The first two focus groups

One of the main goals of this trip in terms of research is to conduct focus groups in each of the three regions. The focus group is somewhat of a novel concept for Russian academics, and for Russian society more generally. In soliciting participants, I’ve tried to frame it as a sort of round-table discussion, where I’m asking the participants to serve as experts on Kalmyk national identity and Buddhism. Finding ways to relay to people why I’m interested in their opinions can be tricky. Remember, this is place where for 70 years the government controlled media outlets, shaped public opinion, and punished, or at its lowest point executed, those who dissented.

On Wednesday, we held a discussion among fifth-year students at Kalmyk State University (KGU). They ranged in age from twenty-two to forty-two. Some of the students are in training to become monks at the local temple (khurul); through an agreement between KGU and the khurul, they are receiving a “secular” undergraduate degree while at the same time taking classes at both places (such as Tibetan language at the temple). They were the most active in discussing the project’s main research themes: characterizing the changes that have take place in the religious sphere since 1991 and looking at the role of Buddhism in the formation of Kalmyk national self-consciousness. There were also some thoughtful answers, though, from some of the other participants about the personal nature of Buddhism as an identity. The broad consensus here was that Buddhism is not something that can be imposed on the individual from above, either in a theological or political sense.

I had originally planned to do two focus groups per region, one with students at the local universities and one among ‘believers’, a somewhat vague category that draws from people who are active at the Buddhist temples in each of the three republics (these categories are necessarily vague given potential inter-regional differences; it’s hard to know what I’m going to find in terms of Buddhist practices in Tuva and Buryatia). The second focus group, which was held on Thursday, instead was composed primarily of local academics who could be considered experts on Buddhism in Kalmykia. This was something that Valeriy suggested, and the group was very helpful for me in terms of developing the necessary background knowledge on Buddhism in the region, not to mention the value of having this information recorded digitally. That said, it still doesn’t get at the main concern of the project, which is the form of Buddhism’s revival in an everyday sense. While some other these academics were Buddhists, other took a more rationalistic approach to religious identity, arguing that it depends on context. Fortunately, I still have a week and a half to get a last focus group done that includes, as originally planned, active practitioners of Buddhism.