Islam

Psychologist, Surveyor, Journalist, Historian?: The Illegibility of Anthropology in the Field

Inquiries about an anthropologist’s purpose reveal a lot about why anthropology remains illegible to people working for the welfare of Muslims in Hyderabad, India. This blog post reflects on a common question asked by my interlocutors over different ethnographic settings: “What do anthropologists even do?”

For an Anthropology of Geopolitics

There has been an outpouring of grief among Shi‘i Muslims across the world at the death of Ayatollah Khamenei. An anthropology of geopolitics that foregrounds relational geographies and granular analyses of ordinary peoples’ interpretations of world events can help better understand this mourning.

Diversity

Beards and holy sites: Competing over True Islam in Kyrgyzstan

Who has the right to wear a beard? Which holy sites are fit for worship? Competition over religious symbols in Kyrgyzstan is deeply intertwined with the political and economic turmoil that has swept the country since the breakdown of the Soviet Union.