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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Zoroastrians On The Internet, A Quiet Social Movement: Ethnography Of A Virtual Community, Helen Gerth
Zoroastrians On The Internet, A Quiet Social Movement: Ethnography Of A Virtual Community, Helen Gerth
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
Zoroastrians today are a small but vibrant ethno-religious diaspora estimated at 130,000-258,000. They are members of the oldest monotheistic world religion originating in the Inner Asian steppes in approximately 1500 B.C. living as a religious minority in widely dispersed communities across the world. Increasingly they have turned to the Internet to discuss challenges of declining population, maintaining an ethno-religious identity, conversion, and intermarriage. The question grounding this research is how does this small ethno-religious minority maintain its boundaries and cohesion in the modern world? This study found that Zoroastrians maintain group boundaries and cohesion in the modern world, in part, …