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“Why Don’t You Go to the Mosque?” Epistemic Deference and Everyday Religious Practices in Hui Muslim Communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2020

David R. Stroup Open the ORCID record for David R. Stroup [Opens in a new window]
David R. Stroup*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The study of everyday ethnicity emphasizes the importance of seeking the perspectives of the masses regarding processes of ethnic identity formation and ethnic boundary maintenance. In contrast to elite-centered approaches, everyday ethnicity attempts to understand how ethnicity is constructed from the bottom-up. However, seeking the everyday presents researchers with a number of distinct challenges. Prevalent among these obstacles is a tendency of non-elite respondents to direct scholars to elite authorities when responding to questions about ethnic identity, claiming they lack expertise or qualifications to speak on the subject. This epistemic deference toward elite sources may be particularly acute in ethno-religious communities, where the hierarchies of religious orders may reinforce the gulf of “knowledge” between clergy and lay believers. This article examines the problem of epistemic deference through a case study of everyday ethnicity in urban Hui Muslim communities in China. Drawing on data collected over the course of 152 interviews and numerous ethnographic observations conducted in four cities in China (Beijing, Jinan, Yinchuan, and Xining) between July 2015 and July 2016, the article illustrates the challenges posed by epistemic deference to field researchers in religious communities.

Keywords

everyday ethnicityeveryday religionHui MuslimsIslamChina
Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 48 , Special Issue 6: Special Issue on Everyday Nationalism in World Politics , November 2020 , pp. 983 - 999
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Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2020

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