Faculty Directory

Caitlyn Bolton

Assistant Professor

Department

DFE Department of Formative Education

Biography

Caitlyn Bolton is an assistant professor of the Anthropology of Formative Education and an affiliate 艾可直播with International Studies and the Islamic Civilizations and Societies program. Her ethnographic and archival research in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula examines how Muslims employ Islamic knowledge and communal forms of agency to redefine sustainable development in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Her first book project, Enchanted Development: Islamic Education, Sustainability, & Communal Agency in Zanzibar, is a multi-sited ethnography of the contested terrain of Islam and development in an Indian Ocean site located at the nexus of multiple projects of improvement and reform鈥攆rom British and Omani imperialism, Western development, and Islamic organizations with ties to the oil-rich Gulf. She examines transnational Islamic educational organizations that work to redefine the practice of development and its dominant concepts including sustainability, knowledge, and progress. Her next project examines Islamic ethical orientations toward the environment, as female seaweed farmers navigate warming waters, changing gender norms, and the extractive economies associated with unsustainable tourism and Zanzibar's offshore search for fossil fuels.

Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and Fulbright-Hays. She speaks Arabic and Swahili, has a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the City University of New York, an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from New York University, and a B.A. in Anthropology and Africana Studies from Bard College.

Publications

  • Bolton, Caitlyn. 2024. 鈥淪wahili Arabic: Imitation, Islam, and the Semiotics of Race in Zanzibar,鈥 in Zain Abdullah (ed.), Routledge Handbook on Islam and Race. New York: Routledge, pp. 419-435.
  • Bolton, Caitlyn. 2021. 鈥溾橴seful鈥 Knowledge and Moral Education in Zanzibar Between Colonial and Islamic Reform, 1916-1945,鈥 Islamic Africa 12(1): 27-54.
  • Bolton, Caitlyn. 2021. 鈥淢odernizing the Madrasa: Islamic Education, Development and Tradition in Zanzibar,鈥 in Ousmane Kane (ed.), Islamic Scholarship in Africa: New Directions and Global Contexts. Rochester, NY: James Currey, pp. 239-260.
  • Bolton, Caitlyn. 2016. 鈥淢aking Africa Legible: Kiswahili Arabic and Orthographic Romanization in Colonial Zanzibar,鈥 American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33(3): 61-78.
  • Bolton, Caitlyn. 鈥淪hort-Term Sustainability: Neoliberal Philanthropy, Dependency, and Divine Economies in Islamic Zanzibar,鈥 Economic Anthropology (forthcoming)
  • Bolton, Caitlyn. 鈥淭he Cosmopolitan Madrasa: Education and Islamic Reform in Zanzibar between Africa and the Indian Ocean,鈥 in Terence Lovat (ed.), Springer Handbook of Islamic Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Springer Publishing (forthcoming)

Grants & Fellowships

  • Committee on Globalization and Social Change, CUNY, Dissertation Fellowship (2021)聽
  • Social Science Research Council, Transregional Collaboratory on the Indian Ocean, 鈥淥ceanic Power: Gulf Aid, Islamic Ethics, and Climate Change in Zanzibar鈥檚 Offshore Search for Oil and Gas,鈥 with Mary Khatib and Issa Ziddy (2020鈥22)聽
  • Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies, Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2020鈥21)聽
  • Writing Across the Curriculum Fellow, City College of New York (2019鈥20)
  • Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (2018)聽
  • Wenner Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2017鈥18)
  • Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship (2017鈥18)聽
  • Social Science Research Council, Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (2014)聽
  • Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (Arabic, NYU, 2008鈥10)