Martin Sökefeld

Debating Self, Identity, and Culture in Anthropology

This paper explores relations between “identity” and “self”—concepts that tend to be approached separately in anthropological discourse. In the conceptualization of the self, the “Western” self, characterized as autonomous and egocentric, is generally taken as a point of departure. Non‐Western (concepts of) selves—the selves of the people anthropology traditionally studies—are defined by the negation of these qualities. Similar to anthropological conceptualizations of identity, this understanding of non‐Western selves points exclusively to elements shared with others and not to individual features. Consequently, anthropological discourse diverts attention from actual individuals and selves. A different approach is exemplified by a case from northern Pakistan in a social setting characterized by a plurality of contradictory identities. It is argued that an analysis of how a particular individual acts in situations involving contradictory identities requires a concept of a self as it emerges from the actions of individuals that is capable managing the respectively shared identities. Besides any culture‐specific attributes, this self is endowed with reflexivity and agency. This concept of self is a necessary supplement to the concept of culture in anthropology and should be regarded as a human universal.

Alevism Online: Re-Imagining a Community in Virtual Space

Just like physical space, cyberspace, the cultural and social space evolving on the basis of computer-mediated communication, has differentiated into a number of different landscapes (Kollock and Smith, “Communities in Cyberspace”), such as electronic bulletin boards, discussion lists, chat rooms, and homepages, each offering its respective resources, lines of communication, and ecological niches to a rapidly increasing number of users or “cyber-citizens.” Within these landscapes, social and cultural aggregates are developing, connecting people and creating cultural meaning systems almost independent of the constraints of real time and space. By now, a vast literature discussing these issues exists. And yet cyberspace is not disconnected from “real life.” Internet shops, for instance, are not content with virtual success only (although until recently the stock market prices of newly founded enterprises in this sector gave the impression that “real value” in terms of turnover and profit was not what mattered most). Cyberspace is not a parallel universe. Most activities in its landscape, rather, aim at real social, economic, cultural, or political relations. They intend transformations in our real world. Books and papers discussing the new social and cultural spaces engendered through the Internet often ignore such transformations and interconnections, focusing instead on relations within cyberspace; for example, on those referred to by the term “virtual community.” The exploration of real interconnections, however, is the topic of my article, whose motivating question asks how a “real community” makes use of virtual space. The Alevi presence in cyberspace—the main focus of this article—has emerged largely from the Alevi diaspora. Here, I will survey the presence of Alevis on the World Wide Web and explore the topography of their Webscape. Drawing on the findings about xxxxxxxxxxxx * Web sites included in this study are listed in a “Web Sites Cited” list at the end of the paper and are referenced within the text with a lowercase “w.” Thus, for example, Web site 40 is referred to in the text as “w40.”

Rumours and Politics on the Northern Frontier: The British, Pakhtun Wali and Yaghestan

This paper deals with the British policy towards an area adjacent to the Gilgit Agency on the ‘northern frontier’ of British India during the years of 1914 and 1915. It highlights some aspects of the relationships between the British and the inhabitants of this area which was called ‘Yaghestan’ at that time. But my purpose is not simply to offer a contribution to the regional history of a rather neglected part of the Western Himalaya in colonial times. More importantly, I intend to show how the British policy toward that country was entangled in rumours of local as well as almost global scale. Both local rumours, referring to revolts within the area, and global ones relating to the First World War, reporting that the German Kaiser together with his people had converted to Islam and joined the Turkish Caliph in jihad against the British, were perceived as highly threatening by the local British officers on the grounds of their construing the people of Yaghestan as most unreliable tribals, characterized especially by their ‘fanatical’ adherence to Islam. I will show that in spite of all intelligence efforts the British remained unable to subject these ‘fanatical others’ to the colonial regime of control and information. Rumour, as a multidirectional, uncontrolled form of communication, effectively intervened in the British strategies of power, rendering their colonial informational regime in that area almost impotent.

Kashmiris in Britain: A Political Project or a Social Reality?

It is estimated that 70% of the total Pakistani population in the UK is of Kashmiri origin (Bunting 2005). However, in the 2001 Census, only about 22,000 individuals who ticked the box “other” in the ethnicity section defined themselves as Kashmiri, in spite of an unofficial estimate of 500,000 persons of Kashmiri origin in the UK.

Identität – ethnologische Perspektiven

Identitat ist fur die Ethnologie, wie fur andere Disziplinen auch, seit den 1970er Jahren zu einem zentralen Konzept geworden. Die Ethnologie entwickelt sich in enger Auseinandersetzung mit den benachbarten Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften und, in Teilbereichen, auch der Psychologie, und so gibt es wohl keine vollig eigenstandige Perspektive der Ethnologie auf Identitat, sondern eher Uberlappungen und wechselseitige Anstose. Aber man kann doch einige Besonderheiten der ethnologischen Diskussion(en) von Identitat benennen. Einleitend mochte ich zunachst auf drei Punkte verweisen. Ausgehend von Erik Eriksens grundlegender Bestimmung von Identitat als „sowohl ein dauerndes inneres Sich-Selbst-Gleichsein [als auch] ein dauerndes Teilhaben an bestimmten gruppenspezifischen Charakterzugen“(Eriksen 1997: 124) kann der kollektive Aspekt von Identitat vom individuellen unterschieden werden. Die Ethnologie hat sich mit beiden Aspekten befasst, und zwar in zwei getrennten Strangen der Debatte und Theoriebildung, die sich bis vor wenigen Jahren kaum beruhrten.

Alevi Dedes in the German Diaspora

Im Rahmen von Diasporastudien diskutiert dieser Artikel die sich wandelnde Stellung von dedes, der religiosen Spezialisten des Alevitentums. Das Alevitentum entstand als eine heterodoxe Tradition in der Turkei. In der Folge von Arbeitsmigration entwickelte sich eine alevitische Diaspora in Deutschland. Der Text zeigt auf, wie als Konsequenz einer neuen alevitischen Identitatspolitik, die in den nationalen Kontexten sowohl der Turkei als auch Deutschlands entstand, dedes als die zentrale Institution des Alevitentums von Freiwilligenorganisationen verdrangt wurden, und untersucht die daraus folgenden Autoritatskonflikte. Die Stellung und Praktiken der dedes in Deutschland wird durch biographische Skizzen von drei dedes illustriert. Der Artikel endet mit dem Schluss, dass Diaspora-Kultur nicht losgelost von den nationalen Kontexten betrachtet werden kann, in denen sie situiert ist.