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Towards a theory of the rough ground:merging the policy and ethnographicframes of religion in the KyrgyzRepublicDavid W. Montgomerya

a 230 S. Bouquet St, Department of Anthropology, University ofPittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USAPublished online: 19 Mar 2014.

To cite this article: David W. Montgomery (2014) Towards a theory of the rough ground: mergingthe policy and ethnographic frames of religion in the Kyrgyz Republic, Religion, State and Society,42:1, 23-45, DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2014.887265

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Towards a theory of the rough ground: merging the policy andethnographic frames of religion in the Kyrgyz Republic

David W. Montgomery*

230 S. Bouquet St, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA

(Received 9 April 2012; accepted 21 February 2013)

Discussions of Islam present two analytical problems, one of interpretation and anotherof theory. Regarding interpretation, different frames – policy or ethnographic – forviewing religion influence our bias/understanding of religion and give us differentsenses of what ‘knowing’ the religion of a particular community means. The relatedissue is one of theory and connects to the problem of theorising movement: howpeople navigate their religious lives is not linear but much more random, related toevents, and at times reified by (though always engaging with) the assumptions ofpolicy agendas and the ethnographic imagination. Exploring implications that thepolicy and ethnographic frames have for Muslims in the Kyrgyz Republic, I arguethat in synthesising the impact of different frames of analysis, a ‘theory of the roughground’, while anything but neat, better portrays life as it is experienced locally.

Keywords: Islam; religion; Kyrgyzstan; Central Asia; ethnography; policy;subjectivity; bias; social navigation

We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense theconditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: sowe need friction. Back to the rough ground!

— Ludwig Wittgenstein (2010, 51).

Introduction

At 5.52am on a cold morning in January, the azan (call to prayer) can be heard cracklingfrom a single speaker wired to a deteriorating concrete electric post in southernKyrgyzstan. Kadyrbek has prepared himself for fajr (morning prayer); Nurdin is milkingthe family cow, prior to marking the anniversary of his brother’s death by pilgrimaging toa nearby shrine; and Kuban does not have to be at work until 8.30am and thus is stillasleep. All three men are Kyrgyz. All three are Muslim. And all three consider themselvesordinary. They also represent ideal types that shape policy, confuse public (national andinternational) discourse, and make real the problem wherein descriptive labels holdcaptive assumed threats.1

No one familiar with the region would dispute that Central Asia is predominantlyMuslim. Acknowledging Central Asians as Muslim is so much a practice of commonparlance that noun comfortably becomes adjective: Muslim Central Asia (see for example:Shahrani 1994; Hann and Pelkmans 2009; Ro’i 1995; Bennigsen and Wimbush 1986;Gross 1992). In moving from describing the region to categorising the people, the

*Email: dwm@pitt.edu

Religion, State & Society, 2014Vol. 42, No. 1, 23–45, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2014.887265

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interchange of noun and adjective – Central Asian Muslim – carries a range of assumptivemeanings and potentialities. The disagreements begin with what it means to be Muslimand to whom; or to borrow the language of the playground, what it means to be ‘a realMuslim’. The moral dichotomy of good Muslim – bad Muslim, while certainly imprecise,becomes the way most categorise the differences and argue their particular position on anynumber of disagreements.2 Such dichotomisation of otherness is not unique toKyrgyzstan, Central Asia or even Islam, but can be found in any community. SaudiMuslims; Israeli Jews; American Evangelical Christians: all are labels where characteristicis ascribed to, and thus described by, place. In these instances – where religion is noun andplace is adjective – there is a stereotyping that melds the imagined with the political (seefor example Anderson 1991). What is more, this imagined familiarity leads us to act as ifwe have a certain predicative capacity to capture, in a few words, the essential nature of apopulation.3 Much of this is political. Unfortunately, the essentialised nature of a popula-tion is largely conformed by the needs of political efficiency and only partially informedby ethnographic engagement.4

In fairness, we should note that ethnographers attempt the same thing, but with morewords over more time. Far too frequently there is little attention given to the strictures ofthe policy frame, on the assumption that those who view from within the agenda of policyare unconcerned with the conditions of local life as it is being lived. Of interest here,however, are the implications of the different frames through which a population isviewed.5 The policy frame and the ethnographic frame present two very different visionsof the population. While ethnographic engagement is also filled with its own subjectivities– the observer is never completely objective (see for example Rabinow 2007) – more timewith a population reveals more complexities, and complexity does not breed efficientpolicy. In the case of Muslim Central Asia the narrative of the policy frame is a story ofthreat and danger; the narrative of the ethnographic frame is of diversity and disunitytemporally navigated. Both are correct from their own view, yet in failing to engage eachother in recognising the impacts they have on each other, both overlook the roughness ofthe ground upon which they walk.

A series of ‘recent’ events have contributed to the sense of urgency about religion inCentral Asia, although in most situations, discussions of ‘recent’ events do not age wellbecause the contemporary is filled with unfolding uncertainties that are interpreted andreinterpreted in response to what information becomes available. These ‘recent’ events inKyrgyzstan stretch back as far as one wants to look – indeed, history is always interpretedin relation to the transformative wake of ‘recent’ events – but the factors noted to haveinfluenced the Kyrgyz landscape in the last 20 years include: easing of Soviet regulations;independence; the 1999 incursions by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; the 2002Aksy riots, the 2005 putsch, and the 2010 putsch and subsequent ethnic violence (seeamong others Lewis 2008).6 The local experience of these events has shifted fromfreedom and optimism to fear, dissatisfaction, anger and helplessness; all in response tonew forms of corruption, uncertainties, poverty, unfulfilled aspirations and insecurefutures that are part of the everyday challenges people experience.

The common presentation of Islam in the West is one of threat and danger.7 Steps maybe taken to distance violence from the ‘essence of Islam’, which presents an explanatoryway out: we know not all Muslims embrace violence, just the ones we talk about; theabsence of the others not embracing violence from the public voice is then implied tosuggest that all Muslims embrace violence or counter-hegemonic acts. Of course this isnot true (see Martin and Barzegar 2009; Kurzman 2011), but the message still dominatesthe imagination of the western press and policy world which connects (conflates) various

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events in the region – the perception of increasing piety with the end of the Soviet Union;the 1992–1997 civil war in Tajikistan; the armed incursions in 1999 and 2000 by theIslamic Movement of Uzbekistan; the activities of the Taliban and al-Qaeda activities inAfghanistan and the post-11 September military campaign against those groups; thecrackdown on Islam and the 2005 Andijan killings in Uzbekistan; and the overthrow oftwo governments in Kyrgyzstan (2005 and 2010) – as interrelated indicators of the threatIslam poses to political stability. The events that attract media attention, however, gen-erally lie outside – though do impact on – the everyday religious world in which themajority of Muslims in Central Asia reside.

The nature of events leads to the prediction of stereotypes, and depending on thesituation – more so with Islam, for example, than with health care – the outliers of societyreceive disproportionate attention. The policy frame is more concerned with the fewMuslims labelled as ‘threats’ than it is by the majority of the population because theextremes make better stories and are the concerns that policies seek to change. By policyframe, I do not mean just that of policymakers working for governments, but rather aparticular orientation that includes journalists, policymakers, development workers andothers whose constraints are those of time and action; that is, they have to act and, in orderto do so, generalise from the constraints of their own biases and the demands under whichthey work. The constraints of needing to act can lead to the fetishisation of the extremes,catchier news stories and an added sense of urgency to what we, as policymakers orethnographers, do, but it misses the everyday life of the majority of the population (deCerteau 1984). The middle ground of a population – the average, seemingly unremarkablepopulace concerned more with the daily obligations and burdens of their own lives thanwith devoted political engagement – is commonly underrepresented.8 In focusing on theoutliers, the subjects of news stories and policy fears, we direct policies that affecteveryone yet in disproportionate ways.

Frames are perspectives, and when we understand the policy frame as a perspectiveconcerned with action – where the person engaged has a particular end goal related tosome implementation of reform or change – we can make a distinction between the needto generalise in order to act and the importance of the particularities that emerge from theethnographic frame. The ethnographic frame is a way of viewing concerned with char-acterising both how people think and how they understand the cultural distinctiveness ofexperience in a local context. These frames represent not merely different ways ofpresentation, but also both methodological and epistemological preferences that aremore biased than neutral. People switch perspectives, of course, between ‘policy’ and‘ethnographic’ ways of looking at problems in relation to their need to act and their abilityto listen and reflect, but each perspective can be limiting if the conditions under whichsuch decisions are made are not taken into consideration.9

In certain instances we use labels as shorthand for when we know less than we do orwe encounter the limits of language or time to describe. Labels lead us to believe we havepredictive capacity to capture the mood and movement of people. ‘Muslim’, ‘radical’,‘extremist’ all send the hearer of those terms on a trajectory of assumptions that are oftenmore political than accurate. The capital of such terms is greatest vis-à-vis the needs of thestate, where an inverse bias towards the group in question holds hostage the freedom ofthe majority middle.

Sketching Islam within a policy frame and an ethnographic frame creates images ofcontrast, and in the case of Kyrgyzstan, they are different enough to make one believe weare talking about two different places. We are, at least, talking about two very differentways of seeing and, subsequently, of acting. The underlying assumption in both is that the

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relationship between labels is descriptive enough to guide action. They are, of course,sufficient for action but not necessarily sufficient in capturing the ever nebulous categoryof truth or reality. Curiously, both labels and theories tend to fall short precisely in relationto the assumed stability of populations and their actions. In merging perspectives of thepolicy frame (a pragmatic, sometimes occluded, view of the world set on securingcollective self-interests (national, collectivist in macro engagement)), and the ethnographicframe (a locally engaged, oftentimes affective, view of the world set on preservingrelations perceived as intimate and everyday (friendships, individualist in micro engage-ment)) we gain a messier, yet more informed understanding of people and how they (andwe) see themselves in the world.

The understanding of religion in Kyrgyzstan, as well as anywhere else, is richer(though descriptively more cumbersome) if approached through a theory that acknowl-edges the friction that animates sociality, the rough ground of which Wittgenstein speaksin the above epigraph. This rough ground is a fitful terrain where people act and are actedupon, where, as Marx recognised, people make their own histories but not indepen-dently.10 The policy frame has an agenda that affects the ethnographic frame, reifyingcertain categories founded upon sometimes fallacious understandings,11 yet in certaininstances the assumptions of the policy frame get reified through their public insistence.The ‘terrorist threat’ which ‘extremist’ and ‘radical’ imply within the policy frame isgrounded in the understanding of outsider objectives, not insider or local realities that mayview the extremist/radical not as pariah but as humanitarian.12 Capturing the insider, or‘local’, realities is often the stated concern of the ethnographic frame. Yet despite its noblesense of purpose, in its analysis the ethnographic frame all too often fails to synthesise theinfluence of the policy frame.13 Both frames present a picture of community that holdsutility in the generalised sense of their concern, but the impacts of the frames on thecommunity are seldom connected.

How we see them and how they see us are not two separate pictures but rather reliefsof a picture analysed differently. The hues of the policy frame differ from those of theethnographic frame because the light in which it is viewed differs, and therein whatmeaning is ascribed to the picture comes to differ. Merging these frames, a task filled withfriction and roughness, casts new light on the subject of understanding the local. A theoryof the rough ground, a merging of these two frames, better explores the middle ground,the area where most people live and where people are impacted by how they frame theirlives and have their lives framed by others.

Though it is through experience that we make sense of the world,14 we too oftenassume the stability of the categories and groupings we make and of the theories we use todescribe them. Neither the categories nor the groupings – or more pointedly, neitherknowledge nor identity – are unchanging, despite being presented within a particularframe as being set (see Bourdieu 2000; Jackson 2007, 174–191). There is both subjectiv-ity and inter-subjectivity in described experience (the policy and ethnographic frames) aswell as in lived experience (the socially navigated modus vivendi that contextualises theeveryday). As Jackson notes, ‘we are so used to construing understanding as a meeting oftwo minds, an intellectual empathy or compatibility between separate selves, that we oftenoverlook the extent to which human affinities reflect forms of mutual recognition that aredifficult to put into words or pin down’ (Jackson 2007, 184). Similar short-sightednessobscures the view of groups, who articulate understanding in relationship to the compat-ibility of goals and agendas. The convergence of the policy and ethnographic frames in atheory of the rough ground is an overlapping of understandings, a reciprocity of agendas,and a step towards making sense of the socially navigated context of the everyday.

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A theory of the rough ground is not only a move towards understanding the liveddynamics of the local, but it is also a beginning to theorise the dynamics of influenceand change.

The policy frame

Moral neutrality, here as always, is no guarantee of political innocence.— Talal Asad (1986, 17)

Ironically, given that it is so often understood as friction, the policy frame isWittgenstein’s ‘slippery ice’. The reason is that it is neat, smooth and directive. Actionsascribed in response to characterisations of prejudices and interests, and messy bound-aries, are made less so by delimiting the parameters of concern. Conceptually, the policyframe is not limited to state or group actors, for individuals make use of it in dealing withthose seen as other, and it serves as a way of reifying the connectedness of individuals to alarger collective with which they identify. In the case of policy vis-à-vis Muslim CentralAsia, emphasising the fear associated with particular characterisations of the population –the ‘increasingly Muslim’ part of Central Asia – pushes policies along a reactionary path(Montgomery and Heathershaw 2013).

Religious labels are filled with countless assumptions, many – if not most – of whichoversimplify the complex realities of how religion is experienced and managed. This isnot to say that religion is necessarily experienced as complicated or burdensome, for it isnot, but rather that we are quick to assign generalisable meaning to a label in order tomanage the time we must spend reacting to it. This is, of course, the importance ofcategorisation, for it allows us to assume similarities and apply casuistic reasoning toactions, but the similarities we assume are not always the same terms of analysis theyassume (we and they being ever fluid groupings), especially in discussing danger.15 Whatis dangerous to one for whom religion is a lived category is dissimilar from that as seen byanother who views religion differently.16

Religion is, of course, complex and multi-vocal, experienced and understood byindividuals vis-à-vis the communities in which they live. This refers back to the stereo-types mentioned earlier – Saudi Muslims, Israeli Jews, American Evangelical Christians –and depends largely on how the setting is framed. The Kyrgyz Republic is a former Sovietrepublic, frequently described in policy terms as Muslim, poor, mountainous and remote(see for example CIA). All these terms set in motion a particular trajectory of under-standing that in turn influences the perceived potentialities of the population. In thecrudest sense, the policy frame imagines Kyrgyzstan as a place of dramatic natural beautyyet in desperate need of political and social reform and a generally unpleasant place to live(Montgomery 2013a). There are Kyrgyz who agree – some in part because they are awareof this description and imagine life being better elsewhere – but such descriptions get onlyto how some people imagine their lives. For all who live there, it is, of course, not aremote place, or a place on the periphery, but rather the centre of the world. Some areunconcerned with reform, being indifferent or resigned that nothing meaningful willsignificantly change, but the correlation between wealth and happiness is always specious.By many standards, it is poor, but there is happiness in neighbourhoods and familygatherings and people are not everywhere despondent. (It is important to note this, as itis something one sees in the ethnographic frame that is all too often left out of the policyframe: this is also a place where people can be happy.) Media representations of thecountry, however, rarely depict the happiness people find in their lives but rather focus on

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despondency, urgency, unsettledness, harshness and injustice (as viewed from the out-side). Connections to Islam are made in sensational ways, emphasising the threat of Islamor categorical indifference to religion and not the complex, ever-evolving, sociallynavigated reality of religion that responds to events, environment and relationships ofinfluence. The policy frame sees three general ways of categorising Islam – threat,tradition, or modern – and reacts according to these conceptions.

Kadyrbek: Muslim as threat

Kadyrbek begins his day with prayer, but he is understood as a threat. This is not becausehe prays regularly, but because he is outspoken about the role Islam should play ingovernance, wants change, and prays regularly. The image he personifies leads thoseengaged in shaping the policy frame, both in the West and in Kyrgyzstan, to expend agreat deal of energy and resources; because people like Kadyrbek represent a threat to themaintenance of hegemonic order, and for many this raises suspicion. For Kadyrbek is amember of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a characterisation that is enough to satisfy the policy framedisposition, for it is contextualised in terms of what is generalised about Hizb ut-Tahrir asan organisation and the threat it represents is inserted within the assumptions about theregion. I have said very little about Kadyrbek, his family, friends, beliefs or desires; butknowing more is not part of the policy frame; one needs to categorise and step away inorder to act. Knowing more about him at this point emasculates the image he is assumedto represent. It is enough to note that he was arrested once for possessing ‘Islamist’literature and associating with an Islamist group banned by the Kyrgyz government.

The assumptions of those needing shorthand to act in a policy context are constitutedby an array of quasi-facts which support an image of threat. The precedent of historyemerges in discussion of the Great Game that since the eighteenth century located CentralAsia within the greater colonial power conflicts and fixed the region in western imagina-tion as a place of mystery and notable danger (Yapp 2001; Levi and Sela 2010, 281–306;Hopkirk 1992; Meyer and Brysac 1999). The proximity to Afghanistan, essential to theGreat Game narrative and the ‘war on terror’, heightens the anxiety created by Kadyrbek’sinvolvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir, as the organisation gets collapsed into jihadist movementslike the Taliban or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Organisations like the IslamicMovement of Uzbekistan (which is of questionable strength and uncertain numbers)17 thatadvocates Islamic governance as alternative to current corruptions of governance have amessage that resonates with the concerns Kadyrbek articulates, with one significantexception: Kadyrbek eschews violence. The forays into the region by the IslamicMovement of Uzbekistan in 1999 and 2000 and the use of force to instigate changecreated a policy fear of their return, as well as expansion of their activities to similarlydisaffected ideological groups. Thus, despite Hizb ut-Tahrir’s insistence on pursuingnonviolent means to the restoration of a caliphate, Kadyrbek gets collapsed as analyticallyidentical to jihadist movements from more distant lands. Furthermore, the dissatisfactionwith governance that resulted in the 2005 and 2010 putsches in Kyrgyzstan unsettlesofficials who hear Kadyrbek offering Islam as a model for addressing issues of badgovernance. Thus, unlinked and uncontextualised pieces of information – from thehistorical conflict between Tsarist Russia and colonial Britain to the rise of the Talibanand jihadist movements in the region – suggest threats of one place as impending threatsto a different locale.

Threats, especially when speculative, are analogised to make them impending andrelevant. The assemblage of information comes from a variety of sources that are neither

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standardised nor objectively reported, and while there are some very good reporters in theregion willing to challenge perceived injustices,18 there are many aware of who pay themand the stories their editors presume the public wants to read. While I was in the field,there were many instances when I talked with reporters for major western newspapers andhuman rights reporting organisations and found the agendas of their publishers forcing astory that distorted reality. This is not in any way to claim that bad things do not happen inCentral Asia, that there are not egregious abuses of human rights, or that Muslim groupsare unwilling to resort to violence against the state. There are countless draconian abusesof rights and the freedom of religious practice and expression is increasingly regulated bystate functionaries; but many reporters have confessed to searching for angles to storiesthey thought were more likely to get their articles read.

An ongoing reading of news sources presents a very similar image (examples include:BBC 2009a–d, 2010a,b; Golovnina 2010). Often, however, the media sources findlegitimacy in citing other news outlets and print takes on meaning more distant fromtruth than it purports to report. With enough frequency, the report takes on, in image, a‘truth’ of its own that fits hegemonic agendas, guides assumptive categorisation of groupsand forms policy initiatives. This makes Kadyrbek – husband, father of three and activeMuslim – representative of a potential threat to the state. Kadyrbek believes that the stateshould institutionalise a Muslim moral framework precedented by Muhammad and theRightly-Guided Caliphs. The state sees such calls to integrate religious order – at least onterms other than its own – as counterhegemonic and threatening. Kadyrbek renouncesviolence and complains at length about those who take up arms against the state as wrong,at least in his understanding of Islam and moral advancement. The state and mediadisbelieve the nuanced understanding of social change Kadyrbek aspires to, and whilethrough serious reflection – and time spent with Kadyrbek and his friends – we know thatthe image is a pale reflection of reality in situ, the stereotype of ‘terrorist threat’ isadvanced as a decent description of something that drives the machine. The image ofMuslim as threat, militant and terrorist becomes representative for all that can be seen aschallenging, and makes Kadyrbek ‘known’ without being known, setting aside the factthat the degree of Kadyrbek’s involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir is unknown to most.

Kadyrbek’s association with a transnational Islamic movement, which is representa-tively a small portion of the population, disproportionately influences policy concerns. Ina sense, he is seen as being at one extreme of the spectrum where orthopraxic devotionassumptively leads to orthodox inflexibility and public exposition of moral correctness.Characterised by some as a ‘good’ Muslim, by others he is seen as practising an importedversion of Islam which in its expansion undermines local traditions of Islamic practice.Labels like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are value labels that frame the debate in moral terms, againstwhich threat is assumed, but what is threatening to Kadyrbek differs from what isthreatening to the state (Montgomery 2013b).

Nurdin: Muslim as tradition

The experience of history suggests that tradition includes variance in what it means topractise Islam. Religious traditions have great local variance expressed morally in ortho-dox and heterodox labelling. In the Kyrgyz setting, orthodox Islam is mosque- and text-centred and has dominance in determining the other extreme of heterodoxy; heterodox israrely a label of self-description. Another edge of Islamic practice, however, becomesrepresented by Nurdin. He identifies as Muslim but roots his sense of belonging deepwithin Kyrgyz tradition. He does not question his Muslimness but views the obligations of

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a religious life differently from Kadyrbek, viewing reverence for ancestors and sacredplaces not merely as tradition but within a cosmological frame that makes the past relevantwithout historical discontinuity.

It has been the case that Muslims like Nurdin have not been politically involved, or atleast not politically involved through an institutional form of Islam that challenges stateleadership. Nurdin’s vision of Islam is not taken seriously by Muslims like Kadyrbek whosee its syncretic aspects as heretical and view tradition to be separate from religion when itveers from the interpretation of a ‘universal’ Islam. Whatever we call the merging oftradition, ancestral precedence and Islamic understanding – ‘folk Islam’; ‘IslamicShamanism’; ‘pre-Islamic Islam’ – the labels are usually pejorative from a religiousview yet, to the extent that they remain private, these practices are encouraged in statepolicy. Islamic reformers – from Indian missionary groups like Tablighi Jamaat andTurkish followers of Fethullah Gülen to transnational organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir,and returning nationals who have studied Islam abroad in places like Egypt and SaudiArabia – want to (re)educate Central Asians on what Islam is, and thus should be (Masud2000; Balci 2003).

The knowledge of Islam among Central Asians is often self-characterised as weak, inlarge part because of the success of the Soviet Union in regulating Islamic learning(Khalid 2007), but the role of Islam in the public realm has been growing sinceKyrgyzstan received independence in 1991 and people feel more open to practising andexpressing their Muslimness. At the same time, discussions about what it means to be aCentral Asian Muslim in general and a Kyrgyz Muslim in particular have led some torecognise that the drivers of what Islam should be do not have to come from outside(abroad) but rather from connecting back to and reclaiming tradition and revitalising theways of the past. To an extent, this fits in within post-independence language policies thatmandate more extensive teaching of the Kyrgyz language (as opposed to Russian) in stateschools and the Kyrgyz language as a political requirement for presidential office,19 aspart of sculpting a new post-Soviet Kyrgyz identity.

There have been a number of instances where this search for Kyrgyz nationalidentity has turned toward tradition to give historical continuity. During the late-middleyears of the Akayev presidency (1990–2005), alongside the renewed emphasis onteaching Kyrgyz, children were taught the Seven Principles of the Kyrgyz epic heroManas to create sentiments of morality shared in a common heroic tradition.20

Tengrism has also emerged as a revitalisation of Kyrgyz religious tradition as inti-mately rooted in the territory of Kyrgyzstan and the ancestors who inhabited it. Havingits origins in pre-Islamic Kyrgyz cosmology venerating the sky god, Tengri, it wasreformulated in the philosophy of Choiun Omuraly uulu and subsequently advocated atthe government level by then state secretary Dastan Sarygulov (Omuraly uulu 1994;Sarygulov 2005). While few label themselves as Tengrists, and some see the religion asheretically pagan and un-Islamic, those who identify with it generally find it comple-tely compatible with Islam, seeing it as the Islam practised by their ancestors before thearrival of Islam. It thus becomes a more legitimate local expression of religion. WhileNurdin does not call himself a Tengrist – he is unfamiliar with the movement thoughfamiliar with the implications of the name Tengri – he does in fact follow Tengristpractices.21

Reformist movements like Tablighi Jamaat and Hizb ut-Tahrir find the practices ofvisiting mazars and venerating ancestors problematic. The increased attention to sacredsites creates tension with these groups who take on the eradication of these practices aspart of their re-education purpose. The local understanding of Central Asian Islam, while

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generally labelled as ‘weak’ in reference to mosque-centred orthopraxy, is that it has acontinuity of truth offered by the tradition of a locally rooted cosmological heritage; andin its emphasis on local and personal religious duties – harmony with nature and respectfor ancestors, living and dead – it poses less of a threat to state hegemony; it is thus oflittle concern to the policy frame and is either ignored or supported under programmes ofcultural heritage.22

Kuban: Muslim as modern

As far as the state is concerned Kuban represents the vision of an idealised modern whoprivatises religion and sees that the state needs to be protected from the security threat thatnon-secularised religion poses. Muslim enough to consider Islam part of his nationalidentity, he does not know how to pray, is unconcerned with practice and sees thepresence of Muslim missionaries as a social nuisance. He is concerned not with thetransnational connections of Islam so much as with the economic opportunities of themarket, imagined globally though primarily experienced locally. He desires a better life,which he sees as within the realm of his own making, and his entrepreneurial spirit tradeson both sides of what is legal. The driving discourse for Kuban is of an interconnectedmodern, shaped by the emergent market economy, the dissolution of the social welfaresystem and technological individualism that is part classical liberalism, part patronagenetwork.

Kuban has managed to take advantage of the existing political system and makes aprofit in his business endeavours. For him, Islam is something to be kept at a distance forif it became too active in public life it could threaten his way of business. He wants thegovernment to crack down on the activities of people like Kadyrbek (he sees Nurdin asinnocuous) and supports state regulation of religion. For him and others in the policyframe – those charged with maintaining a certain secularised state order – the mainconcern of the state is maintaining a sense of order that allows governance, or at leastallows those in power to continue in power. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, thelegitimacy of the successor states has been less connected to the provision of socialservices and more to the model of the neoliberal market with the privatisation of servicesand economies. This means, in general, that people take care of themselves, to findlivelihoods outside government dependence and assistance. The state presents itself notas an ally in providing services, but as an inconvenience best avoided when it comes tomaking a living. Independent of declining literacy, an inadequate health system anddecaying infrastructure (ICG 2011), Kuban is concerned with business and increasinglyunconcerned with failings of his community, though he does complain about the generalpoor conditions of public services. He still acknowledges the state as a legitimateauthority; Islam is not much of a concern for him, and this seeming lack of interest inreligion, from a policy perspective that assumes religious activity to be threatening, makesKuban a manageable religious figure, more likely to support the state’s view of Islam thanthat of either Kadyrbek or Nurdin.23

The ethnographic frame

Ordinary life is the indicative mood, where we expect the invariant operation of cause andeffect, of rationality and commonsense.

— Victor W. Turner (1986, 42)

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Caricatures of Islam and authority, of security and value, guide much of the stereotypingof religion. Who is speaking for a particular group; who is motivating groups to action;how engaged Islam is in ameliorating social woes; and what groups are in conflict withthe state are all interest-driving questions of the policy frame because they attempt tolocate power and motivators in struggle. Labels, while necessary, obfuscate the detailsbeyond what is experienced, and can create categories that take on a life of their own.

The literature on Islam in Central Asia generally, and Kyrgyzstan more specifically, isgrowing. This is a result both of the greater ease with which western scholars have beenable to access the region and of a growing interest in the region as relatively unexploredby western scholars and of increasing geopolitical interest. While some of the ethno-graphic literature is very insightful (see Borbieva 2012; Louw 2007; McBrien 2006;Pelkmans 2007; Rasanayagam 2011; Schwab 2011), the bulk of what is written fromthe policy frame approaches the region with the assumption that religious change issomething of which to be afraid. There is a penchant for policy writing, especially inthe news media, about Islamic extremism, essentialising an increased religiosity as threatand danger (from the viewpoint of the state and, as corollary, international order), andwhile this can make the news seem sometimes apocalyptically urgent, it also obscures theway in which the dynamics of the everyday impact on local interaction with religion (seethe examples mentioned earlier: BBC 2009a–d, 2010a–b; Golovnina 2010). This kind ofinterpretation and reinterpretation is influenced by labels often reified by what is pub-lished rather than informed by long-term ethnography.24 Ethnography, at its best, givesdepth and feeling to the understanding of its subjects’ lives, struggles, hopes and aspira-tions, making people real, not merely objects of manipulation.

The reality of religious practice anywhere is that it is complex, that individual attitudesoften differ (though not always significantly) from those of the group to which they align(or with which they identify) themselves. The challenge to the social scientist, andparticularly to the ethnographer who embeds himself or herself in the everyday, is torecognise categories that allow a group to be identifiable among other groups yet at thesame time to acknowledge that individual agency creates a number of moving parts thatcan be independent of the category or be moving in multiple categories at the same timeand, even if the categories seem mutually exclusive, that this is not always an untenablecontradiction. Most people function with a degree of cognitive dissonance that allows forseemingly contradictory religious views to be made manageable, at least for them ifperhaps not for the analyst who pines for set (rigid) categories. In presenting a pictureof religion in the Kyrgyz Republic, I describe a very fluid and dynamic environmentwhere boundaries are not always walls – though to be sure, walls are at times put up and,in certain situations, brought down – but more like semi-permeable membranes wheresome interactions are allowed while others are restricted, at least publicly.

The ethnographic middle ground: fluidity between centre and periphery

Ethnographies are not always concerned with the majority within a population. Oftentimesminorities, or those living within different margins of society, become the focus ofextended study; how these peripheries interact with the centre is a long-standing concernin social analysis (Shils 1975; Giustozzi and Orsini 2009). In most instances, however,there is fluidity between the centre and periphery; so the stories of Kadyrbek, Nurdin andKuban are all part of the description of Islam in Kyrgyzstan: snapshots of the intimate andto varying degrees public relationship that 5.5 million Kyrgyz have with Islam, and also toan extent moral narratives of self and of ways of religious engagement.25 As stories, they

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represent everyone and also represent no one. Kadyrbek is of greatest interest to policycircles; he is most threatening to the interests of those within those policy circles. Nurdinappeals to tradition and those looking for exotics (though Nurdin does not see what hedoes as involving ‘exotics’): an Islamic vision infused with veneration of Kyrgyz ances-tors and the sacrality of pre-Islamic landmarks. Kuban represents a modern person moreconcerned with capital and self than the everyday vestiges of a religious life. While theyall are threatening to each other in terms of religious correctness, there are other areas inwhich they are not threatening to each other; or at least the threat does not keep theirchildren from playing together.

The ethnographic middle ground is messier than stories. It is the public sentiments, thecollective orientations, the range of beliefs felt to be common. It is that which is repeatedmost often, and thus not necessarily the stories that make news, but the local under-standing gained from being a local. It is how being Kyrgyz is understood in the mostgeneral of terms. A quantitative picture of the Kyrgyz middle ground can be drawn from a2005 survey of religious practice conducted in two regions of the country, Naryn and Oshoblasti.26 The first results seem to present a uniform picture: 97 per cent of those surveyedself-identify as Muslim.27 From there, however, the picture gets more complicated,reflecting the differences in how self-identification is expressed: 50 per cent considerthemselves to be observant or practising Muslims; 34 per cent as sometimes observant orpractising; and 14 per cent as unobservant or non-practising (see Table 1).

Percentages independent of narratives afford categories a stronger sense of coherencethan everyday life reflects; but they are helpful for seeing populations as averages ofcharacteristics. Saying that ‘over 80 per cent of the population characterise themselves asat least somewhat practising of their religion’ makes clear that religion plays an active rolein the life of the Kyrgyz population. The meaning of ‘active role’ is different to Kadyrbek,Nurdin and Kuban, but in the middle ground – an average outside individual narratives – aquarter of those surveyed do not pray whereas 30 per cent pray five times a day and over40 per cent pray with more variable frequency. A higher percentage of people visit sacredsites (around 66 per cent) than visit places of worship (around 52 per cent), though this isby no means a mutually exclusive category, because some who visit sacred sites also visitplaces of worship. Only 15 per cent of the surveyed population do not talk about religionwith friends; for 35 per cent of those surveyed, discussions of religion come up on at leasta weekly basis. Thus the middle ground was a place where most pray and visit places ofworship and sacred sites, and where religion comes up in conversation with a relativelyhigh frequency (see Tables 2–5).

Over 90 per cent claim religion to be at least somewhat important to their lives,which is only slightly (though not significantly) higher than the percentage of those whofeel tradition is important (see Table 6). And as with Nurdin, tradition and religion arenot mutually exclusive categories but rather ways of understanding the same

Table 1. Characterise your religious observance.

N = 829 Number Percentage

Unobservant/non-practising 117 14Sometimes observant/practising 278 34Observant/practising 416 50No answer 18 2

Total 829 100

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Table 3. Frequency of visiting a place of worship.

N = 829 Number Percentage

Never 345 42At least once a month 48 6At least once a week 130 16At least once a day 46 6Five times a day 53 6Special occasions/times of crisis 147 18No answer 60 7

Total 829 100

Table 4. Frequency of visiting a sacred site.

N = 829 Number Percentage

Never 261 31At least once a month 90 11At least once a week 24 3At least once a day 11 1Special occasions/times of crisis 422 51No answer 21 3

Total 829 100

Table 2. Frequency of praying.

N = 829 Number Percentage

Never 216 26At least once a month 48 6At least once a week 77 9At least once a day 109 13Five times a day 252 30Special occasions/times of crisis 114 14No answer 13 2Total 829 100

Table 5. Frequency of talking about religion with friends.

N = 829 Number Percentage

Never 127 15Less than once a month 91 11At least once a month 106 13At least once a week 124 15At least once a day 73 9Special occasions/times of crisis 272 33No answer 36 4

Total 829 100

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phenomena. For the majority of the population, religion has a significant influence onbehaviour (see Table 7), yet its compatibility with the modern world is split betweenthose who view it as compatible, those who do not, and those who are uncertain (seeTable 8). The implications of all this are that religion cannot be discounted – despite theclaims of some that the Kyrgyz, in comparison for example with the Uzbeks, are notreligious – for people see religion as playing a role, albeit to varying degrees andexpressed in varying ways.

In short, we see that most of the population consider Islam to be important andpractise it to varying degrees. How the quantitative data overlay with the qualitativestories of Kadyrbek, Nurdin and Kuban is in the richness of neighbourhoods and inter-actions with differing degrees of connectivity, both imagined and real. How this translatesto the policy and ethnographic frames is largely around needs and agendas. If one isconcerned about the edges, the middle ground can be either a reassuring, stabilising visionor representative of a population under threat of becoming subsumed by what is threaten-ing. It is, of course, both of these things, and more, but the frames with which we view itoften sacrifice neutrality for the sake of neatness.

Table 6. Importance to your life of religion/tradition.

N = 829 Number Percentage

Unimportant (religion, tradition) 55, 69 7, 8Somewhat important (religion, tradition) 253, 401 31, 48Very important (religion, tradition) 511, 334 62, 40No answer (religion, tradition) 10, 25 1, 3

Total (religion, tradition) 829, 829 100, 100

Table 7. Does religion influence your behaviour?

N = 829 Number Percentage

Yes, a lot 467 56Somewhat 255 31No 98 12No answer 9 1

Total 829 100

Table 8. Are religion and the modern world compatible?

N = 829 Number Percentage

Yes 273 33Maybe/don’t know 215 26No 309 37No answer 32 4

Total 829 100

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The ethnographic rough ground: neighbours near the speaker

Kadyrbek, Nurdin and Kuban live within earshot of the loudspeaker that projects azan,and thus share many of the same public sounds, though they respond to them differently.28

They all share low wages, experience corruption, and are impacted by increasing food andfuel prices. Their children go to the same school, their wives shop in the same markets,and, having grown up in the same neighbourhood, they know – and have shared in – eachother’s history. They are neighbours in their community, but they are no longer close; intheir 20s, their lives diverged and they developed different interests, different friends anddifferent ideas of what was important in life. When in the privacy of their homes, or thecompanionship of their own friends, they may share their opinions on what is missing, orwrong, in the lives of Kadyrbek, Nurdin and Kuban, and this ‘what is missing’ isinevitably a reflection of what one believes to be important and how one imaginesone’s own religious and moral life. Kadyrbek believes Nurdin and Kuban should heedthe call to prayer with greater frequency; Nurdin believes that Kadyrbek and Kuban areneglecting tradition; and Kuban believes that Kadyrbek and Nurdin are holding on toideologies of the past and should focus their energies on embracing the modern world.

All this looks tidier than it is in reality. Their histories are interconnected and,knowing many of the same stories, they take part in the stereotyping of each other.They greet one another when they meet on the streets, and are friendly, but they are notguests at each other’s houses or share leisure. From gossip between neighbours andrumours on the streets they know a bit about the activities of each other – presume toknow more than they do, and certainly know enough to make judgments – and whenappropriate may convey important information. At one wedding party where the threewere present, for example, Kuban warned Kadyrbek, with details, that the police werelikely to show up at one of the prayer meetings Kadyrbek attended, and suggested thatKadyrbek take precautions to make sure there was no literature lying around that mightresult in his being detained by the police.

Though their ideas and practices of Islam differ, as do their notions of what the stateshould be, there is a complexity of interrelations that stems not from what is shared but whatwas (once) believed to be shared – friendship during schooldays, common acquaintances,and distant and not so distant relatives. Very little in their relations is entirely straightfor-ward, for even as each is representative of stereotyped personalities, they are themselvesless the stereotypes than one might assume. Kuban is non-practising though does claim he isMuslim; he does not pray or visit mosques or sacred sites though he does talk with hisfriends about religion with some frequency: about once a fortnight. He claims that neitherreligion nor tradition is important but he does believe religion influences his behaviour andmay be compatible with the modern world. He shares this sense of uncertainty about thecompatibility of religion and the modern world with Kadyrbek, though they share littlemore. Kadyrbek is observant, prays five times a day unless he is travelling, does not visitsacred sites any more, talks with his friends weekly about religion, and claims that Islam isthe meaning of his life. Nurdin characterises himself as somewhat observant, has conversa-tions about religion with a frequency resembling that of Kuban, believes both religion andtradition are very important, is uncertain about the compatibility of religion with the worldof today but acknowledges that it influences (or, as he clarifies, he at least wants it toinfluence) his behaviour a great deal.

The ethnographic rough ground is not a place where three ideal types of individualslive three neatly distinct lives, but rather where all three still interact in ways that are attimes inconsistent with their beliefs. Much is happening around and between those who

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hear the call to prayer from the neighbourhood loudspeaker. There is a sense amongKadyrbek, Nurdin and Kuban of boundaries as ‘separating’, and yet also of boundaries as‘connecting’. They have a shared past as schoolboys, their children know each other, theygo to many of the same cafes, shop at the same market, read many of the same news-papers, watch many of the same television channels, and go to the same local barber.While they can be presented along a spectrum of religious difference, their lives areintertwined precisely through historical and contemporary experiences that distinguishand join them in their communities. There is a significant corpus of knowledge that isshared, though navigated differently.

A theory of the rough ground: the socially navigated aspect of Kyrgyz religiousness

Thoughts and feelings transpire in the intersubjective, transitive, or potential spaces betweenus that go beyond the initial situation and cannot be explained by referring back to it.

— Michael Jackson (2007, 176)

Characterisations of Islam that seem to guide reporting and policy also drive scholarshipand public opinion. A key to getting research funding is to play off the concerns of policyinterests, to suggest that Islam is a threat and that one’s research can help better inform thepolicy frame in mitigating the threat. The ideal is that the ethnographic frame influencesthe policy frame and the two work harmoniously together. When the terms of ‘threat’, asunderstood by the agendas of policy, are accepted by the ethnographic frame, the analysisbecomes one that reifies state agendas: that is, the ethnographic frame may make an effortto characterise what is not a threat, but the concern about threat remains (Montgomery andHeathershaw 2013), and these concerns may be different from the ideals of the populationbeing studied. With regard to religion, this may mean suggesting that the aspirations ofsomeone like Kadyrbek, who is happier with and more confident in the rule of his religionthan in that of the state (Montgomery 2013b), need to be dampened by policies that favourthe tradition of Nurdin or the modernism of Kuban.

Some of these issues are not new. Early sociocultural works on Islam, such as Geertz’Islam Observed and Gellner’s Muslim Society (Geertz 1968; Gellner 1981), emphasisedthe distinction between scripturalist and saint-worshipping Islam, creating a dichotomy ofstructural and political significance in which the two sides fitted neatly into ethnographicsystems intelligible to the policy frame. According to this dichotomy, Kadyrbek is thescripturalist and Nurdin the saint-worshipper. However, the caveat ‘to an extent’ must beincluded here; meanwhile, the policy frame supports the image of Nurdin over that ofKadyrbek precisely because the boundaries between the two are assumed to be real andthe scripturalists are imagined to be more uncompromising about not relegating their faithto the private sphere. This dichotomisation has been criticised by Asad who argues that‘Islam is neither a distinctive social structure nor a heterogeneous collection of beliefs,artifacts, customs, and morals. It is a tradition.’ (1986, 14)29 The issue arising out of thisbecomes the way in which people refer back to traditions, which Kadyrbek and Nurdin dodifferently in finding different loci of tradition: Kadyrbek the universal focused on Meccaand Nurdin the universal of local shrines familiar to his ancestors. Going further,Eickelman (1984, 11) notes that the most productive area for understanding the religioustraditions practiced by Kadyrbek and Nurdin is to explore the ‘middle ground’ theyinhabit.

As suggested earlier, however, while the middle ground is a descriptively muddledterrain, it is richly instrumental to understanding the normative sentiments of a society.

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What is more, there is a particularistic aspect to discussions of difference betweenKadyrbek, Nurdin and Kuban, and a push within ethnography to accept their self-defini-tion of Muslim as legitimate because of how it has been framed and experienced by eachof them; but all this takes place in an exceptionally complex and fluid environment that issocially navigated.

There is an analytical disjuncture between the policy frame and the ethnographicframe in part because the aims are different. The policy frame is more concerned with theoutliers that pose a threat to existing structures. It can acknowledge that the population isnot threatening but it emphasises the nature of that which may constitute a threat in hopesof staving off that threat. The policies become directed towards encouraging a view ofIslam as part of an individual’s private world and therefore unthreatening to secularsociety. In some settings, this model may be successful, but it is not always ethnographi-cally informed. It is more of a model of how to make them more like us. The ethnographicframe, for example, makes clear that a number of those seen as a threat by some are well-founded in viewing their struggle as moral and just (Borbieva 2013; Louw 2013;Montgomery 2013b; Rasanayagam 2011; Werner, Barcus and Brede 2013). They wanta meaningful life and are unconcerned about the issues of outside funding organisations.The ethnographic, however, gives a reading of where the community is (ideally) from theperspective of those for whom religion exists in the everyday, how ‘locals’ see it and howthey make use of labels that are applied to them. Making a distinction between policy andethnographic approaches draws attention to the differences in who is framing the question.Islam, as made sense of locally, engages with both the policy and the ethnographic frames,but not in independent ways: Kadyrbek, Nurdin and Kuban respond to both frames inrelation to their own surroundings and without recognising differences of agendas implicitin the policy and ethnographic approach.

Revolutions and monumental life events are exciting times for uncertain futures. Tounderstand the nature of the friction of the rough ground, we must realise that the policyand ethnographic frames collide ‘in the field’ where people’s lives are constricted byseen and unseen realities, relationships of varying closeness, and potentialities inherentin their abilities and environment. What policies assume of Kadyrbek, Nurdin andKuban has an impact on how they live and how they understand local and worldorder, even if those policies are independent of any grounded knowledge of thecategories and assumptions about religiousness that people hold. A state where thereis little to no recourse against the wrongdoing of its functionaries can always be betteredby an ideology of transcendent retribution. Of course, international policies based onspecious understanding – for example that Kadyrbek is somehow inherently moredangerous than Nurdin or Kuban – do not remain neutral in the environments inwhich they are engaged. Furthermore, the ethnographic frame can romanticise thelocal as traditional and unique without fully appreciating the policies that frame theworlds of all of us, including those of our ethnographic subject. Kadyrbek, Nurdin andKuban all see themselves as actively engaged in a world beyond their neighbourhood,which places them at a number of intersections where change and influence are likely toalter their ideas and ideals.

What influences religious belief in Kyrgyzstan, or anywhere else for that matter, isfound where neighbours interact and are forced to socially navigate a multitude ofdemands placed on them by their engagement with the policy and ethnographic frames(sometimes their ethnographic frames as well as ours), and where all of this converges, theground is rough, but real. Theorising the rough ground involves looking at the multitudeof agendas put forth as analysis and seeing them not as directing linear outcomes but as

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influencing shifting trajectories of life, religious and otherwise. Kadyrbek’s understandingof Islam is influenced by his membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir, and policies towards Hizb ut-Tahrir influence the status of the organisation, his religious identity relative to others andhis understanding of the world outside his local world. Likewise, the understandings ofIslam of Nurdin or Kuban become ethnographically characterised as ‘traditional’ or‘modern’, though they are in fact neither static nor consistent. How they all come to bereligious is influenced by the experiences they make sense of, and the ethnographer can beas influential in this as the policy maker. The tendency in theory is to smooth out theedges. Here is the utility of a theory of the rough ground, for it allows Kadyrbek, Nurdinand Kuban to be Muslim in their (as opposed to our) conception of religion, and allowsthem to contest the Muslimness of the other, precisely as a result of the experiences theynavigate.30

A theory of the rough ground helps to keep forms of analysis in check. Policy andethnographic frames do not live independently of each other despite the tendency of thosewho use them to downplay one at the expense of the other. In respect to Kadyrbek’smembership in Hizb ut-Tahrir, the rough ground recognises the role that corruption playsin bolstering the agenda of the state and increasing membership in counter-hegemonicorganisations. It also makes clearer that the agendas of such organisations are notnecessarily anti-state but viewed as morally purifying. Misguided policy can push peopleto a form of engagement contrary to policy intentions; synthesising the policy andethnographic frames sheds light on the rough ground in ways that do not essentialise apopulation but guide programmes around what local people envision as their needs.Furthermore, such an approach reminds ethnographers that the policy frame influenceshow they themselves view the context of sociality and that it therefore cannot be ignoredas a factor contributing to local imagination and potentiality. Thus, by bringing togethertwo groups that have largely ignored each other – or at least not taken seriously thecontributions the policy and ethnographic frames make to understanding a given commu-nity or indeed influencing that community – such an approach better explains experienceand its subsequent articulation.

Notes1. I got to know Kadyrbek, Nurdin and Kuban while conducting field work in 2004–2005, but

have seen them on subsequent visits, most recently in 2012. All names are pseudonyms.2. While some may be critical of the use of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as analytical categories, it is a

reflection of how Central Asians talk about each other, and even many outside academicconcerns do find utility in these terms. See Rasanayagam (2011), especially chapter 3, andMamdani (2002).

3. For an excellent discussion of the subjunctive use in imagining community connections,though in a different sense, through ritual, see Seligman et al. (2008).

4. The ethnographic context in which I am presenting this description of religion in Kyrgyzstanbegins from work in the country before the 1999 incursions of the Islamic Movement ofUzbekistan (IMU) around which I heard two very different discourses. The official discoursewas one of fear and this was the overwhelming feeling at the time. A more quietly articulateddiscourse was that of hope: that the IMU would bring a better life than that which was beingexperienced. The dynamics of this were complicated because many who saw hope in the IMUwere not religious. The bulk of material for this paper, however, comes from ethnographicresearch conducted between 2004 and 2005 and combines a survey of religious practice thatwas administered in May 2005. (For more detail on this survey see note 26 and the Tables laterin the article.)

5. My use of the term ‘frames’ is not intended to imply that I situate my critique within a schemaof frame analysis per se (see for example Goffman 1974). I accept the basic idea that there are

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distinctions of frames in thought and frames in communication (Druckman 2001a,b), but usethe term colloquially to imply a way of seeing, understanding and interacting with informationand events. Thus I interchangeably discuss frame, view and perspective to argue that aparticular vision implies a certain bias about which we would benefit from being self-reflective.

6. I refer to the 2005 and 2010 overthrows with the word ‘putsch’ because in the case of the2005 overthrow of the Akayev administration no systematic change took place to imply arevolution in any meaningful sense of the word; and while the 2010 overthrow wassignificantly more violent, it remains to be seen if real change takes hold (see Lichbachand Seligman 2000).

7. Examples include: Kamalov (2010); Pannier (2011); ICG (2009); Levy (2009). See also:Thompson and Heathershaw (2005); Heathershaw and Megoran (2011); Montgomery andHeathershaw (2013); Reeves (2005).

8. It is remarkable, of course, that commonness carries an air of being unremarkable and that thevoice of the majority comes to be silenced in its majority.

9. Throughout this piece, I am largely talking about policy and ethnographic frames from awestern perspective (western governments, academics, advisory circles), but I believe theprocess describes the role of bias and agenda more generally. Local Islamophobia, forexample, is generated not only by western policy discourse but also by Soviet policy thatsaw religion as a threat to the state (Froese 2008).

10. In the first chapter of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoléon Bonaparte Marx wrote:‘Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make itout of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand’ (Marx 2004, 3).

11. This includes orientalist critiques, such as Said (1994, 1997) and Varisco (2007).12. See, for example, Devji (2008). The social origins of various movements are often seen locally

as just: Norton (2007), Mitchell (1993).13. There is a growing sense of the importance of public or engaged anthropology: see for

example Besteman and Gusterson (2005); Borofsky (2011); Pelkmans (2013).14. For an excellent engagement with practical knowledge, and from where the idea of a theory of

the rough ground originates, see Dunne (1997).15. Lakoff’s comparison of fire and dangerous things is illustrative of the influence of categories

of danger: see Lakoff (1987).16. Such realities become clear when, for example, talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing

life-saving blood transfusions to avoid eternal damnation. The calculus of the refusing makessense to the Jehovah’s Witness and not to someone else precisely because they do notcategorise danger in the same way.

17. While the war in Afghanistan diminished the presence of the IMU in Central Asia, mostintelligence reporting suggests that it is still active, at least in Afghanistan and Pakistan: seeRoggio (2011).

18. This includes reporters like Alisher Saipov, editor-in-chief of the Uzbek-language paper inKyrgyzstan, Siyesat, who was assassinated in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, in October 2007 for beingoutspoken on human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.

19. In the mid- to late-1990s there was an emphasis on Kyrgyz as identity. By the mid-2000s,economic realities precipitated a recognition in some villages that had dropped Russianlanguage education from their schools of a need to reinstate Russian as an actively taughtlanguage, especially in light of labour migration that makes Russian a practical necessity bothfor advancement and in order to defend themselves against abuses while working as emigrants.During the early 2000s competence in the Kyrgyz language became a political tool to regulatethose who could run for public office.

20. By 2000 these were being taught in schools in Naryn oblast’ (personal observation) (seealso van der Heide 2008, 274). The seven principles are: (1) The undividable unity of thewhole people, its head in one collar, its arm in one sleeve; (2) Accord, friendship andcooperation between nationalities; (3) Ethnic pride and clear conscience; (4) The attainmentof well-being and prosperity through tireless work and advanced industry and science; (5)Humanity, nobility and forgiveness; (6) A harmonious relationship with nature; (7)Supporting the Kyrgyz government and guarding it like the apple of one’s eye. See alsoAkayev (2003).

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21. For more on these types of ritual practices see Aitpaeva, Egemberidieva and Toktogulova(2007); Aitpaeva and Egemberdieva (2009); Aitpaeva (2013).

22. Similarly, the authorities in Uzbekistan have supported Sufism and the rejuvenation of variousSufi sites to foster a type of Islam seen as compatible with the state (see for example Louw2007).

23. In Kyrgyzstan, the State Agency for Religious Affairs works on behalf of the state to foster aversion of Islam compatible with the state. It has the authority of the state and also works withthe agenda of the state. There have been ongoing attempts to standardise and locally accreditIslamic education and worship, with the aim of creating an environment where a Kyrgyz seesthe state as authoritative in shaping the development of public Islam. The state gets involved inpromoting a particular vision of Islam not because of a sense of moral obligation to fosterreligious development, but because of the practical desire to have the population view the stateas religious partner rather than adversary. This, it hopes, will curb public support for anti-government sentiment.

24. Fortunately, there are some ethnographers working on Islam in Central Asia whose work isboth thoughtful and informative (such as Borbieva 2012; Hilgers 2009; Kehl-Bodrogi 2008;Liu 2012; Louw 2007; McBrien 2006; Pelkmans 2007; Rasanayagam 2011; Schwab 2011;Zanca 2011) and others working within the ethnographic frame (such as Igmen 2012; Kamp2006; Khalid 2007; Northrop 2004). Unfortunately, the nuanced message of their work seemsnot to be the dominant message heard in popular media.

25. Stories are significant because the stories we tell impact on our framing of moral truths. For adiscussion of this around three heroic figures – a Muslim saint, tribal chief and king – andinternational actors see Edwards (1996).

26. Naryn oblast’ is mountainous and seen as the most traditionally Kyrgyz region of the country,whereas Osh oblast’ is more populated and infused with Uzbek culture. For the purposes ofthis paper, distinctions between the two regions are not the focus because the stereotyping ofreligion discussed here addresses the country as a whole. While Naryn is a place where peoplelike Nurdin are assumed to live in greatest numbers and Osh where people like Kadyrbek areassumed to live in greatest numbers – and how the two regions get stereotyped – the Muslimas threat and Muslim as tradition live throughout the country. The 189-question survey wasconducted in May 2005 in cities and villages where I had been living and researching for ninemonths. The locations were chosen on the basis of the ‘representativeness’ of the regions andfamiliarity from when I lived and worked in Kyrgyzstan from 1999–2001. The survey wascompleted by 829 individuals of varying ages, selected randomly, and recorded by trainedassistants. For more on the description of the regions and a copy of the survey questions, seeMontgomery (2007).

27. This is higher than the national average because the survey did not include areas like Bishkekand Chui oblasti where one would find more ethnic Russians identifying with OrthodoxChristianity. The percentages, however, do not vary significantly and in both cases reflectthe sense that the country is overwhelmingly Muslim by self-identification, even if thecorollary stereotyping is ‘Muslim, but less so by practice’. There has also been a statesurvey/census that had questions about religion. I of course give preference to my own dataas I was better able to control the collection environment and had a sense that people weremore willing to talk about religion with me, an ethnographer of religion, than with the state,which is not neutral in regard to religion and public life.

28. For more on the role of sound in Islam see Hirschkind (2006).29. Varisco (2005) goes even further than Asad (1986), attacking the representation of Islam by

Geertz (1968), Gellner (1981), Mernissi (1987) and Ahmed (2002).30. As Schielke is right to remind us, sometimes ‘there is too much Islam in the anthropology of

Islam’ (2010, 1) and we need to pay attention to how people construct their everyday lives.

Notes on contributorDavid W. Montgomery is visiting assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at theUniversity of Pittsburgh and director of Program Development for CEDAR – CommunitiesEngaging with Difference and Religion. His research interests include the Balkans, Central Asia,religion, peacebuilding and well-being. Email: dwm@pitt.edu

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