This study examines the religious life of reformist Muslims in a Yogyakarta village. The foci of this discussion are on Muslim villagers’ construction, with the help of the reformist paradigm, of the image of the ‘good Muslim’ and ‘Muslim-ness’, on their efforts to incorporate an (reformist) Islamic framework to question taken-for-granted practices and ideas, on the position of tradit…
This study presents the contemporary Islamic resurgence movement among young people in Bandung Indonesia, focusing on its emergence, development and routinisation. It traces various factors and conditions that contributed to the emergence of the movement. It also tries to explain how and why young people (students in particular) turn to Islam, and how the movement is organised and developed amo…
This collection features essays by leading scholars on the philosophical, theological, poetic and cultural aspects of lament, touching on the textual traditions of lament in Judaism, from Biblical, rabbinic and medieval iterations to contemporary Yemenite oral lamentations. The volume also includes four texts on lament by Gershom Scholem, translated here for the first time into English, as well…
What is it like to be a young Muslim man in post-7/7 Britain, and what impact do wider political factors have on the multifaceted identities of young Muslim men? Drawn from the author’s ethnographic research of British-born Muslim men in the English town of Luton, Being Young, Male and Muslim in Luton explores the everyday lives of the young men and, in particular, how their identity as Musli…
Although over eighty percent of the country is Muslim, Indonesia is marked by an extraordinary diversity in language, ancestry, culture, religion and ways of life. This book focuses on the Christian Dani of West Papua, providing a social and ethnographic history of the most important indigenous population in the troubled province. It presents a fascinating overview of the Dani’s conversion to…
Hijab: Unveiling Queer Muslim Lives is the first known collection of South African Muslim stories relating to Islam and sexual diversity. This anthology shares reallife stories of people that have struggled, or may still be struggling, to reconcile their spirituality and their sexuality. These are stories that illustrate the oneness of being and reflect on how some interpretations of the script…
Why are Khanty shamans still active? What are the folklore collectives of Komi? Why are the rituals of Udmurts performed at cultural festivals? In their insightful ethnographic study Anna-Leena Siikala and Oleg Ulyashev attempt to answer such questions by analysing the recreation of religious traditions, myths, and songs in public and private performances. Their work is based on long term field…
The present volume focuses on the political perceptions of the Hajj, its global religious appeal to Muslims, and the European struggle for influence and supremacy in the Muslim world in the age of pre-colonial and colonial empires. In the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century, a pivotal change in seafaring occurred, through which western Europeans played important roles in politics…
Pastoralism is a diffused and ancient form of human subsistence and probably one of the most studied by anthropologists at the crossroads between continuities and transformations. The present critical discourse on sustainable and responsible development implies a change of practices, a huge socio-economic transformation, and the return of new shepherds and herders in different European regions.…
Co-authored by three anthropologists with long–term expertise studying Pentecostalism in Vanuatu, Angola, and Papua New Guinea/the Trobriand Islands respectively, Going to Pentecost offers a comparative study of Pentecostalism in Africa and Melanesia, focusing on key issues as economy, urban sociality, and healing. More than an ordinary comparative book, it recognizes the changing nature of r…