Gender and ethnicity in the Soviet Muslim peripheries: a feminist postcolonial geography of women’s work in the Tajik SSR (1950–1991)

ABSTRACT

This article explores the articulation and experience of Soviet gendered ideology regarding work in the Tajik SSR, one of the Muslim Soviet peripheries, during the post-war period ending with Perestroika. Central Asian women’s work was used for economic purposes, as well as being a key driver for fulfilling the ideological objective of emancipating Central Asian women from religion and tradition. Through a feminist postcolonial geography approach, attentive to questions of discourse and material lived experiences, this article explores the ways in which gender and ethnicity were co-produced by Soviet ideology. Analysis of scientific publications produced by Tajikistani female researchers, and of women’s magazines from the 1950s, is contrasted with ethnographic data on workers from various collective farms and semi-urban places, including ‘work heroines’ (peshqadam). Our findings illustrate the hybrid nature of the Soviet regime, advancing theoretical debates on the use of postcolonial theory in Soviet Central Asia.     

Talismans and figural representation in Islam: a cultural history of images and magic

Aniconism in Islam is one of the obvious presumptions of researchers in the history of Islamic arts. The main question addressed in this study is: What are the conceptions of people living in the earlier centuries of Islam regarding the issues of image and figural art? Or, in broader terms: What is the issue of animal or human representation in art which led to aniconism being enshrined in fiqh (religious jurisprudence)? Drawing upon primary sources, the study establishes that the Muslim mindset of image and figurative art in the early centuries of Islam—traced back to an old belief in the Persian, Egyptian and Ancient Palestinian civilizations—mainly pertained to the images which used to constitute the major elements of sorcery and talismans. Accordingly, aniconism did not proscribe images as aesthetic elements which also serve as the foundations of visual arts; rather, it was pitted against the practice of magicians and talisman makers. The genesis and perpetuation of aniconism in Islam are, therefore, associated with the cultural mentality of magic and talismans in step with the Quran’s explicit stance against polytheism and idolatry.