Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe

Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria
Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-0-691-13955-5
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 270 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 477 g

Reihe: Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics

Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe examines how gender identities were reconfigured in a Bulgarian Muslim community following the demise of Communism and an influx of international aid from the Islamic world. Kristen Ghodsee conducted extensive ethnographic research among a small population of Pomaks, Slavic Muslims living in the remote mountains of southern Bulgaria. After Communism fell in 1989, Muslim minorities in Bulgaria sought to rediscover their faith after decades of state-imposed atheism. But instead of returning to their traditionally heterodox roots, isolated groups of Pomaks embraced a distinctly foreign type of Islam, which swept into their communities on the back of Saudi-financed international aid to Balkan Muslims, and which these Pomaks believe to be a more correct interpretation of their religion.Ghodsee explores how gender relations among the Pomaks had to be renegotiated after the collapse of both Communism and the region's state-subsidized lead and zinc mines. She shows how mosques have replaced the mines as the primary site for jobless and underemployed men to express their masculinity, and how Muslim women have encouraged this as a way to combat alcoholism and domestic violence. Ghodsee demonstrates how women's embrace of this new form of Islam has led them to adopt more conservative family roles, and how the Pomaks' new religion remains deeply influenced by Bulgaria's Marxist-Leninist legacy, with its calls for morality, social justice, and human solidarity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ghodsee, Kristen

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam & Islamische Studien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Illustrations ix

A Note on Transliteration xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction: The Changing Face of Islam in Bulgaria 1

Chapter One: Names to Be Buried With 34

Chapter Two: Men and Mines 56

Chapter Three: The Have-nots and the Have-nots 86

Chapter Four: Divide and Be Conquered 109

Chapter Five: Islamic Aid 130

Chapter Six: The Miniskirt and the Veil 159

Conclusion: Minarets after Marx 184

Appendix 205

Notes 207

Selected Bibliography 235

Index 243

Über Autor(innen)

Ghodsee, Kristen
Kristen Ghodsee is associate professor of gender and women's studies at Bowdoin College. She is the author of "The Red Riviera: Gender, Tourism, and Postsocialism on the Black Sea".