ABSTRACT
When people talk about religion, they frequently reference an experience – or a series of experiences – that explains how they make sense of religion and its place in the world. Sometimes this experience is revelatory – of an insight gained that explains one’s life trajectory – and sometimes it is more dismissive of religion all together. At different levels – local, national, international, as well as individual and collective – experience gets used to instantiate positions that are presented as authoritative and overlooked as being biased. In the case of Central Asia, Islam is often experienced in ways that impact understandings of security. Often, security discussions are framed at national and international levels that are guided by assumptions about the role of Islam in society which can seem quite removed from local understandings of Islam and security. Ethnographers working on the region have provided nuanced understandings of these tensions, and are here encouraged to engage beyond the confines of traditional scholarship to hold accountable characterizations of religion and security that are incongruent with the experiences of our interlocutors.
