Problemy integratsii religioznykh men'shinstv: keysy Evropeyskogo Soyuza i Rossiyskoy Federatsii = The challenges of the integration of religious minorities: case studies in the EU and Russian Federation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Religions 14(1), 117 (p. 1-24.), 2023
According to my study, “political secularism” means the separation of political power from religious institutions, while “social secularism” is a theory and endeavor to eliminate religiosity from not only public but also private life, considering it an obsolete way of thinking. I examine four case studies based on my ethnological fieldwork in Hunza (in the Pakistani-controlled Kashmir), the Middle Ural (Russia), Transylvania (Romania), and Sápmi (northern Scandinavia). I outline and compare ethnic minorities (Hunzakuts, Tatars, Szeklers, Samis) according to their historical background, contemporary social environment, relation to the majority, their political endeavors, and the role of religion(s) among them. Based on my fieldwork notes, interviews, and sociological data, I analyze the similarities and differences of ethnic complexity, terminological confusions, problems of “lived religion,” and the impact of social and political secularism. Since their religiosity differs from the majorities’ ones, I found that secularism has a complex role and reception. Political secularism is essential for defending these minorities from assimilation, but most of these minorities reject social secularism since religion is part of their multifunctional ethnic discourse space. Religiosity is part of their survival strategy. Notwithstanding, ethnic minorities’ religious institutions participate in political activity and propagate their claims for self-governance.
Religious Minorities and Struggle for Recognition
Social Inclusion, 2020
Religious minorities are increasingly present in the public sphere. Often pointed out as a problem, we argue here that the establishment of these minorities in Western societies is happening through struggles for recognition. Communities or individuals belonging to different minorities are seeking recognition from the society in which they are living. In Section 1, we present, briefly, our perspective, which differs from the analyses generally presented in the sociology of religion in that it adopts a bottom-up perspective. In Section 2, we present and discuss articles dealing with case studies in the cities of Barcelona, Geneva, and Montreal. In Section 3, we discuss two articles that present a process of individualization of claims for recognition. Finally, we present an article that discusses the case of an unrecognized minority in the Turkish school system.
NON-MUSLIM RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN AZERBAIJAN
Tuna publishing & printing company, 2019
The book mainly highlights some historical, cultural and practical backgrounds of Albanian-Udi Christians, Doukhobour, the Molokan faith, Lutheran Church of Savior and Jews in Azerbaijan. These communities have century old history and played integral role to shape cultural and religious diversity of the country. Also, most of them-Doukhobors, Molokans, Lutherans and Jews (mountain Jewish) have common fate such as they expelled from [ different lands] or persecuted [in different lands] during in different periods. They resettled in the territory of Azerbaijan, lived in safe and peace so far. These communities contributed to the economy, developed agriculture and enriched cultural environment of our country. Azerbaijani government always protect their legacy and support their activities
National Identities, 2018
This article investigates the conflict between closely intertwined specific ethnic and universal religious practices that affect the formation and maintenance of ethnic group boundaries in the society of simultaneous Islamic and ethnic renaissances: contemporary post-Soviet Tatarstan. I argue that the negotiation of this conflict produces both reinforcement and erosion of the titular ethnic group boundaries. I pay special attention on ethnicity performance and ethnicity consumption practices. Thus, I conclude that practices of performing and consuming ethnicity serve as effective mechanism of boundary formation not just between various ethnic groups in the multi-ethnic republic but also inside the group itself.
Religious Groups and Ethnic Minorities in Eastern and South Eastern Europe in the Long 20th Century
IOS Regensburg & ORTHPOL Workshop (15-16 November), 2024
The long 20th century in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe witnessed an accelerated expansion of the national state, its bureaucracies and repressive apparatuses. This workshop tackles state encounters with ethnic minorities and religious groups perceived as different from the majority population. Based on new archival sources and interdisciplinary approaches, we aim to discuss the dynamic and multifaceted state encounters in Eastern and particularly South Eastern Europe. The workshop will focus on Romania but will not be restricted to it. It will address enduring issues such as transnational connections, socio-economic transformation processes, and the legacies of various regimes.
State Recognition and Religious Minority Agency in a European Context
J. Eichler and K. Topidi (eds.) Minority Recognition and the Diversity Deficit, HART Publishers, 115-134 (forthcoming), 2022
This contribution will discuss, mainly from the perspective of the state, the implications of religious minority faiths reimagining their agency and of their working openly within civil society in European multicultural contexts. It will focus on how and why the developments outlined above inevitably shift the role of the state from ‘neutral’ moderator of the public space to partner in the effort to ‘accentuate the positive’. It will also place emphasis on how the recognition of minority faiths and religious actors is connected to the new parameters within the role of the state in religious diversity management. The discussion of the evolution of the role of the state in the management of religious diversity from a European perspective will unfold as follows: first, a theoretical connection between religious minorities and state recognition will be sketched, in order in a second stage to develop the link between religious minority agency (covering actors per se as well as related minority institutions) and state recognition. As a third step, the contribution will focus on the evolution of the role of state to respond to the changing sociolegal conditions of minority claims-making. The example of religious minority education within state-supported schools will be used as an illustration of the challenges connected to state recognition of religious minority groups. The concluding part of the discussion will attempt to demonstrate how the interaction between religious minority agency with recognition can function as a precondition towards inclusive law- and policy-making in religiously plural societies.
Two basic factors infl uence the changes in the two districts, namely: the liberalisation of minority rights and the restructuring of the local economy. These factors stimulate the political and cultural mobilisation of the two Muslim minorities, change their economic status, and create new foundations for their attitude towards the state and the Bulgarian national majority. The penetration of the pre-accession funds in the region has been perceived in the same context: as part of the new political situation, and yet, it is probably too early to assess their overall impact.
This paper studies how religions, Islam in particular, play a part in the attempted reifications of “neo-ethnic” identities in Kyrgyzstan, a Turkic-speaking republic with a nomadic tradition and a Muslim majority (Hanafˆı Sunni Islam). In a context characterized by brutal transformations (decline in living standards, widening social inequalities, etc.) and by an increasingly failing central state whose autocratic rule appears ineffective, Islam intervenes as a paradoxical resource that is subjected to contrary uses. The traditional social link between collective identity and Islam is in fact reinvested ideologically within the framework of the new state construction. As a result a key question is what function the re-emergence of religion on the Kyrgyz political scene fulfils, especially considering broad disenchantment with politics. Islam is first re-emphasized as a national element by the authorities and, in the process, it becomes the subject of a drive towards territorialization that aims at erasing any transnational and/or pan-Islamist dimension from this universalist religion. Yet Islam and ethnicity are reinvested again in a new mode, the mode of subjectivization of religious belief, which gives rise, outside state control, to overlapping and often contradicting Islamic identities.