Что нам делать с «мусульманской субъективностью»? Перспективы и «ловушки» исследовательского подхода в историографическом контексте

Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов. Серия: История России. 2023. Т. 22. № 2. С. 174–187.

Bessmertnaya O.

The author discusses, in the historiographical context, problems posed by the growing wave of research on the “history of Muslim subjectivity.” Noting the paradoxical danger of the reorientalization of and the loss of historicity in Islamic studies, the author insists on the importance of the very designation of the emerging approach and suggests as a more correct term “history of Muslim subjectivities”. Some aspects of the nowadays’ interpretations of the interaction between the individual and the social and cultural in history, of the role of agency and subjecthood of historical actors are considered, as well as the correlation between persona studies and studies of the “techniques of the self.” Proceeding from the approaches that presume the “return of the subject,” the author emphasizes the expediency, for the studies of Muslim subjectivities, of microhistorical approaches, in particular, the “pragmatic turn” and the Russian version of microhistory with its characteristic attention to the individual and its complex vision of the historical context.

Keywords: индивид, микроистория, agency, агентность, microhistory, the individual, construction of the subject, muslim identity, конструирование субъекта, идентичность мусульманина

Publication based on the results of: Traditional Foundations of Modern Oriental Societies: Institutions, Narratives, Practices (2023)