Doctoral Dissertation Research: Geography and Identity Among Russia's Buddhist Populations

在当代俄罗斯，苏联时期由国家制定的无神论已被日益增长的宗教信仰所取代。社会科学研究人员发现，俄罗斯社会中宗教信徒的比例显著上升。与此同时，俄罗斯继续就从苏联继承下来的联邦结构进行谈判，这种结构在从共产主义向民主过渡期间促进了名义团体之间身份的领土化。发展起来的民族主义运动有一系列的政治和文化目标，从自治到重新起草语言法。只有在车臣的情况下，少数民族共和国对中心的反对导致了冲突，但总的来说，这些地区在后苏联时期成为中心与边缘讨价还价的关键互动场所。最近，宗教已成为政治行动和抵抗的关键基础，如在第二次车臣战争和北高加索地区持续的冲突中所表现的那样。由于这些和其他离心因素，俄罗斯的长期凝聚力远未得到保证，当未来对国家的挑战出现时，联邦共和国将定位于推动替代的政治和经济项目。本博士论文研究项目将分析宗教和领土作为俄罗斯联邦，卡尔梅克，图瓦和布里亚特三个佛教民族共和国的民族主义动员的预测因素。博士候选人将寻求以下研究问题的答案：(1)三个共和国的名义和俄罗斯国民在多大程度上支持政治自治形式，从俄罗斯联邦结构中的权力增加到自治或独立？(2)具体就名义上的团体而言，后苏联时期修行的佛教徒的宗教复兴程度如何？这种修行与对领土和国家更强的依恋之间是否存在可证实的关系？(3)还有哪些其他因素，包括社会经济地位和对群体间关系的态度，影响对改变每个共和国各自在俄罗斯联邦等级制度中的地位的支持？为了回答这些问题，学生将采用混合方法，将调查结果的定量分析与使用焦点小组的定性方法相结合。研究结果有望证明这三个选定共和国的宗教复兴力量，并进一步探讨宗教在俄罗斯的政治动员力量。与以前关于俄罗斯联邦的国家生存能力和民族-宗教社区的挑战的工作不同，以前的工作主要集中在民族企业家作为政治支持组织者和伊斯兰教作为主要宗教挑战的重要性，该项目将收集居住在联邦佛教民族共和国的个人的调查反馈，以调查这些地区与政治行为最相关的地方性特征。在此过程中，该项目将为动员可能发生的地理、文化和宗教背景提供新的见解，分解俄罗斯的民族-领土划分，以便对三个特别重要的地区进行更深入的研究。更广泛地说，这项研究将探讨宗教认同与以领土为基础的国家认同巩固之间的关系，这是政治地理学文献中研究不足的一个主题。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。本项目由美国国家科学基金会地理与空间科学计划和美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

In contemporary Russia, the state-instituted atheism of the Soviet Union has been replaced by a growing religiosity. Social science researchers have found a significant rise in the proportion of religious believers in Russian society. At the same time, Russia continues to negotiate the federal structure inherited from the USSR, which facilitated the territorialization of identities among titular groups during the transitional period from communism to democracy. The nationalist mobilizations that developed had a range of political and cultural goals, from autonomy to the redrafting of language laws. Only in the case of Chechnya did an ethnic republic's opposition to the center lead to conflict, but taken together, these regions have served as key sites of interaction in center-periphery bargaining during the post-Soviet period. More recently, religion has emerged as a key basis for political action and resistance, as exhibited during the second Chechen war and the ongoing conflict in the North Caucasus. As a result of these and other centrifugal factors, Russia's long-term cohesion is far from assured, and when future challenges to the state emerge, the federal republics will be positioned to promote alternative political and economic projects. This doctoral dissertation research project will analyze religion and territoriality as predictors for nationalist mobilization in the three Buddhist ethnic republics of the Russian Federation, Kalmykia, Tuva, and Buryatia. The doctoral candidate will seek answers to the following research questions: (1) To what extent do the titular and Russian nationals in the three republics support forms of political self-governance, from increased power in Russia's federal structure to autonomy or independence? (2) With respect specifically to titular groups, what is the degree of religious revival among practicing Buddhists in the post-Soviet period, and is there a verifiable relationship between such practices and stronger attachments to territory and nation? (3) What other factors, including socioeconomic status and attitudes regarding intergroup relations, influence support for changes to each of the republics' respective positions in the Russian federal hierarchy? To answer these questions, the student will employ a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative analysis of survey results with a qualitative approach using focus groups. The findings are expected to demonstrate the strength of the religious revival in the three selected republics and further explore religion as a politically mobilizing force in Russia. Diverging from previous work on state viability and the challenge of ethno-religious communities in the Russian Federation, which has primarily focused on the importance of ethnic entrepreneurs as organizers of political support and Islam as the principal religious challenge, this project will collect survey responses from individuals living in the federation's Buddhist ethnic republics in order to investigate the localized characteristics in these regions that are most relevant to political behavior. In doing so, the project will provide new insights into the geographical, cultural, and religious contexts in which mobilization can occur, disaggregating Russia's ethno-territorial divisions for a more in-depth study of three regions of particular importance. More broadly, the research will address the association between religious identity and the consolidation of territorially-based national identities, a topic that is understudied in the literature in political geography. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career. This project is jointly supported by the NSF Geography and Spatial Sciences Program and the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.