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

在当代俄罗斯，国家制定的苏联无神论已经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，俄罗斯继续就继承自苏联的联邦结构进行谈判，在从共产主义向民主的过渡时期，这种结构为名义团体之间的身份划分提供了便利。发展起来的民族主义动员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，一个民族共和国对中央的反对才会导致冲突，但综合起来，这些地区一直是后苏联时期中心与边缘讨价还价的关键互动地点。最近，宗教已成为政治行动和抵抗的关键基础，在第二次车臣战争和北高加索持续的冲突中表现出这一点。由于这些和其他离心性因素，俄罗斯的长期凝聚力还远未得到保证，当国家未来面临的挑战出现时，联邦共和国将处于推动替代政治和经济项目的地位。这一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米基亚、图瓦和布里亚提亚三个佛教民族共和国民族主义动员的预测因素。博士生将寻求以下研究问题的答案：(1)三个共和国的名义上的国民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权力的增加到自治或独立？(2)特别是关于名义上的群体，后苏联时期修行佛教徒的宗教复兴程度如何，这种做法与对领土和国家的更强烈依恋之间是否存在可证实的关系？(3)哪些其他因素，包括社会经济地位和对群体间关系的态度，影响了对每个共和国在俄罗斯联邦等级制度中各自地位变化的支持？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。调查结果预计将展示三个选定共和国宗教复兴的力量，并进一步探索宗教作为一种政治动员力量在俄罗斯的作用。以前关于国家生存能力和俄罗斯联邦族裔-宗教社区挑战的工作主要侧重于少数民族企业家作为政治支持组织者的重要性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答复，以调查这些地区与政治行为最相关的本地化特征。通过这样做，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，以便更深入地研究三个特别重要的地区。更广泛地说，这项研究将探讨宗教认同和以领土为基础的国家认同的巩固之间的联系，这是政治地理学文献中未被研究的一个主题。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。该项目由NSF地理与空间科学项目和NSF国际科学与工程办公室共同支持。

In contemporary Russia, the state-instituted atheism of the Soviet Union has been replaced by a growing religiosity.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.