Contested Souls : Christianisation, Millenarianism and Sentiments of Belonging on Indigenous Rural Yamal, Russia

Le renouveau religieux est une des caractéristiques des vastes changements idéologiques qu’a vécus la Russie postsoviétique. Cet article aborde la question de l’influence des nouveaux courants religieux – l’Église orthodoxe et une dénomination évangélique que la première condamne – sur les habitants indigènes de Yamal au tournant du millénaire. Plutôt que de les considérer, comme c’est souvent le cas tant dans les médias que dans certains travaux de sciences sociales, comme de simples idéologies appelées à remplir le vide postsoviétique, nous montrerons comment les nouveaux discours religieux confrontent et ressuscitent les traditions indigènes dans des contextes nouveaux, tout en redéployant certaines images et formes sociales soviétiques. Le fait que les gens fassent appel à la mémoire sémantique dans des cadres religieux divers et opposés remet en cause la distinction entre des mouvements religieux innovants mobilisant des images évocatrices et un mode de religiosité caractérisé par une dévotion routinière et un savoir général (cf. Whitehouse 2000). Si les indigènes convertis aux différentes églises partagent cette mémoire, ils sont aussi susceptibles d’entretenir des attitudes millénaristes qui coexistent simultanément avec des dispositions syncrétiques et la négation totale de la tradition indigène.Religious revival has consistently shown itself to be a central characteristic of broader ideological shifts in post-Soviet Russia. This article discusses how new religious currents – Orthodox Christianity and a Protestant denomination condemned by the Church – affected rural indigenous dwellers on Yamal at the turn of the millennium. It contends that rather than simply filling a post-Soviet ideological vacuum, as is often suggested in mass media and social scientific literature, new religious discourses challenged and resurrected native traditions for new purposes as well as revoked certain Soviet images and social forms. People’s reliance on semantic memory in diverse and mutually hostile religious frameworks overrides a distinction between innovative religious movements characterised by evocative images and a doctrinal mode of religiosity based on routinised forms of worship and ‘general knowledge’ (cf. Whitehouse 2000). While sharing this memory, indigenous converts of different denominations may profess millenarian attitudes that coexist with both ‘syncretic’ dispositions and the complete negation of native tradition

Merchant identities, trading nodes, and globalisation: introduction to the special issue

The contributors to this Special Issue are concerned by the nature of transregional Asian interactions taking place in the field of commerce. They explore this concern through an examination of the experiences, activities, and histories of commodity traders whose life trajectories criss-cross Asia. The articles share a common geographic point of reference: Yiwu - an officially designated ‘international trade city’ located in China’s eastern Zhejiang province. The introduction to the Special Issue analytically locates the individual papers in relationship to a long-standing body of work in anthropology and history on port cities and trading nodes. In so doing it suggests the importance of considering multiple historical processes to understanding Yiwu and its position in China and the world today, as well as, more generally, for the anthropology of ‘globalisation from below’

Stadt und Transnationalität in Zentralasien: Neuer und Alter Kosmopolitismus als Medium regionaler und globaler Volksdiplomatie

Das Leben in den Städten Zentralasiens hat in den vergangenen dreißig Jahren einen tiefgreifenden Wandel erfahren. Vor allem haben sich das Ausmaß und die Konstellationen kultureller und religiöser Vielfalt verändert. Häufig wird angenommen, dass der urbane Raum für gegenseitige Abhängigkeiten und komplexe Formen des Zusammenlebens nach dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion abgenommen hat. Als Grund gilt die Binnenmigration vom Land in die Städte bei gleichzeitiger Auswanderung ethnoreligiöser Minderheiten. Der Beitrag untersucht, wie vor dem Hintergrund dieser Entwicklungen neue Formen der Vielfalt in den urbanen Zentren Zentralasiens entstanden sind. Dabei steht die Frage im Mittelpunkt, welche Auswirkungen die Diasporagemeinden ethnoreligiöser Minderheiten, die außerhalb der Region entstanden sind, für ihre Herkunftsstädte in Zentralasien haben

Research Note: The New Role of a Central Asian Diaspora

One of the common features of post-Soviet Central Asian diapora is its close connection to the homeland (the independent countries  of the former Soviet Central Asia) manifested in various economic ties, including investments into kinship networks and business ventures. This research note discusses the transnational Bukharan Jewish diaspora and its links to Uzbekistan that do not fit into this general pattern. Drawing on the history of Bukharan Jews as a ‘go-between’ minority at the time of Russia colonisation of Central Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it investigates the ways in which this structural role has been actualised after the collapse  of the USSR and mass emigration of the Bukharan Jews from Central Asia. While the Bukharan Jewish diaspora do not seem to establish new economic lniks to Uzbekstan, the Bukharan Jewish community ogranisaitons strive to become a recognised player in the field of people’s diplomacy.