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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how female Muslim Instagram influencers in Kyrgyzstan shape religious aspiration, ethical selfhood, and processes of subject formation, showing how digital practices mediate performance and the pursuit of new ways of being a “good Muslim”.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how processes of performance and becoming are mediated through digital religious practices by female Muslim influencers on Instagram in Kyrgyzstan. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Islam experienced a significant revival across Central Asia, unfolding in a context shaped by decades of Soviet atheism and enduring gaps in religious knowledge. In this setting, the Internet and social media platforms have emerged as central sites for accessing Islamic knowledge and reshaping religious engagement.

Focusing on young female religious influencers, the paper explores how Islamic lifestyles are enacted through everyday digital practices that emphasize ethical selfhood, locally embedded notions of personhood, and aspirations for a “good life”. These aspirations shape both the production and reception of religious content, highlighting the relational nature of digital religious engagement.

The analysis draws on ethnographic research conducted as part of the project “Social Media and Religious Engagement among Muslim Youth in Kyrgyzstan”. Combining offline and virtual ethnography, a survey among Muslim youth in Bishkek, and in-depth interviews with female religious influencers, the study shows how digital performances enable young Muslims to imagine and pursue new lived possibilities of being “a good Muslim”. By highlighting aspiration, embodiment, and everyday practice, the paper contributes to anthropological debates on religion, digitality, and subject formation in the understudied context of post-Soviet Central Asia.