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Tracing creative moments: The emergence of translocal dervish cults in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Henig, David (2014) Tracing creative moments: The emergence of translocal dervish cults in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Focaal- European Journal of Anthropology, 69 (2). pp. 97-110. ISSN 0920-1297. (doi:10.3167/fcl.2014.690107) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:49165)

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The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2014.690107

Abstract

In postsocialist and postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina, popular dervish cults are re-emerging after several decades of (semi)clandestine existence due to official bans and repression imposed by the Yugoslav state socialist governmentality. This article explores how an absence of divine knowledge ensuing from this disruptive history—strongly felt among various Bosnian dervishes today—is transformed into spiritual creativity and an improvisatory dynamic mediated by charismatic sheikhs. It traces “creative moments” leading toward the formation of a Bosnian dervish cult and its realignment with translocal networks of dervish lodges to explore the dynamics of divine knowledge and its creation inside these networks. The ethnography presented here suggests that we move a step beyond mere sociological descriptions of how translocal cults are organized across distance to explore in a more nuanced way the historicity and the dynamics of how divine knowledge is (re)created and idiosyncratically appropriated within these networks.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.3167/fcl.2014.690107
Uncontrolled keywords: ABSENCE; BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA; CREATIVITY; DERVISH CULTS; KNOWLEDGE
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion
G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation
Depositing User: David Henig
Date Deposited: 26 Jun 2015 14:07 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 10:58 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/49165 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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