CONF./CFP- Post-Soviet Islam: an Anthropolical Perspective, Max Planck Inst.
Call for Papers
Conference 'Post-Soviet Islam: an anthropological perspective'
June 29th July 1st, 2005
Organizers: Krisztina Kehl-Bodrogi, Johan Rasanayagam
Venue: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany
The aim of this conference is to bring together social anthropologists and
other social scientists working on issues relating to Islam in the Former
Soviet Union. We welcome proposals from both local and foreign scholars who
have completed extensive field research in the region. Papers dealing with
Islam in other postsocialist contexts will be considered if they fit in with
the overall themes of the conference. After being suppressed by state
authorities within the Soviet Union, Islam has re-entered the public sphere
in the successor states. Of course, this is taking place very differently
across the region. In Central Asia the majority of the populations in the
new independent republics profess to be Muslim. In other areas, the Muslim
population forms a minority, as in Georgia, or are part of a semi-autonomous
Muslim entity within the larger Russian Federation. The aim of the
conference is to compare these differing experiences as well as to explore
possible commonalities of the post-Soviet context. An important outcome
would be to relate the anthropology of Islam in this region to the well
developed anthropological literature on Islam in other areas of the world.
Is there something about the post-Soviet experience which can provide a
distinctive insight into these debates.
The conference will focus on following areas:
Islam and politics
An important issue in the post-Soviet states is the involvement of Islam in
the sphere of politics. In Central Asia, for example, state authorities
attempt to co-opt Islam as a source of legitimacy for their regimes, while
at the same time political and militant opposition groups throughout the
region draw on Islam as the foundation of their programmes. There is a
struggle, often violent, over the right to define what constitutes proper
Islamic practice, what it means to be a 'true' Muslim. This feeds into
trends within anthropology that approach Islam as a discourse or ideology, a
resource for resistance to domination and a blueprint for social and
political life.
Local Muslim practice and global Islam
Conflict is not confined to ruling regimes and political oppositions. Imams
and others who have a formal education in core Islamic texts of the Koran
and Hadith often criticise much of local practice as un-Islamic since it is
not founded on the sacred texts but instead derives from tradition. At the
same time local Muslim practices, which include the visiting of shrines,
various forms of religious healing, and the celebration of life cycle
rituals within an Islamic frame, continue to have a strong following, and
practitioners make their own appeals to legitimacy and 'Muslimness'. This
relates to the rich body of literature dealing with how we might incorporate
both the variety of local practices and the ideal of a universal, textual
Islam within a unitary framework.
Islam as a source of individual or communal identity and morality How are
gender relations, ideas about the family, patterns of communal organisation
and economic activities being influenced by Islam in the post-Soviet
context, and how does Islam interact with other sources of authority and
value such as socialist ideology and practice. The conference aims to
compare how these issues are shaped by differing social and political
realities and/or informed by a common Soviet legacy.
We especially encourage fieldwork based papers which investigate regional
problems from a local perspective. Abstracts of no more than 500 words
should be submitted by the 15th of January 2005 to both organisers.
Presentations will be limited to 30 minutes and participants will be
expected to submit a full draft of their paper for circulation by 15th of
May 2005. The working language is English.
For further information contact:
Johan Rasanayagam, email: [log in to unmask]
Krisztina Kehl-Bodrogi, email: [log in to unmask]
For information about the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
visit:
www.eth.mpg.de
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