Possession and exorcism in the Muslim migrant context - nagranie z seminarium

This presentation is based on the fieldwork carried out in Moscow among Muslim migrants. The research is focused on the practices of ritual healing and expelling djinn in the context of migration and urban post-secular environment. I am interested in self-reflection and introspection of all the participants of the treatment – a mullah, his patients, their relatives, and even opponents to these Muslim practices. In this study, it is not my intention to delve too deeply into the analysis of what possession is or determine its causes, but rather to look at specific situations from my field work through the lens of modernity, morality, authority and precarity, in order to attempt to present the experience of possession and my informants’ struggle against it in all its richness and complexity.

Dmitriy Oparin is an anthropologist. He holds a Candidate of Historical Sciences degree from Moscow State University. He is Senior Lecturer in the Ethnology Department of the History Faculty at Moscow State University and a researcher at the Institute for Social Policy at the Higher School of Economics. His Candidate thesis (2015) examined contemporary ritual space in coastal Chukotka, where he has done fieldwork (2011–2012, 2019). Since 2013 he has been researching the anthropology of Islam. He has carried out fieldwork in Russia (Moscow Region, Yamal, Tomsk, Irkutsk), France, Belgium, and Germany. Recent publications include: “Spiritual authority and religious introspection among Muslim migrants in Western Siberia” (Problems of Post-Communism, 2019); “Locals and immigrants on the Yamal Peninsula. Social boundaries and variations in migratory experience” (Asian Ethnicity, 2018); and “Migration and contemporary Muslim space in Moscow. Contextualizing North Caucasian loud dhikr and the religious practices of Central Asian ‘Folk Mullas’” (Contemporary Islam, 2018). His paper “Possession and exorcism in the Muslim migrant context,” based on two years of research in Moscow Region among Tajik mullahs specializing in healing with Qu’ran is forthcoming.

SEMINARIA NAUKOWE IEiAK - w trakcie seminariów badania prezentują pracownicy instytutu, a także antropolodzy i przedstawiciele pokrewnych dyscyplin z kraju i ze świata. To okazja do zapoznania się z najnowszymi badaniami i swobodnej dyskusji w kameralnej atmosferze. Spotkania są otwarte dla publiczności. Serdecznie zapraszamy wszystkich zainteresowanych: zarówno badaczy, jak i studentów, absolwentów oraz wszelkie osoby, którym bliska jest tematyka seminariów. Więcej o seminariach

Nagrania seminariów

Antropologia dziś - otwarte seminaria naukowe – zadanie finansowane w ramach umowy 973/P-DUN/2018 ze środków Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę. Projekt jest realizowany przez Stowarzyszenie Pracownia Etnograficzna im. Witolda Dynowskiego we współpracy z Instytutem Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej UW.