Anthropology Professor Brian Silverstein Named 2025-26 Fulbright Distinguished Scholar for Research on Turkey’s Olive Oil Industry

Brian Silverstein — professor in the School of Anthropology and affiliated faculty with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies — has been selected as a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar for the 2025-2026 academic year, to conduct research affiliated with Koç University in Turkey. 

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Silverstein’s project, “Food Producers and the Quality Turn: Remaking Olive Oil in Türkiye,” explores how shifts toward high-quality production are reshaping the country’s olive oil sector. Through fieldwork in Ayvalık, a major olive-growing region, he will examine how producers are redefining quality through labor, technique, and technology — and the broader impacts on livelihoods and the Turkish economy.

This new research builds on Silverstein’s earlier institutional work on change in Turkish agriculture, including his book, The Social Lives of Numbers: Statistics, Reform and the Remaking of Rural Life in Turkey, which explores how shifts in agricultural statistics are driving deeper institutional reforms in Turkey, with unexpected impacts on farmers' lives. As Turkish agriculture undergoes a significant transformation not experienced since the 1920s, even small changes in data reporting are reshaping farming practices and livelihoods. 

The Fulbright Program was created to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. More than 2,200 U.S. students and more than 900 U.S. college and university faculty and administrators are awarded Fulbright grants annually. For more information about the Fulbright Program, visit fulbrightprogram.org.

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