Anthropology

This article examines non-liberatory discourses on social change and on gender relations produced by some Muslim women activists in post-Soviet Central Asia. These discourses, if not dismissed as regressive or politically objectionable, are often explained in terms of post-Soviet neo-traditionalism, or in terms of post-Soviet subjects’ split-identity, located between modernity and tradition. This analysis of socio-historical context formative of differently structured desires for social change of Muslim women activists challenges such explanations. I argue that these desires reflect a particular pedigree of mutual constitution of gendered religious and secular discourses; neither of which can be reduced to just traditional or modern. I demonstrate a different emerging understanding of these women’s activism, through an analysis of life and work of Hafiza-opa Nasrulloh, a devout Muslim, a democrat, and a traditionalist, adamant about granting women equal but not exactly the same rights as men.

In this article I argue that domestic space has to be theorized as an important center of religious practice and socio-political activism. Born-again and devout Muslim women in the Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan) use domestic space as an important sacred place for religious observance and socialization equal to the mosques. This sacred place has a special meaning for born-again and devout Muslims as it carries a promise of personal and social change. In the context of religious and political persecution by the Uzbek state, domestic space is experienced as a politically safe place and as a critically important site of socio-political criticism and activism, as some intimate in-house discussions about religious, political, and social oppression take a form of public protest on the streets.

In this article I describe and analyze non-institutionalized religious education among local women in Uzbekistan. I argue that while exhibiting vestiges of “traditional” objectives, methods of teaching, and models of knowledge transmission, and incorporating elements of educational reforms advocated by the Central Asian reformers in the early 1900s, and of Soviet pedagogy, the dynamics of such education foster students’ critical thinking. By enabling students to think critically about their lives and social environment, the non-institutionalized religious education does not have one predetermined outcome, but ensures social change that starts on an individual level, whereby a student can, but does not have to, engage politically with the state, which systematically intervenes in shaping its citizens’ religious lives.

By weaving together the details of women’s daily lives, and the author’s journey to and from post-Soviet Central Asia, over a period of eight years, Svetlana Peshkova provides a relational analysis of identity formation in Uzbekistan. The parts of this ethnography will surely take the readers by surprise. The author  -- called by an Uzbek journalist  an “English Mata Hari with a Russian Passport,” --  writes this ethnography by bringing social science and neuroscience, Russian, Uzbek, and English scholarship, past and present, and ethnographic and creative writing, together. The characters’ life-projects unfold in a context of stories about the Prophet Muhammad’s relatives and Eminem’s music, the Uzbek President’s daughter’ fashion-shows and Uzbek migrant workers’ travel to Russia, widespread corruption and the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Soviets’ war in Afghanistan and the US war on Iraq, and about human rights abuses by the government and individual humor.

In this report I describe and analyze the relationships between family structures, religious networks and institutions in the Ferghana Oblast', Uzbekistan. In the first part of the report I identify several models of family structures in the area. These models are analytical abstractions that allow the researcher to consider the decisionmaking strategies used by the individual members of the families in the area regarding families' reproductive health. Yet reproductive decision-making is not limited to the family arena in the oblast'. The networks of relatives, friends, co-workers, neighbors, medical doctors and religious leaders are also involved in reproductive decision-making processes. Hence, I suggest that the role of religious leaders is crucial in considering the articulation and implementation of an Islamic dimension of health reform. More specifically, in the second part of the report I look at the role of religious networks and institutions in intra-family reproductive decisionmaking. A strong interest in this role is motivated by my interest in Islam in Central Asia and the desire to find entry points for an Islamic approach to reproductive health as a dimension of local and national health reform in Uzbekistan. The final part of the report suggests methodological recommendations for an Islamic health promotion in regard to reproductive health. ii