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的宗教间关系的持续或避免，以及这些引起或引发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个城市的移民少数民族和穆斯林社区进行人种学实地考察。该项目将记录国际化城市生活遗产的活力以及散居社区在其中的作用，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，城市和非城市/非完全城市公民之间）。这样做将为宗教间关系制定一种新的、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行动具有更大的敏感性。首先，该项目将产生关于所研究城市的时间和地理分布的经验数据。我们将通过在原籍国和移徙地点进行文本、档案和视觉研究，绘制时空人流图。其次，来世将调查与历史中心有关的想象力项目是如何产生和维持的，并探索它们如何指向穆斯林亚洲文化遗产的多样性。要做到这一点，我们将通过探索穆斯林和民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重要性，来调查穆斯林亚洲的文化，历史，身份和地理的新兴配置。我们将：采访制作过程中的关键人物，特别关注文化精英（知识分子，音乐家，艺术家，诗人，政治家和活动家）;记录流派（视觉，文学，音乐，烹饪）在那里这种想象力的产生和维持，并探讨人种学的网站（数字，政治，学术和社会），他们在其中执行和消费;通过参观关键地点，并采访相关遗产专家、地方和国家决策者、朝圣者/游客和保管人，探索建筑重建对这些遗址的影响;追踪有形和无形遗产保护知识在想象项目中的应用。第三，鉴于城市中心的宗教多样性水平下降，人们往往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却表明，情况并非如此：例如，从20世纪80年代起，来自阿富汗的穆斯林和锡克教徒商人就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场所--市场、商店和仓库--对散居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，研究连通性的“行为”，以及在维持城市生活的文化和宗教情感方面，跨越差异的隐性行为模式所发挥的作用，我们将重点关注具体的做法，仪式，和社会性的表达。我们将探讨性别、移民历史、世代和阶级地位是否会影响这一技能的分布，探讨它在促进和限制散居地集体城市生活遗产方面所发挥的作用。除了我们的合作伙伴，我们还将与实施遗产项目的组织分享研究结果。（例如阿加汗基金会、教科文组织、人居署和阿富汗文化部），负责管理散居地与祖国的关系（例如阿富汗外交部;）致力于解决地区冲突的机构（例如外交和联邦事务部）;还与所研究的社区和更广泛的公众合作。

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.