Negotiating Moral Life: Intra-Religious Conflict and Everyday Ethics in Ghana

这项拟议的研究探讨了加纳的宗教内部冲突。通过对当前伊斯兰人类学辩论的批判性参与，它将挑战穆斯林的同质分类，并破坏特权框架，提出一个更加关注伦理复杂性的新框架。伊斯兰教和道德生活的学术，虽然是广泛的和反思的，但不适当地赋予了现代性在决定和理解道德生活方面的作用。关于对伊斯兰运动的忠诚、与无形事物产生共鸣的作用以及在谈判合法性和冲突的背景下过上美好生活意味着什么的概念，这些问题对于破坏这种稳定至关重要。这些问题对于理解穆斯林的道德生活至关重要，在这种背景下，他们通常被视为（1）通过“激进化”过程对现代性做出反应，（2）主要受到现代价值观所决定的道德规范的影响。本文将认为，新的和更细致入微的角度关于道德生活和伊斯兰教可以通过分散这一轴的现代性。以这种方式扩大道德生活的问题，拟议的研究旨在考虑宗教内冲突在塑造伊斯兰道德生活的日常互动中发挥主要作用的方式，通过不主要受现代价值观约束的动态。因此，本论文所要探讨的关键研究问题是：“宗教内部冲突的经验如何塑造道德生活？“在新冠肺炎疫情允许的情况下，将通过人种学实地考察收集初步研究。上述问题适合民族志，因为对日常话语、宗教仪式、习俗和讲座以及当地媒体的观察将在揭示日常伦理的生活现实方面发挥重要作用。例如，瑟斯顿注意到，在萨尔科奇社区的规范分裂经常发生在星期五布道。因此，必须参加星期五的布道（通常用阿拉伯语和重复的英语进行），沿着课程和讲座，并与清真寺内外的参与者互动。实地工作将在阿克拉和塔马利进行，因为它们将提供轴心和参与的地方，以研究宗教内部的互动以及政治和权力的背景，并为接触参与者和日常空间提供基础。具体的机构包括阿克拉富尔坎国家清真寺，该清真寺设有国家首席伊玛目办公室（Tijaniyya中心枢纽和加纳穆斯林的伊斯兰代表），以及塔马利的阿法阿朱拉清真寺（“先知的信徒”组织运动的一个关键地点，以著名的加纳萨勒伊玛目命名）。这些机构是星期五布道和讲座的主要场所，是公共的，一般都可以进入。将与清真寺的伊玛目联系，如果同意，一旦解释和讨论实地工作的细节，他们将充当守门人。此外，如果以透明为理由允许机构访问，则将要求经常去清真寺的人参加访谈和观察，如果他们在确保参与者保密后表示同意的话。虽然英语是加纳的国家语言和最常用的语言，但初学者的Dagbani课程将在实地考察之前通过免费的在线倡议learndagbani.org进行，因为它与英语一起被广泛使用，作为Tamale的当地语言。

This proposed research explores intra-religious conflict in Ghana. Through a critical engagement with current debates in the anthropology of Islam, it will challenge homogenous categorisations of Muslims, and destabilise privileged frameworks, proposing a novel framework that will pay more attention to ethical complexity. The scholarship of Islam and moral life, whilst expansive and reflective, unduly privileges the role of modernity in determining and understanding moral life. Questions concerning loyalty towards Islamic movements, the role of resonance with the unseen, and notions of what it means to live a good life against a background of negotiating legitimacy and conflict, are essential in destabilising this privileging. These questions are central for understanding the moral lives of Muslims in contexts in which they are generally seen as (1) responding to modernity through a process of "radicalisation", and (2) impacted primarily by ethical norms determined by the values of modernity. This thesis will argue that new and more nuanced perspectives concerning moral life and Islam can be obtained by decentring this axis of modernity. Broadening the question of moral life in this way, the proposed research aims to consider the ways in which intra-religious conflict plays a primary role in shaping the everyday interactions of Islamic moral life, through dynamics which are not principally bound by modern values. Therefore, the key research question this thesis seeks to address is, "How is moral life shaped in the experience of intra-religious conflict?"The Covid-19 situation permitting, primary research will be gathered through ethnographic fieldwork. The aforementioned questions lend themselves to ethnography, as observations of everyday discourses, religious ceremonies, practices and lectures, and local media, will play an essential role in uncovering the lived realities of everyday ethics. For example, Thurston notes that canonical splits in the Salafi community often occur during Friday sermons. Therefore, it will be essential to attend Friday sermons (usually performed in Arabic and repeated English), along with classes and lectures, and interact with participants within and outside mosques. Fieldwork will be carried out in Accra and Tamale, as they will provide localities of axis and engagement to examine intra-religious interactions and the contextualisation of politics and power, and a base to access participants and spaces of the everyday. Specific institutions include the Accra Furqan National Mosque, which houses the Office of the National Chief Imam (the Tijaniyya central hub and Islamic representative of Muslims in Ghana), and the Afa Ajura Mosque in Tamale (a key location of the ASwJ movement, named after the eminent Ghanaian Salafi imam). These institutions, the primary sites of Friday sermons and lectures, are public and generally accessible. Mosque imams will be contacted, and if consent is given, would act as gatekeepers once the details of the fieldwork are explained and discussed. Further, if institutional access is granted on the grounds of transparency, regular mosque-goers will be asked to participate in interviews and observation, if consent is given after participant confidentiality is assured. Although English is the national and most spoken language in Ghana, beginners' Dagbani classes will be taken through the free online initiative learndagbani.org prior to fieldwork, as it is widely spoken alongside English as the local language of Tamale.