8h30-10h30 > Eurasian Mobilities and the Transnationalisation of the Religious in the Contemporary Era: Comparative Perspectives on Muslim Populations in France, China, Russia and Turkey

Eurasian Mobilities and the Transnationalisation of the Religious in the Contemporary Era :
Comparative Perspectives on Muslim Populations in France, China, Russia and Turkey

Tues 11th July 23
8:30-10:30 A.M
Athéna 046

Abstract:

Since the early 1990s, the transnational approach to religious phenomena has allowed a new understanding of religions “on the move”. If the phenomena of transnationalisation and translocalisation of religions underwent profound changes during the 20th century, the 21st century has seen an acceleration and an increasing diversity of migratory trajectories, modifying deeply religious and spiritual practices and traditions. Drawing upon the practices of sociability amongst Eurasian Muslim populations, this panel reflects on the paradigm of mobility, exploring the role of religions in maintaining consciousness of a real or imagined homeland connection to people and place, and highlighting the relationships between religious organisations, ethnic identity, and host land incorporation. Indeed, more complex than a simple “transplantation” of beliefs in a third country, migrants transform the cultural landscape of the host country, while the latter also sometimes disrupts the practices and beliefs of migrants. Based on various case studies from Turkey, China, Central Asia and France, we will particularly address the embeddedness of actors simultaneously in at least two places, and what this means in terms of understanding everyday religious circulations of people, goods, capital, and ideas.  

Convenors:
Kristina Kovalskaya, EPHE,  Paris
Pascale Bugnon,  UNIGE,  Genève

Dmitriy Oparin, Passages UMR 5319, Université de Bordeaux
Duty and loyalty among Central Asian mullahs in migration

Léo Maillet, SNF - EHESS/UNIGE
Uyghur Bakers in Istanbul: Mobility, Sacrality and Sociability in the workplace

Kristina Kovalskaya, GSRL/EPHE
Post-Soviet Muslims in France: Recycling the National into the Religious

Pascale Bugnon, UNIGE/HES-SO  
Barelvi and Tidjaniya brotherhoods in Guangzhou: between preservation of “traditions” and creative adaptations