White, Jenny B. 1953–

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White, Jenny B. 1953–

(Jenny White, Jenny Barbara White)

PERSONAL: Born 1953. Education: City University of New York, B.A.; Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey, M.A.; University of Texas, Austin, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Home—MA. Office—Department of Anthropology, Boston University, 232 Bay State Rd., Boston, MA 02215. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Educator and author. Boston University, associate professor of anthropology.

AWARDS, HONORS: Douglass Prize for best book in Europeanist anthropology, 2003, for Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics.

WRITINGS:

Money Makes Us Relatives: Women's Labor in Urban Turkey, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1994, 2nd edition, Routledge (New York, NY), 2004.

Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics, University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA), 2002.

The Sultan's Seal (novel), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2006.

Also author of numerous articles about Islamic politics, women and Islam, family life, women's labor, small commodity production, and Turks in Germany.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A book about changing conceptions of Islam in Turkey.

SIDELIGHTS: Professor of anthropology Jenny B. White specializes in the regions of Turkey, the Middle East, and Germany, and has taught courses and written extensively on the anthropology, ethnicity, identity, and gender roles in these regions. First published in 1994 and fully revised in 2004, White's Money Makes Us Relatives: Women's Labor in Urban Turkey examines, according to Natasha Hall of the Middle East Journal, "why Turkey devalues women's work." White details how women in Turkey—specifically in Istanbul—spend as much as fifty hours per week creating goods to be sold throughout the world. In addition, she explains how women's labor influences their social networks. As Arlene Elowe MacLeod remarked in Signs, White's "research on the working-class woman and the ideological discourses shaping women's behavior in the Turkish context is a useful addition to the knowledge of gender roles and the intersection of developing world and capitalist economies."

In 2002, White released Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics, which, according to Christian Pond of JMEWS: Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, "examines how Islamist political parties in Turkey have been able to mobilize their constituencies and add to their growing political power and popularity." White believes that the Islamists' success is directly related to "vernacular politics," which she explains as their ability to use local networks and civic organizations to gain support. While Pond questioned a few of White's conclusions and felt that "there are a few aspects of the work that warrant further consideration," the reviewer considered the book "a wonderful and well-researched ethnography." Likewise, Quinn Mecham of the Political Science Quarterly found that "the book makes a profound contribution to our understanding of a localized political process in value-laden contexts."

White's first novel, The Sultan's Seal, is set in Turkey near the end of the Ottoman Empire. When a young Englishwoman who works for the sultan is found dead, magistrate Kamil Pasha launches an investigation into the murder and its possible connection to the murder of an English governess years earlier. Booklist reviewer Brad Hooper noted that the "impressive first novel rests securely on the author's background," while a Publishers Weekly critic found the book's writing to be "lyrical" and the characters "enchanting."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2005, Brad Hooper, review of The Sultan's Seal, p. 24.

JMEWS: Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, May, 2005, Christian Pond, review of Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics, p. 144.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, September, 1995, Lale Yalcin-Heckmann, review of Money Makes Us Relatives: Women's Labor in Urban Turkey, p. 670.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2005, review of The Sultan's Seal, p. 1106.

Library Journal, December 1, 2005, Kathy Piehl, review of The Sultan's Seal, p. 117.

Middle East Journal, summer, 2003, Farha Ghannam review of Islamist Mobilization in Turkey, p. 517; autumn, 2005, Natasha Hall, review of Money Makes Us Relatives, p. 702.

Political Science Quarterly, fall, 2003, Quinn Mecham, review of Islamist Mobilization in Turkey p. 526.

Publishers Weekly, May 23, 2005, John F. Baker, "From Small Acorns," p. 14; October 10, 2005, review of The Sultan's Seal, p. 32.

Signs, spring, 1997, Arlene Elowe MacLeod, review of Money Makes Us Relatives, p. 757.