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Full-Text Articles in Human Geography
Negotiating Everyday Islam After Socialism: A Study Of The Kazakhs Of Bayan-Ulgii, Mongolia, Namara Brede
Negotiating Everyday Islam After Socialism: A Study Of The Kazakhs Of Bayan-Ulgii, Mongolia, Namara Brede
Geography Honors Projects
Using ethnographic interviews and participant observations from the Kazakh community of Bayan-Ulgii, Mongolia in June 2009, this study examines how Islamic discourses, practices, experiences, and scales of influence are negotiated in post-socialist Central Asia. To do this, local, national, and transnational dynamics of Mongolian Kazakh religious practice are considered alongside the individual-scale mediating roles of personal preference, social position, life course, power, and social networks. Islam in Bayan-Ulgii is shown to be integral to community and ethnic identity but also multifaceted, dynamic, and multi-scalar, militating against essentialist portrayals of Islam as monolithic or dichotomously split between “high” and “low” forms.