In Hoc Signo Vinces: The Politics of Religion as a Source of Power and Conflict

International audienceIn this article, I explore the importance and passion for historical reconstructions by means of media events and public representations. To this aim, among other illustrative examples, I take issue with the celebrations to mark the legacy of Emperor Constantine to Christianity among Southeast European peoples, including Albanians. Similar celebrations are often used and misused to forward or contest various claims to immutable ethnic belonging and religious tolerance. They always support negotiating or challenging ethno-political agendas. They may show the ways in which historical, cultural and religious heritage is entangled in identity politics, which could provide new insights to a better understanding of the politics of religion in international affairs and everyday life in the Balkans

Développement corporel et transition sociale chez les Albanais

International audienceDoja's article explores the relationship between ritual - itself a discourse - and the process of personal transition inside a structure. The rites of passage which he describes might be termed 'enacted representations'. He studies rituals which focus on the body of the child, from weaning and teething to hair cutting (among Christians) and circumcision (among Muslims). He engages in a multidisciplinary reflection involving anthropology, psychoanalysis, and medicine. Against psychoanalytic interpretations of 'severance' (of hair or foreskin), he argues that otherwise mundane body parts become charged with meaning through ritual. Psychoanalytic theory focuses on the body itself in order to develop a more general explanation of the significance of rites of excision. In contrast, social anthropology understands these things as representations of change in the person's public status. For Doja, corporal (including sexual) symbols represent the transition of individuals between categories of social being. (Editor's Foreword)L'objet de cet article est de fournir une description détaillée des étapes variées des processus de socialisation de l'enfant dans la culture albanaise, observées dans différents contextes, socialement et régionalement définis, à travers le point de vue des rites de passage qui marquent symboliquement le cycle de vie. L'article est centré sur les rituels nombreux qui permettent la "transition sociale" et la "construction de la personne" de l'enfant suivant son "développement corporel". Dans la première partie, je discute les rituels entourant le sevrage et la dentition et leur relation aux autres étapes d'agrégation dans le "monde socialisé", comme l'acquisition du langage et de la stature verticale. Toutes ces étapes sont symboliquement reliées les unes aux autres dépendent du développement du corps et du respect des stades organisés et ritualisés de la croissance corporelle. Dans une seconde partie, l'analyse procède avec la coupe de cheveux et la circoncision, rituels fondamentaux pour les Albanais chrétiens et musulmans respectivement. Malgré leur importance, les deux rituels ne signifient pourtant pas le passage au christianisme ou à l'islam. L'intention d'une réflexion méthodologique spéciale est ici l'occasion de justifier l'étude interdisciplinaire (médicale, anthropologique et psychologique) et parallèle des deux rituels en relation l'un avec l'autre aussi bien que sa pertinence plutôt pour le groupe et l'enfant que pour chacune des disciplines spécifiques. Les deux rituels jouent un rôle crucial dans la transition d'un statut socio-sexuel à un autre. Les deux annoncent le commencement et l'aboutissement d'un long processus d'intégration dans le monde adulte. Dans la dernière partie, je m'engage dans une revue critique des écrits psychanalytiques sur les rituels de séparation. J'élargis l'argument en privilégiant la centralité de la société d'un point de vue anthropologique contre l'individualisme psychologique. Si les psychanalystes se représentent les choses sacrées du fait qu'elles sont secrètes et tabous, les anthropologues sociaux soutiennent que les objets sacrés sont tabous parce qu'ils sont sacrés et ils donnent plus d'importance à la situation sacrée qu'aux objets en soi (cheveu ou prépuce). Je soutiens finalement que c'est la situation rituelle qui transforme les symboles en représentations collectives de Dieu et de la société

From the communist point of view: Cultural hegemony and folkloric manipulation in Albanian studies under socialism

International audienceIn the standard folkloric and ethnographic tradition of Albanian studies, various efforts to seize an authentic, traditional and popular culture, supposed to have really functioned in a society of official ideology, were devoted primordially to a catalogue of descriptivist and empiricist research, which only served to confirm the ultimate goal of constructing a primarily essentialized national specificity and a particularly antiquated view of national culture. Whereas the long-term continuities in the Albanian studies of people's culture (kultura popullore), which pre-dated and out-lived socialism, together with the ambiguous relationship to anthropology are emphasized elsewhere, in this paper we look more closely at the limited changes and innovations that occurred in the decades of communist regime in Albania. The aim is to uncover how the traditional ethnographic-folkloric studies of people's culture, marked by intellectual isolation and stigmatized by association with moralist and nationalist ideologies, were mobilized to service the shifting ideological needs and state policies towards the cultural hegemony of the communist regime

Ethnicité, construction nationale et nationalisme dans l'aire albanaise: Approche anthropologique du conflit et des relations interethniques

International audienceAfter an introduction toward the characteristics of the region defined as a cultural area, these articles attempts to give an historical and geopolitical overview of Albanians and their culture, asserting successively on cultural stratification, local particularisms and unity. Then, going over the history of the national movement and the formation of Albanian nation at the turn of the century, it takes an account of the clash of Serbian and Albanian nationalisms they never fail to be exacerbated at any moment of the common history. The key question considered is to understand whether historical heritage and cultural identities could reasonably, other than justify, at least explain ethnic conflicts and nationalisms, or on the contrary they help simply to determine and better to rationalize interethnic relationship between social groups.Les événements dramatiques qui ont secoué l'Europe durant dix années à la suite du démembrement de la Yougoslavie, surtout le dernier épisode retentissant qui a affronté les Serbes et les Albanais pour la paternité de Kosova, ont impliqué l'ensemble de la communauté internationale pour la défense d'un certain modèle de société et de relations entre groupes ethniques. Les opinions publiques en revanche, abasourdies par les bruits médiatiques et intellectualistes, n'ont toujours pas saisi la signification et les raisons du conflit, que tout le monde espère voir finir une fois pour toutes avec ce dernier et final épisode sanglant. Après une introduction sur les caractéristiques de la région définie comme une aire culturelle, ces articles tentent de donner un aperçu historique et géopolitique des Albanais et de leur culture, insistant tour à tour sur la stratification, les particularismes locaux et l'unité culturelle. Ensuite, passant en revue l'histoire du mouvement national et la formation de la nation albanaise au tournant du siècle, ils rendent compte de l'affrontement des nationalismes serbe et albanais qui n'ont pas manqué de s'exacerber à tout moment. Intégrant l'approche anthropologique aux considérations historiques et géopolitiques sur la région et la culture albanaise, ces travaux tentent de renouveler la discussion anthropologique sur l'ethnicité et les relations interethniques, en insistant sur les taxonomies d'identification et la construction des identités sociales. J'ai essayé plus précisément de poser une question qui me paraît essentielle pour la compréhension des phénomènes actuels, à savoir si l'héritage historique et les identités culturelles peuvent raisonnablement, sinon justifier, au moins expliquer les conflits ethniques et le nationalisme, ou au contraire ils servent tout simplement à déterminer et au mieux à rationaliser les relations interethniques entre groupes sociaux

Bektashizmi në Shqipëri: Histori Politike e një lëvizjeje fetare

Heterodox mystics and heretics of any kind become sometimes dangerous and other times reliable, depending on political situations, as was the case with the Bektashis. The system of beliefs and practices related to Bektashism seems to have corresponded to a kind of liberation theology, whereas the structure of Bektashi groups corresponded more or less to the type of religious organization conventionally known as charismatic groups. It becomes understandable therefore that their spiritual tendency could at times connect with and meet social, cultural and national perspectives. In turn, when members of the previously persecuted religious minority will acquire a degree of religious and political respectability within society at large, the doctrines of heterodoxy and liberation theology fade into the background. In the end, the heirs of the heterodox promoters of spiritual reform and social movement turn into followers and faithful defenders of a legitimate authority. They become the spokespeople for an institutionalized orthodoxy whose support is sought by the political regime.Mistikët dhe heretikët e të gjitha llojeve, që ndjekin një vijë fetare jozyrtare, herë shihen si rrezik dhe herë të tjera gëzojnë besim, në varësi kjo të zhvillimeve politike. I tillë është edhe rasti i bektashinjve. Sistemi i besimeve dhe riteve që lidhen me bektashizmin duket se ka qenë një lloj teologjie çlirimtare, ndërsa ndërtimi i brendshëm i grupeve të bektashinjve ka pasur pak a shumë një organizim të tillë fetar që njihet përgjithësisht me termin “grupe karizmatike”. Kësisoj është e kuptueshme që prirja e tyre fetare të ketë lidhje dhe të synojë drejt objektivash me karakter shoqëror, kulturor dhe kombëtar. Rrjedhimisht, kur anëtarë pakicash fetare të përndjekura në të kaluarën nisin të kërkojnë një shkallë nderimi fetar dhe politik në gjirin e mbarë shoqërisë, doktrinat e një vije fetare jozyrtare dhe të një teologjie çlirimtare zbehen e kalojnë në plan të dytë. Dhe vjen dita që pasuesit e atyre besimtarëve jozyrtarë, të cilët ishin bërë nismëtarë reformash në fushën e ndërgjegjes dhe lëvizjesh shoqërore, tani kthehen e bëhen pasues e mbrojtës të betuar të pushtetit. Bëhen zëdhënës të një feje zyrtare, e cila gjen mbështetje te regjimi politik

Bektashism in Albania: Political history of a Religious Movement

Revised Reprint. Original published in: _Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions_, vol. 7 (1), 2006, pp. 83-107, doi:10.1080/14690760500477919. Book-length Reprint with permission by Taylors & Francis Ltd., LondonInternational audienceHeterodox mystics and heretics of any kind become sometimes dangerous and other times reliable, depending on political situations, as was the case with the Bektashis. The system of beliefs and practices related to Bektashism seems to have corresponded to a kind of liberation theology, whereas the structure of Bektashi groups corresponded more or less to the type of religious organization conventionally known as charismatic groups. It becomes understandable therefore that their spiritual tendency could at times connect with and meet social, cultural and national perspectives. In turn, when members of the previously persecuted religious minority will acquire a degree of religious and political respectability within society at large, the doctrines of heterodoxy and liberation theology fade into the background. In the end, the heirs of the heterodox promoters of spiritual reform and social movement turn into followers and faithful defenders of a legitimate authority. They become the spokespeople for an institutionalized orthodoxy whose support is sought by the political regime

The Everyday of Religion and Politics in the Balkans

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