Sufi Civilities – Religious Authority and Political Change with Dr. Annika Schmeding

Описание: Dr. Annika Schmeding presented her newest book "Sufi Civilities" on February 20th.

https://islamicstudiescenter.gmu.edu/...

Despite its pervasive reputation as a place of religious extremes and war, Afghanistan has a complex and varied religious landscape where elements from a broad spectrum of religious belief vie for a place in society. It is also one of the birthplaces of a widely practiced variant of Islam: Sufism. Contemporary analysts suggest that Sufism is on the decline due to war and the ideological hardening that results from societies in conflict. However, in “Sufi Civilities,” Annika Schmeding argues that this is far from a truthful depiction. Members of Sufi communities have worked as resistance fighters, aid workers, businesspeople, actors, professors, and daily workers in creative and ingenious ways to keep and renew their networks of community support. The talk will explore how the focus on marginalized groups enriches our understanding of lived Islam in Afghanistan, and how religious networks take on important civil society roles, filling the gaps left by ineffective, or even corrupt, government institutions. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in multiple Sufi orders and poetry teaching circles among Sufi teachers and students, but also critics of Sufi circles and former government policy makers of various regimes, the talk will delve into areas ranging from the education sector to the arts, from everyday poetic expressions and intangible cultural heritage disputes in the media, to political contestations.

Dr. Annika Schmeding is Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and a Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). She earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Boston University (2020) and was a Post-doctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Society of Fellows (2020-2023). She is a current lead researcher in the Dutch parliamentary inquiry investigating the NATO-led war in Afghanistan (2001-2021).

As a cultural anthropologist with over a decade of research experience in Afghanistan and the wider region, her work examines the impact of war, violence and migration on civilians, with particular focus on minorities. Her professional experience ranges from research for private sector companies, NGOs and national governments to expert testimony in international court cases.

She is the author of “Sufi Civilities: Religious Authority and Political Change in Afghanistan” (Stanford University Press, 2023) and co-editor of “Frontier Ethnographies: Deconstructing Research Experiences in Afghanistan and Pakistan” (Berghahn Press, 2024). Her work has been published in leading journals such as the Afghanistan Journal, HAU – Journal of Ethnographic Theory, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI), the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) and cultural magazines such as AEON, Zenith and Cabinet Magazine.