Skip to main content
European Commission logo print header

Places of Remembrance in Muslim Russia: Islamic Heritage and Moral Landscapes

Project description

An analysis of Islamic remembrance sites in Russia

The emergence of numerous Islamic remembrance sites throughout post-Soviet Russia has raised concerns and generated debates on the place of Muslims in Russia. However, little detailed anthropological scholarship about the subject has been produced. The EU-funded MeMuRu project will map Islamic places of remembrance in Central Russia’s Volga region and analyse their social, political, and affective life. The project will focus on the sites where the post-Soviet Islamic revival manifests itself. MeMuRu will apply anthropological methods of investigation to analyse how institutional initiative and grassroots creativity are involved in the production of multi-scalar moral landscapes at the intersection of the nation-state, the ethnic community, and the ummah.

Objective

The goal of this project is to map Islamic places of remembrance in Central Russia’s Volga region, and analyse their social, political, and affective life. The post-Soviet Islamic boom has raised acute concerns and generated debates on the place of Islam in Russia, home to an ancient Muslim community. So far, little fine-grained anthropological scholarship about Russia’s Muslim population has been produced. My project seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge by looking at the concrete places where the post-Soviet Islamic revival manifests itself.
The past few years have witnessed the rediscovery – sometimes reconstruction – of numerous Islamic sites throughout the Russian Federation, along with the emergence of numerous locales where self-cultivation, ethnically inflected civic engagement, conflict, and compromise are played out by Muslims through the prism of remembrance. Anthropological methods of investigation shall be utilised to analyse how both institutional initiative and grassroots creativity are involved in the production of multi-scalar moral landscapes at the intersection of the nation-state, the ethnic community, and the ummah. Special attention will be devoted to social memory dispositifs, from institutional heritage projects to intimate practices of remembering.
This project, built upon specialised skills and experiences I acquired as a graduate student, will offer fresh contributions to ongoing debates on post-socialist and Islamic personhood; memory, state-Muslim relations in Russia; and the spatial manifestations of religious life amongst Eurasian Muslims. This Fellowship will give me a unique chance to complete my maturation as a social scientist. At the Universities of Berkeley and Venice, I will undertake specialised training, broadening my area expertise, my methodological repertoire, and my theoretical competencies across disciplines such as social and historical anthropology, Russian studies, and Islamic studies.

Coordinator

UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Net EU contribution
€ 251 002,56
Address
DORSODURO 3246
30123 Venezia
Italy

See on map

Region
Nord-Est Veneto Venezia
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 251 002,56

Partners (2)