Lived Islam in Central Asia

The University of Freiburg and Nazarbayev University are jointly organizing an international summer school on ‘Lived Islam in Central Asia’, supported by the Volkswagen Foundation. It will
take place from September 14-25 2023 in Kazakhstan and is aimed at advanced Master students, PhD students and post-doc researchers of different disciplinary backgrounds from Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), who are conducting research or have a strong interest in Islam in Central Asia. The participation is fully funded.

During the summer school, we want to follow a transdisciplinary approach towards Islam in Central Asia which allows us to move beyond discipline-bound, Western-centered concepts of Islam. Therefore, we include and aim to integrate different theoretical and methodological inputs from the disciplines of Social/Cultural Anthropology, Islamic Studies, Political Science, History and others. This allows us to capture the embeddedness of Islam as a ‘lived religion’ in everyday life, i.e. relating to economical, political and social aspects of societies in Central Asia.
Apart from a transdisciplinary dialogue, we want to foster an exchange between local and Western thoughts on Islam in Central Asia. This will not only happen through discussions taking place during the summer school, but also by forming research tandems among the heterogenous group of participants.
The program of the summer school will include lectures and seminars by both German and Central Asian scholars, several field trips around Astana and small tandem research projects. Besides, the participants will spend a weekend at Burabay National Park and conclude the summer school with participating at ESCAS Conference (European Society for Central Asian Studies) in Almaty.

To apply, please send the following documents to lisa.hoehn@ethno.uni-freiburg.de by June 19th 2023:

• First name, last name, and title
• Occupation, affiliation
• Motivation letter (1 page)
• Place of departure to the summer school
• CV

In case of any further questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via e-mail.