A discussion on Islam in Central Asia can not avoid the issue of Islamic extremism - even if one wants to. Contemporary geo-political events and discourses partly explain the preoccupation political scientists and government officials from inside and outside the region have with ‘the terrorist threat’ in Central Asia. But why would an anthropologist - committed to long-term, in-depth ethnographic investigation of daily religiosity in the Ferghana Valley - take up such a politically saturated, ill-informed question? Because her informants do. This paper takes as its starting point ethnographic evidence - gathered over 14 months of fieldwork - which demonstrates that reform-minded, pious Muslims in Bazaar-Korgon, a Ferghana Valley town in Kyrgyzstan, are not only not preoccupied with political endeavors, they openly criticize the small number of political Islamist groups in the region. From there it asks, if the potential for a ‘terrorist threat’ in the region is overblown, why are so many political observers, government officials, and community members fixated on this possibility? A partial explanation can be given by a theoretical approach which-combining insights from anthropology and critical theory-argues for interpreting religion in the region through the rubric of multiple modernities. By examining the long-term effects of wide-spread modern meta-narratives on religion and modernity; western orientalist discourses on Islam; and the particularities of Soviet modernity, the obsession with ‘the terrorist threat’ is made more comprehensible. At the same time, the Central Asian experience specifically and the post-Soviet case more generally serve as foils for other anthropological inquires into modernity, allowing us to sharpen our understanding of the contentious concept.
Plenarveranstaltung:
III | Ethnologische Forschungsperspektiven aus Halle
Termin:
Donnerstag, 04.10.2007, 09:00-11:00 Uhr
Ort:
Audimax (Gebäude), Audimax (Hörsaal)