Pub Date : 2019-05-13DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00602001
Wendell Schwab
{"title":"Introduction to the Islamic Mediascape in Central Asia","authors":"Wendell Schwab","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00602001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00602001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"11 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133408589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-13DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00602004
Shahnoza Nozimova, Tim Epkenhans
The recent transformation of Tajikistan’s political system has significantly altered the social and political context in which the country’s lay Muslims and religious elites negotiate Islam and Islamic normativity. The quasi-governmental Islamic Center (Markazi Islomi) has taken on a more dominant role, becoming the sole official (state-approved) Islamic institution in Tajikistan defining Islamic normativity. In this work, we explore the rationale behind the Tajik state’s pursuit of this political trajectory, conduct a detailed examination of the religious edicts ( fatwas) issued by the Islamic Center, and identify its conservative trends. Our research suggests that the Islamic Center offers the Tajik government a way to achieve its much-desired monopoly over the religious field. Furthermore, we argue that the Islamic Center’s conservative interpretation of Islam, with its emphasis on political conformity, social patriarchy, and limited mystical experience, is far more “legible” and administratively manageable for the authoritarian regime than the previous religious pluralism.
{"title":"The Transformation of Tajikistan’s Religious Field: From Religious Pluralism to Authoritarian Inertia","authors":"Shahnoza Nozimova, Tim Epkenhans","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00602004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00602004","url":null,"abstract":"The recent transformation of Tajikistan’s political system has significantly altered the social and political context in which the country’s lay Muslims and religious elites negotiate Islam and Islamic normativity. The quasi-governmental Islamic Center (Markazi Islomi) has taken on a more dominant role, becoming the sole official (state-approved) Islamic institution in Tajikistan defining Islamic normativity. In this work, we explore the rationale behind the Tajik state’s pursuit of this political trajectory, conduct a detailed examination of the religious edicts ( fatwas) issued by the Islamic Center, and identify its conservative trends. Our research suggests that the Islamic Center offers the Tajik government a way to achieve its much-desired monopoly over the religious field. Furthermore, we argue that the Islamic Center’s conservative interpretation of Islam, with its emphasis on political conformity, social patriarchy, and limited mystical experience, is far more “legible” and administratively manageable for the authoritarian regime than the previous religious pluralism.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125859249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-13DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00602007
M. Louw
Recent studies have convincingly demonstrated that Soviet state atheism continues to influence how religion is understood and practiced in present-day Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, however, a new generation of atheists is emerging whose ideas about atheism—and about religion—are informed more by globally circulating neo-atheist ideas and images. This paper explores their efforts to live atheist lives and be true to their atheist convictions, and the images of religion that play into the process. Focusing on the role of social media in particular, I will argue that while many, at least initially, embrace these platforms as ways to encounter like-minded individuals and experience moral community, what they encounter there are often images of atheism and its religious “others” with which they cannot identify and which often seem irrelevant to the challenges of everyday life, in which coexistence with (and caring for) religious others are central concerns for many.
{"title":"Atheism 2.0: Searching for Spaces for Atheism in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan","authors":"M. Louw","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00602007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00602007","url":null,"abstract":"Recent studies have convincingly demonstrated that Soviet state atheism continues to influence how religion is understood and practiced in present-day Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, however, a new generation of atheists is emerging whose ideas about atheism—and about religion—are informed more by globally circulating neo-atheist ideas and images. This paper explores their efforts to live atheist lives and be true to their atheist convictions, and the images of religion that play into the process. Focusing on the role of social media in particular, I will argue that while many, at least initially, embrace these platforms as ways to encounter like-minded individuals and experience moral community, what they encounter there are often images of atheism and its religious “others” with which they cannot identify and which often seem irrelevant to the challenges of everyday life, in which coexistence with (and caring for) religious others are central concerns for many.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122228177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-08DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00601003
B. Kurambayev, M. Sheffer, Ecaterina Stepaniuc
The results of a survey of journalists in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan (N=211) demonstrate that they primarily see their societal role as being to mobilize people with common interests and provide objective analysis. The media’s traditional role as a watchdog, meanwhile, was rated least important by journalists in the country, which is widely considered the “most democratic” in Central Asia. The study also found that the majority described themselves as being “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” professionally, a feeling directly impacted by their income, sense of autonomy, and supervisor’s perceived ability. Low salary, disagreement with editorial policy, and excessive pressure were found to be the leading reasons that Kyrgyz journalists left the profession. This research extends previous knowledge of journalists’ job satisfaction by examining the often-overlooked region of Central Asia. The surveys were conducted between April 29 and May 19, 2016, primarily in the Russian and Kyrgyz languages.
{"title":"An Investigation of Journalists’ Job Satisfaction in Bishkek, Capital of the Kyrgyz Republic","authors":"B. Kurambayev, M. Sheffer, Ecaterina Stepaniuc","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00601003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00601003","url":null,"abstract":"The results of a survey of journalists in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan (N=211) demonstrate that they primarily see their societal role as being to mobilize people with common interests and provide objective analysis. The media’s traditional role as a watchdog, meanwhile, was rated least important by journalists in the country, which is widely considered the “most democratic” in Central Asia. The study also found that the majority described themselves as being “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” professionally, a feeling directly impacted by their income, sense of autonomy, and supervisor’s perceived ability. Low salary, disagreement with editorial policy, and excessive pressure were found to be the leading reasons that Kyrgyz journalists left the profession. This research extends previous knowledge of journalists’ job satisfaction by examining the often-overlooked region of Central Asia. The surveys were conducted between April 29 and May 19, 2016, primarily in the Russian and Kyrgyz languages.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"95 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123767550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-16DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00601002
L. Anderson
Iran’s state identity is frequently described as Islamist, Shia, and anti-imperialist when discussing its behavior in the Middle East, but as pragmatic and even non-ideological in its approach to Central Asia. By parsing Iranian officials' speeches and purpose-written schoolbooks for ideology, this article documents the multiple identities that cultural diplomats present in Tajikistan and the functions they perform, including propagating normative Iranian identity among Iranian expats, lobbying Tajik officials, and influencing Tajik citizens. In contrast to the Middle East, Iranian cultural diplomacy in Tajikistan prioritizes a Persian identity as the basis for economic, scientific, cultural, and political integration in the region. Moreover, this identity is being discursively securitized as a strategic asset and an answer to threats from Salafism and globalization.
{"title":"Iran’s New Cultural Nationalism: Iranian Cultural Diplomacy in Tajikistan","authors":"L. Anderson","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00601002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00601002","url":null,"abstract":"Iran’s state identity is frequently described as Islamist, Shia, and anti-imperialist when discussing its behavior in the Middle East, but as pragmatic and even non-ideological in its approach to Central Asia. By parsing Iranian officials' speeches and purpose-written schoolbooks for ideology, this article documents the multiple identities that cultural diplomats present in Tajikistan and the functions they perform, including propagating normative Iranian identity among Iranian expats, lobbying Tajik officials, and influencing Tajik citizens. In contrast to the Middle East, Iranian cultural diplomacy in Tajikistan prioritizes a Persian identity as the basis for economic, scientific, cultural, and political integration in the region. Moreover, this identity is being discursively securitized as a strategic asset and an answer to threats from Salafism and globalization.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123955379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-16DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00601004
Kerstin Klenke
{"title":"Nick Megoran, Nationalism in Central Asia: A Biography of the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan Boundary (Pittsburgh, pa: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017), 368 pp.","authors":"Kerstin Klenke","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00601004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00601004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116208202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-16DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00601001
Natsuko Oka
Previous studies on informal exchanges in the health care sector in post-socialist states have extensively discussed their complex and diverse nature, in particular the difficulty in distinguishing between gratuities and bribes given to health care providers. In examining this in Kazakhstan, I argue that the ongoing privatization of health care has blurred the boundary between official user fees and informal payments given as a reward for quality care. This has, in turn, sharpened the contrast between informal payments given in the expectation of proper treatment and money extorted by health practitioners. This paper also demonstrates that ordinary people often circumvent formal procedures by using money to obtain services to which they are not officially entitled or to gain access to public medical funding.
{"title":"Changing Perceptions of Informal Payments under Privatization of Health Care: The Case of Kazakhstan","authors":"Natsuko Oka","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00601001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00601001","url":null,"abstract":"Previous studies on informal exchanges in the health care sector in post-socialist states have extensively discussed their complex and diverse nature, in particular the difficulty in distinguishing between gratuities and bribes given to health care providers. In examining this in Kazakhstan, I argue that the ongoing privatization of health care has blurred the boundary between official user fees and informal payments given as a reward for quality care. This has, in turn, sharpened the contrast between informal payments given in the expectation of proper treatment and money extorted by health practitioners. This paper also demonstrates that ordinary people often circumvent formal procedures by using money to obtain services to which they are not officially entitled or to gain access to public medical funding.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130677106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-10DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00504003
M. Ismayilov
By the time Azerbaijan became independent in 1991, it had spent seven decades subsumed into the militant atheism of the Soviet modernization project. Moreover, it emerged into the staunchly secular international context of Western modernity. These two factors combined with the tough reality of the country’s precarious geography to promise a sustained indigenous effort to desacralize the country’s political space and exclude religion from politics, a blueprint common to the modern world and one which Azerbaijani state and society have united to pursue over the course of the country’s independent existence. Yet the specific dynamics facing the country in the third decade of independence and the changing contours of its international engagements have been working to loosen up the latter formula, laying the groundwork for a quintessentially Azerbaijani pathway of statehood that will combine the nation’s historical embeddedness in an Islamic milieu with its century-old practical experience of modern policymaking.
{"title":"The Changing Landscape of (Political) Islam in Azerbaijan: Its Contextual Underpinnings and Future Prospects","authors":"M. Ismayilov","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00504003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00504003","url":null,"abstract":"By the time Azerbaijan became independent in 1991, it had spent seven decades subsumed into the militant atheism of the Soviet modernization project. Moreover, it emerged into the staunchly secular international context of Western modernity. These two factors combined with the tough reality of the country’s precarious geography to promise a sustained indigenous effort to desacralize the country’s political space and exclude religion from politics, a blueprint common to the modern world and one which Azerbaijani state and society have united to pursue over the course of the country’s independent existence. Yet the specific dynamics facing the country in the third decade of independence and the changing contours of its international engagements have been working to loosen up the latter formula, laying the groundwork for a quintessentially Azerbaijani pathway of statehood that will combine the nation’s historical embeddedness in an Islamic milieu with its century-old practical experience of modern policymaking.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121365543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-10DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00504001
Aisulu Kulbayeva
This study illustrates a key existing challenge to realizing trilingualism as a major nation-building language ideology: the ideological polycentricity of multilingual signs—that is, the simultaneous orientation of multilingual signs to several authority centers. Combining diverse linguistic landscape (LL) methodologies such as code preferences (language choices and placement on a sign), indexical orders (patterns that index meta-messages), and polycentricity (a simultaneous orientation toward multiple centers), I examine how three state-approved languages (Kazakh, Russian, and English) are positioned on 346 state and private signs in a small town in northern Kazakhstan. The analysis reveals a range of indexical orders at the level of sign type: monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual sign types of horizontal, vertical, and centralized code combinations. At the level of signage group, bilingual Kazakh-Russian and trilingual Kazakh-Russian-English signs dominate in the top-down group, while monolingual Russian and bilingual Kazakh-Russian signs with centralized Russian dominate in the bottom-up group. The identified indexical orders indicate ideological polycentricity in town public signage, which presents a challenge for the nation-building process.
{"title":"Polycentricity of Linguistic Landscape and Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan","authors":"Aisulu Kulbayeva","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00504001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00504001","url":null,"abstract":"This study illustrates a key existing challenge to realizing trilingualism as a major nation-building language ideology: the ideological polycentricity of multilingual signs—that is, the simultaneous orientation of multilingual signs to several authority centers. Combining diverse linguistic landscape (LL) methodologies such as code preferences (language choices and placement on a sign), indexical orders (patterns that index meta-messages), and polycentricity (a simultaneous orientation toward multiple centers), I examine how three state-approved languages (Kazakh, Russian, and English) are positioned on 346 state and private signs in a small town in northern Kazakhstan. The analysis reveals a range of indexical orders at the level of sign type: monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual sign types of horizontal, vertical, and centralized code combinations. At the level of signage group, bilingual Kazakh-Russian and trilingual Kazakh-Russian-English signs dominate in the top-down group, while monolingual Russian and bilingual Kazakh-Russian signs with centralized Russian dominate in the bottom-up group. The identified indexical orders indicate ideological polycentricity in town public signage, which presents a challenge for the nation-building process.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114620164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-10DOI: 10.1163/22142290-00504004
Scott Radnitz
{"title":"Regine A. Spector, Order at the Bazaar: Power and Trade in Central Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017).","authors":"Scott Radnitz","doi":"10.1163/22142290-00504004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00504004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"63 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120871032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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