Watchingclone: brazilian soap operas and muslimness in kyrgyzstan

Abstract

In 2004 Clone, a Brazilian soap opera that featured Moroccans and Brazilians as main characters, broadcast throughout post-Soviet Central Asia. The program rose to tremendous popularity in the Kyrgyzstani town of Bazaar-Korgon partly due to the romanticism of its imagery. The town's residents said they were so taken by the soap opera because it was the first fictionalized program that featured Muslims as main characters that had aired in the post-Soviet period. While the rather orientalized images featured in the serial can be read as highly stereotypical, Bazaar-Korgonians nonetheless utilized the soap to widen conceptualizations of what "true" Muslimness could be. Some even used it to support their efforts at religious piety. The soap opera was certainly not a religious object. Nevertheless, residents utilized it in explicitly religious projects. This forces us to consider the role that such ambiguously classifiable objects-those that fall outside of the undeniably religious/non-religious dialectic-play in "doing religion."

The Institutionalization of Mobility: Well-being and Social Hierarchies in Central Asian Translocal Livelihoods

“…Given that many contemporary Tajik Muslims aim for a connection to the wider Islamic world beyond the narrow confinements of their state-controlled religious environment in Tajikistan, the opportunities of Habiba's family to position her daughter beneficially in Dushanbe' marriage market are rather good. There she 'competes' with other young female Muslims, whose pious morality also has found its public expression in wearing the hijab and in other forms of global Islamic consumption and presentation (McBrien 2012;Pink 2009).…”

Fashioning the nation: Gender and politics of dress in contemporary Kyrgyzstan

“…A variety of styles have been adopted by religious men and women across the region. The influence of globalization and consumption of mass media products, such as Brazilian and Turkish soap operas, have been shown to impact attitudes to Islam and Muslim fashion among Kyrgyzstanis through a fictionalized depiction of Muslim lives elsewhere (McBrien 2007). Many women took fashion inspiration and validation from seeing beautifully dressed hijabi characters in their favorite shows; head kerchief designs, fabrics, various fashion goods, and shops were named after Jade and Latifa -two leading characters in the Brazilian soap opera called Clone.…”