Mahalla

This study examines gap—traditional reciprocal associations common in Central Asia. Gap is an unofficial, regular get-together of people of similar age bound by socially acknowledged ties. The study argues that gap
represents a communal type of civil society featuring many differences from analogous groups in Western liberal societies. Gap may effect social consciousness and facilitate mobilisation. The study also analyses modern forms of gap such as joint savings funds, female-only get-togethers, and internet-based gap.

Under the new conditions of independence wedding ceremonies in Uzbekistan have increasingly diversified along growing social and economic divides. Recent state measures to curb ritual expenditures follow the furrow of a long tradition of criticism against ritual prodigality which, however, falls short of its self-set target of enforcing more ‘rational’ rituals. Based on fieldwork conducted in the Ferghana Valley, this paper sheds new light on the controversy around ‘excessive ritual expenditures’ by discussing tensions in local practices arising from changing livelihoods and consumption patterns on the one hand, and, on the other, from an ambivalent state policy that aims at containing ritual expenditures and social polarization, while also promoting an ideal of modern wedding that undermines the very aim of the policy.

This article analyzes the development of the Egyptian workers' movement in the face of the 25 January Revolution through the notion of dialectical pedagogy. This Gramscian concept is extended by a Vygotskyan analysis of the reciprocal learning processes, which stimulate a proletarian activity system to overcome its economic-corporate predicament. The concrete case study of the Mahalla strike movement (2006–2008) elucidates the transformative-instructive dynamics of autoprolepsis and heterolepsis and the importance of solidarity in developing the worker Subject. The 25 January Revolution expanded the proletarian Zone of Proximal Development and created new possibilities and constraints for the development of the workers' movement.

For the sake of a modest contribution to Crossroads Studies, this article argues that state and society in Tajikistan is embedded into personal (kinship, patron-client, etc.) networks of people. These networks structure social interactions by crosscutting institutional and spatial boundaries and frameworks. Notably, the networks are not stable per se especially in the aftermath of the post-Soviet and post-Civil War transformations of Tajik society. Rather, the case study of mahalla shows that the elites and their local mediators mobilize the material and immaterial resources of local people, religious and state institutions, and international donors to enforce these contested networks. Especially due to the state elites’ limited material and military power, therefore, there is a reliance on local mediators, including family elders and religious notables, who shape the mahalla’s committee. The concept of ‘ontological security’ explains how mahalla mediation is an effective strategy to frequently mention about chaos, uncertainty and insecurity.

Les non musulmans habitaient au sein de la société musulmane en Iran pendant XIXe et XXe siècles. Mais était-ce un vrai mélange ou seulement un partage de la terre sans rien d’autre en commun ? Il y avait des frontières visibles et invisibles entre eux, néanmoins, comme d’autres frontières, celles-ci étaient imprécises et parfois inconnues.
Les musulmans voulaient donc se différencier des non musulmans, des « autres », pour les raisons diverses, y compris pour les mieux contrôler. Les non musulmans voulaient créer leur propre communauté (communauté de « nous ») pour leur sécurité et s’éloigner des musulmans pour réduire des troubles.  L’ensemble de tout ce qu’on faisait avec ces groupes et qu’on forçait à faire permettait une identification.
Comment identifiait-on les non musulmans dans la société musulmane iranienne ? Cet article étudie les éléments qui aidaient la communauté musulmane à identifier les non musulmans ; les quartiers séparés, les vêtements différents, les métiers, etc.,  et les éléments que les non musulmans employaient pour se distinguer d’autres ; la langue, les institutions, etc. Il va également regarder les codes qui venaient de toutes ces distinctions et leurs conséquences. L’article étudie également l’influence de la révolution Constitutionnelle de 1906 sur cette situation ; une révolution après laquelle l’Iran a eu son premier parlement et a essayé d’établir sa Constitution d’après l’égalité des Iraniens.

From the Safavids’ time onward, in big cities like Isfahan, Shiraz and Tabriz, non-Muslims lived in separated areas, called quarters (Jewish quarter, Armenian quarter or Zoroastrian quarter). These quarters were like small towns in the heart of a big city, with their own characters. They were mainly built to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims. The formation of these quarters was somehow because of the potential violence. The Muslims wanted to establish non-Muslim quarters to have an exact target and the non-Muslims preferred to live together to protect each other at the time of the events. The quarters were indeed the theatre of the violent acts.
During the Moharram and Safar, there were attacks to these quarters to pillage the houses and to injure or kill the residents. Presumably, whatever happened during one year, all the frictions, enmities and revenges, were amplified during these two months. That would be worse in the years of famine or cholera- the signs of the wrath of God which was caused by the non-believers, the non-Muslims.  The attacks became such a “tradition” that non-Muslims and non-Iranians used to prepare themselves to face the special days. Even the army and the governors of the cities were alerted and would make arrangements to decrease the troubles as much as possible.
This article is looking at these events with a study on the documents of three main sources: Iranian Foreign Affairs Archives, British National Archives and French Foreign Affairs Archives. The paper tries to give some analysis of the events through the documents, employing the theory of “otherness”, and the idea of “the scapegoat”.