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- Convenor:
-
Martha Merrill
(Kent State University)
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- Theme:
- REL
- Location:
- Room 213
- Sessions:
- Friday 11 October, -
Time zone: America/New_York
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 11 October, 2019, -Paper long abstract:
At least since the 1990s, policymakers and scholars have been tracking the changing religious landscape in Central Asia. The region's governments, think tanks, and academics, as well as their Western counterparts, are primarily concerned with the implications of Islamic revival, particularly its political consequences. To wit, we have seen a proliferation of publications offering insight into religious practices and beliefs of post-Soviet Central Asians. At the same time, amidst the chorus of voices describing the changing nature of Islam in Central Asia, there have been no studies of secularism and non-belief in the region. To address this gap in our knowledge, we present the results of two rounds of nationally representative surveys, spaced five years apart, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Our study sheds light on extent and patterns of irreligion among members of culturally Muslim ethnic groups in these two countries. Importantly, our data allow us to think about the changes that have taken place between 2007, when the surveys were first launched, and 2012, when we conducted the second wave. We find that a secular retreat is underway, with proportions of non-religious citizens declining in both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan between 2007 and 2012. Secularism, while in retreat in both societies, is more prominent in Kazakhstan than in Kyrgyzstan. While the share of those who express secular views has declined in both, this group has shrunk faster in the more impoverished Kyrgyzstan. We attribute these differences to the divergent economic and political trajectories between the two societies. Following our dis¬cussion of the overall trends, we employ multivariate regression analyses to identify and compare individual level determinants of irreligion in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Paper long abstract:
The 2014 religion policy of Kyrgyzstan has categorized between traditional and nontraditional forms of Islam. While traditional is portrayed in the state discourse as tolerant, apoilitical, and harmless, nontraditional is seen as a source of extremism and a threat to society and the state endorsed form of Islam. The theories of postructuralist discourse analysis and securitization were combined to analyze the official state discourse and traditional imams' discourse. In order to construct narratives, independent scholars, religion agency experts, imams and theologians were interviewed. In addition, the primary documents on the religion law and speeches of the president were analyzed. Most of the respondents agreed that the key reason for the introduction of the new religion policy has been the growing influence of Salafism, a nontraditional Islamic group threatening the dominant traditional Hanafism. I argue that the dichotomous categorization of only two forms of Islam does not depict the more complex picture where some groups are partially traditional and partially non-traditional. Had it not been for the political goals, Hizb ut Tahrir would perfectly fit to the category of the traditional. Moreover, the new religion policy being dictated by the state seems to have affected mainly moderate nontraditional Islamic groups including moderate Salafits while extremist nontraditional groups are not affected. One of the greatest impacts of the categorization has been delegitimization of disloyal Islamic groups while the homegrown traditional Hanafism has been provided a chance to be the major player in town. The 2014 religion policy thus facilitated an increased control of Islamic groups for the state which sees them as a threat and a potential challenger.