Women Living Islam in Post-War and Post-Socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina Emira Ibrahimpasic

University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Anthropology ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 7-1-2012 Women Living Islam in Post-War and Post-Socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina Emira Ibrahimpasic Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Ibrahimpasic, Emira. "Women Living Islam in Post-War and Post-Socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina." (2012). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds/35 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Emira Ibrahimpasic Candidate Anthropology Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Carole Nagengast, Ph.D. , Chairperson Louise Lamphere, Ph.D. Melissa Bokovoy, Ph.D. Elissa Helms, Ph.D. i WOMEN LIVING ISLAM IN POST-WAR AND POST-SOCIALIST BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA by EMIRA IBRAHIMPASIC B.A. Hamline University, 2002 M.A. University of New Mexico, 2005 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico ii DEDICATION To the memory of my grandparents Nazila (rođ. Ismailović) Salihović 1917-1996 and Mehmed Salihović 1908-1995 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Numerous women and men contributed to this dissertation project. I am grateful for all the guidance, help, and support I received from the women I met over the years. At times, when I felt that many of the questions at hand could not be answered, it was my primary informants that provided contacts and suggestions in how to proceed and address the problems. This dissertation was as much theirs as it was mine, and I will forever be indebted for their open hearts and support. In Bosnia I would like to thank Ahmet Alibašić at the Faculty of Islamic Studies who was the first person I spoke with, and who helped me establish my first contacts in the community. At Nahla I am grateful to the executive director Sehija Dedović who so warmly supported my research mission, and opened the doors to Nahla. I am especially thankful to Sabiha Husić (director of Medica Zenica) who welcomed me into the center and allowed me to stay, eat, and drink coffee at the safe house for two weeks. To all the staff at both Nahla and Medica Zenica I am eternally grateful for their warmth, conversation and wisdom. To all my friends, who all directly and indirectly, helped me complete my research while living in Sarajevo, thanks to Bronwyn, Lulu, Nermina, Belma, Emira, Emina, Lejla, Amina, Maida, and Merisa. And to my family who helped me feel like I had never left Bosnia, thank you to my aunt and uncle Haladin and Amra, and my cousins Enis and Jasmin. During my time in Bosnia I met a number of wonderful people who helped me complete and better my project. I am grateful for being in the field at the same time as anthropologists Peter Locke, Daniel Hammer, Kristen Swagman and Halide Velioglu. Their research, knowledge and support were vital in helping me formulate my dissertation iv project, ask the right questions, and process the information I received. Additionally, I have to thank colleagues who turned into close friends while at the University of New Mexico including Veronica Arias, Katryn Fraher, Leslie Peterson, Andrew Carey, Shirley Heying, and Carmen Samora. To my friend Meredith Kruger I am grateful for a true friendship that has transcended two universities, three degrees, numerous countries and even greater life challenges. While at the University of New Mexico I met four incredible individuals whose friendship and support was invaluable during the painstaking process of graduate school, fieldwork, and finally, writing. I am especially grateful for having met following people: Elisabeth Stone and Randi Gladwell, two amazing women whose love and support was, and continues to be, instrumental in my development as an academic and individual, and who have been with me from day one. I am thankful to my friend Lavinia Nicolae for her intelligence and keenness that always keeps me on my toes. Lastly, I am indebted to my friend Joseph J. Garcia for nearly a decade of love, support and friendship, and for continuing to inspire me with his confidence and passion. The research for this project would not have been possible without financial support of the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), University of New Mexico Student Research and Conference (SRAC) grant, Research Project and Travel (RPT) grants, Feminist Research Institute (FRI) research grant, and the Department of Anthropology travel grant. This dissertation project represents my personal quest to understand and comprehend the history of a people to which I belong, and, subsequently factor into my v own identity. Keeping this in mind, the reader must understand the deep seated connection and relationship I hold to both the questions I set out to answer in my doctoral research and the informants who allowed me to share their stories and lives in the narrative context of this dissertation. Objectivity, a reasonable goal for any practicing anthropologist or social scientist, is not my primary concern here. Rather, my apprehension is derived from the question of: Did my informants provide me with truthful and honest accounts of what they consider to be important factors in the making and constitution of a Bosnian Muslim woman. Thus, as I work toward expanding this project to include additional questions that arose in the aftermath of my doctoral fieldwork, I focus on how I might develop a project and write-up my findings in a way that does not feel so personal. In the process of investigating, analyzing, and writing this doctoral thesis, I not only grew as an academic, but as a person; through my dissertation—as it was guided by the firm, but patient and forgiving hands of the women on my doctoral committee—I shed the trappings of childhood and transitioned into adulthood alongside my generation [moja generacija] informants. For this, I will be forever grateful. I am especially grateful to my dissertation committee Dr. Carole Nagengast, Dr. Louise Lamphere, Dr. Melissa Bokovoy and Dr. Elissa Helms. This project would not have been possible without Dr. Nagengast and Dr. Lamphere who taught me how to be a better researcher, writer and academic. I will be forever grateful for their patience, knowledge, and most importantly, mentorship as I struggled to reach the finish line. Dr. Bokovoy, who taught me the importance of history, is responsible for keeping me continuously connected to Bosnia and former Yugoslavia. Her expertise in the region and broad knowledge are vi unprecedented, and I am so grateful for her presence at a University that had little if any connection to my area of research. I am grateful for Dr. Helms’ knowledge, guidance and help in making this dissertation true to Bosnia. Finally, words cannot express the gratitude I hold towards my mother Refija and her sister (my aunt) Ajša Begić without whose support and love I would have never known strength and courage, and whose life experiences and struggles inspired this work in the first place. This dissertation is as much for them, as it is about them. Lastly, I am thankful for my father Ibrahim and my brothers Alija and Emir for continued support and encouragement. vii WOMEN LIVING ISLAM IN POST-WAR AND POST-SOCIALIST BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA by Emira Ibrahimpašić B.A. Anthropology and Philosophy, Hamline University, 2002 M.A. Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2005 Ph.D. Anthropology, University of New Mexico, 2012 ABSTRACT This is an ethnographic study of what it means to be a Muslim woman in post-war and post- socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina. Almost two decades after the end of inter-ethnic wars that led to the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Bosnia’s inhabitants are undergoing radical social, economic, political, and particularly religious transformations. This transformation, visible in both community and individual lives, can be discerned in all aspects of daily life. In this dissertation I examine the underlying reasons and motivations concerning the different ways in which one can practice and live Islam in Sarajevo and Zenica, two of the largest cities of the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia. My study is situated in two women women-centered NGOs, one secular and one religious (Medica Zenica and Nahla), and from these sites I ascertain the role civil society plays in helping women combat the political, economic, and social marginalization that is part of being a woman in today’s Bosnia. This dissertation examines faith [vjera or iman] and practice (what women do) as it has evolved from traditional Bosnian Islam (a secularized form of viii Islam that developed during the communist period) and the way it compares to those practicing povratak Islamu (a return to Islam or reislamization). My research indicates that there are two primary ways in which one can be a Muslim in post-war and post-socialist Bosnia: conventional (obična or tradicionalna Bosanska Muslimanka) and pious (osvješćena/pobožna Muslimanka). Conventional and pious Muslim women share a number of commonalities, yet, how they understand themselves and their relationship to Islam, including their duties and obligations, is considerably different. Furthermore, this dissertation demonstrates different approaches to being a Bosnian Muslim woman by focusing on agency and the ways in which women adapt to Bosnia’s transforming economy and social structure. Finally, I also examine the role that civil society and civic engagement (both secular and religious) play in identity formation.

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