Dr. Leichtman is currently on leave 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:

• “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.
• “The Legacy of Transnational Lives:  Beyond the First Generation of Lebanese in Senegal,” reprinted in Ajaya Kumar Sahoo and Brij Maharaj, eds, Sociology of Diaspora:  A Reader.  New Delhi:  Rawat Publications, 2007, pp. 501-527.
•  “Defying Sufism? Senegalese Converts to Shi’ite Islam,” ISIM (International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World) Review, 17:40-41, Spring 2006.
•  “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.
•  “At the Margins of the Lebanese Diaspora,” Middle East Section, Anthropology News, 46(3):45-6, March 2006.
• “The Legacy of Transnational Lives: Beyond the First Generation of Lebanese in Senegal,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28(4):663-686, July 2005.
• “Transforming Brain Drain into Capital Gain: Morocco’s Changing Relationship with Migration and Remittances,” The Journal of North African Studies, 7(1):109-137, 2002.
• “The Differential Construction of Ethnicity: The Case of Egyptian and Moroccan Immigrants in Israel,” Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 1(3):247-272, 2001.

Works In Progress

• Transnational and Local Trajectories of Shi’a Islam in Africa:  Lebanese Migrants and Senegalese Converts, manuscript under preparation.
• New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal:  Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power and Femininity, Co-editor (with Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University), manuscript under preparation.
•  “The Intricacies of Being Senegal’s Lebanese Shi’ite Sheikh,” in John Walbridge and Frances Trix, eds, Muslim Voices and Lives in the Contemporary World, Palgrave Macmillan, In Press.