The Afterlives of Urban Muslim Asia: Alternative Imaginaries of Society and Polity

来世将研究穆斯林和非穆斯林之间宗教间关系的持续或避免，以及这些关系引发或唤起共同的城市情感的模式。我们将在伦敦、纽约、维也纳、耶路撒冷、伊斯坦布尔和维也纳以及4个选定城市中的3个城市，在移民、少数民族和穆斯林社区中进行人种学田野调查。该项目将记录国际大都市生活遗产的活力和散居社区在这些方面的作用，并分析在穆斯林亚洲，遗产项目如何再现社会边界(例如，散居社区和定居社区之间，以及城市和非城市/非完全城市公民之间)。这样做将形成一种处理宗教间关系的新的、不同的方法，阐明共同依恋城市中心的重要性，并使今后在物质和非物质遗产保护和修复领域的干预措施更加敏感。首先，该项目将生成关于被研究城市的时间和地理分散的经验数据。我们将通过在原籍国和移民地点进行文字、档案和视觉研究，绘制人员在空间和时间上的流动情况。其次，《来世》将调查与历史中心有关的想象项目是如何产生和持续的，并探索它们如何指向亚洲穆斯林文化想象的多样性。为此，我们将通过探索穆斯林和种族宗教少数群体之间的关系和交流对当今该地区想象力的意义，来调查穆斯林亚洲的文化、历史、身份和地理的新格局。我们将：采访创作想象力的主要参与者，特别是文化精英(知识分子、音乐家、艺术家、诗人、政治家和活动家)；记录产生和维持这种想象力的流派(视觉、文学、音乐、烹饪)，并从民族志角度探索这些想象力的表演和消费场所(数字、政治、学术和社会)；通过参观关键遗址，探索建筑重建对这些想象力的影响；并采访相关遗产专家、地方和国家政策制定者、朝圣者/游客和保管人；追踪想象力在有关物质和非物质遗产保护的项目中的使用情况。第三，鉴于城市中心宗教多样性水平的下降，人们通常认为，丝绸之路时代穆斯林和非穆斯林商人之间的商业关系不再重要。然而，我们最近的实地调查表明情况并非如此：例如，自上世纪80年代以来，来自阿富汗的穆斯林和锡克教徒在伦敦和莫斯科进行了互动。为了探索这种宗教间的商业关系，我们将在关键的贸易地点--市场、商店和仓库--与散居海外的商人进行深入的民族志工作，并以商人自传和公司记录的形式探索文献和档案材料。第四，为了研究连通性的作用，以及跨越不同界限的默契模式在维持城市生活的文化和宗教敏感性方面所起的作用，我们将重点关注散居社区中特定的实践、仪式和社会性的表达。我们将询问性别、移民历史、世代和阶级地位是否影响这项技能的分布，探索它在促进和限制散居城市集体生活遗产方面所起的作用。除了我们的合作伙伴，我们还将与实施遗产项目的组织(例如阿加汗基金会、联合国教科文组织、联合国人居署和阿富汗文化部)分享研究结果，这些组织管理侨民与家园的关系(例如阿富汗外交部；)，致力于地区冲突(例如外交和联邦事务部)；也与正在研究的社区和更广泛的公众分享研究结果。

Afterlives will research the persistence or avoidance of interreligious relations between Muslims and non-Muslims and the modes by which these elicit or invoke shared urban sensibilities. We will conduct ethnographic fieldwork amongst migrant minority and Muslim communities in London, New York, Vienna, Jerusalem, Istanbul and Vienna and in 3 of the 4 selected cities. The project will document the vitality of legacies of cosmopolitan urban living and the role in these of diasporic communities, and analyse in Muslim Asia how projects of heritage reproduce social boundaries (e.g. between diasporic and settled communities, and urban and non-urban/ not fully urban citizens). Doing so will develop a new and different approach to interreligious relationships that illuminates the importance of shared attachment to urban centres, and enables greater sensitivity in future interventions in the field of tangible and intangible heritage preservation and restoration. First, the project will generate empirical data on the temporal and geographic dispersal of the cities under-study. We will map flows of people through space and time by conducting textual, archival and visual research in countries of origin and sites of migration. Second, Afterlives will investigate how projects of imagination relating to historic centres are produced and sustained, and explore how they point to diversity in Muslim Asia's cultural imaginaries. To do so we will investigate emergent configurations of culture, history, identity and geography in Muslim Asia by exploring the significance of relationships and exchanges between Muslim and ethno-religious minorities to imagination in the region today. We will: interview key actors in the production of imaginaries, focusing especially on cultural elites (intellectuals, musicians, artists, poets, politicians and activists); record the genres (visual, literary, musical, culinary) where such imaginations are generated and sustained and explore ethnographically the sites (digital, political, scholarly, and social) in which they are performed and consumed; explore the implications of architectural reconstruction on such imaginaries by visiting key sites, and interview relevant heritage specialists, local and national policy-makers, pilgrims/tourists, and custodians; trace the use in projects of imagination of knowledge about tangible and intangible heritage preservation. Third, given declining levels of religious diversity in urban centres, it is oft assumed that Silk Road-era commercial relationships between Muslim and non-Muslim merchants are no longer of relevance. Yet our recent fieldwork suggests otherwise: Muslim and Sikh traders from Afghanistan interacted from the 1980s onwards in London and Moscow, for example. To explore such interreligious commercial relationships we will carry out in-depth ethnographic work with diasporic merchants in key trading sites - markets, shops and warehouses - and explore documentary and archival material in the form of autobiographies of merchants and company records.Fourth, to research the 'doing' of connectivity, and the role played by tacit modes of acting across lines of difference in sustaining cultural and religious sensibilities of urban living, we will focus on specific practices, rituals, and expressions of sociality in diaspora communities. We will ask if gender, migration histories, generation, and class position influence the distribution of this skill, exploring the role it has played in facilitating and constraining legacies of collective urban living in diasporas.Beyond our partners, we will share findings with organisations that implement heritage projects (e.g. Aga Khan Foundation, UNESCO, UN Habitat, and Ministry of Culture, Afghanistan), that manage diaspora-homeland relations (e.g. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Afghanistan;) that work on regional conflicts (e.g. Foreign and Commonwealth Office); also with the communities under study and broader publics.