Dr. habil. Sophie Roche
Vom Wissen um die Welt

Independent Social Anthopologist
List of publications


Selection of publications





Monographs

  • 2024. Konfliktforschung in der Ethnologie ― Eine Einführung. Berlin: Reimer, Dietrich.
  • 2019. The Faceless Terrorist. A Relational Approach to Jihad and Terrorism in Tajikistan. Heidelberg Studies in Transculturality (Heidelberg: Springer).

Roundtable review der Monographie: “The Faceless Terrorist”:2020. Book review roundtable of The faceless terrorist: a study of critical events in Tajikistan, by Sophie Roche, 2019, 377 pp., Cham, Switzerland, Springer, £46.99 (UK), Payam Foroughi, Svetlana Peshkova, Kamoludin Abdullaev, Jonathan K. Zartman, Hélène Thibault & Sophie Roche, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 13:2, 358-368.


  • 2014. Domesticating youth. Youth bulges and their socio-political implications in Tajikistan. New York, Oxford: Berghahn. (Paperback Edition: 2016; Book used for introducing youth bulge into the Anthropology Reader by David J. Eller the ‘Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, local Lives’, 2016: 165-166)

Edited Volumes

  • (eds.) 2020 with Davide Torri. Female Shamanism in Asia: Gender, Religion and the State. Series: Vitality of Indigenous Religions. New York: Routledge
  • (ed.) 2018. Изучение семьи в Центральной Азии: новые перспективы. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz. (in Russian) http://www.klaus-schwarz-verlag.com/index.php?title=Софи+Рош+(редактор)
  • (ed.) 2017. The Family in Central Asia: New Research Perspectives. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz. (Currently translation into Persian)
  • (eds.) 2016 with M. Faizulloev. Экскурсия этнографи ба Лангари Моҳиён. (Ethnographic excursion to Langari Mohiyon) (Student Project) Independent Print. (in Tajik)
  • (ed.) 2014. Central Asian Intellectuals on Islam: between Scholarship, Politics and Identity (ZMO Studien 32). Berlin: Klaus Schwarz.

Journal Aricles

  • 2023. “The Topography of Terrorism: Between Local Conflicts and Global Jihad.” In M. Hoehne et. al. (eds.), Dynamics of Identification and Conflict: Anthropological Perspectives. Berghahn Books, pp. 135-153. 
  • 2022. “Environmental Relationalities: Contextualizing the Nuclear Production Sites in Khujand/Leninabad.” In S. Bauer, T. Penter (eds.), Tracing the atom: Nuclear legacies in Russia and Central Asia. Routledge.
  • 2021. “Militant goodness and totalized meanings: some interpretations of jihad among Tajiks”, Routledge Handbook of Politikal Islam, Second Edition, edited by Shahram Akbarzadeh. London, New York: Routledge, 318-336.
  • 2020. Die neue baden-württembergische Asyldokumentation. ZAR 2: 78-79.
  • 2020. with Swetlana Torno, Said Reza Kazemi, “Family Matters: The Making and Remaking of Family during Conflict Periods in Central Asia.”  Acta Via Serica 5/1: 153-186.
  • 2020. “Tabaqas in Khujand: Maintaining, dissolving and remaking group boundaries through marriage.” In A.L. Edgar and B. Frommer (eds.), Intermarriage in Eastern Europe and Eurasia: Ethnic Mixing Under Fascism, Communism, and Beyond. University of Nebraska Press.
  • 2019. with Sahar Faehghi, “Environmental Configurations. When the River Zayandeh Rud Stopped Crossing Isfahan.” Anthropology of the Middle East, Vol. 14, No. 2, Winter 2019: 29–4.
  • 2018. "Knowledge Production on Central Asia: Transcultural Approaches in Central Asian Studies." Transcultural Studies - Open Access E-Journal, pp. 95-11.
  • 2018. “The Fabric of Answer: Constructing a National Facade.” Central Asian Affairs 5, pp. 93-110.
  • 2018. “Illegal Migrants and Pious Muslims: The Paradox of Bazaar Workers from Tajikistan.” In, M. Laruelle & J. Engvall, eds., Tajikistan: Approaches, Fieldworks and Topics, (Lexington Book), pp. 247-78.
  • 2016. “A sound family for a healthy nation. Motherhood in Tajik national politics and society.” Nationality Papers 44(2), pp. 207-224.
  • 2015. “An Iceberg Theory in Conflict Studies.” (Response to book discussion ‘Domesticating Youth’). Central Asian Affairs 2/4.
  • 2014. “The Faithful Assistant. Muhiddin Faizulloev‘s Life and Work in the Light of Russian Ethnography.” Working Paper of FMSH. http://www.fmsh.fr/en/c/6540
  • 2013. “Categories of analysis and categories of practice since the Tajik civil war.” Antropologia 13(16), pp. 69-92.
  • 2012. “Gender in narrative memory. The example of civil war narratives in Tajikistan.” Ab Imperio 3, pp. 279-307.
  • 2011, with John Heathershaw. “Islam and political violence in Tajikistan: an ethnographic perspective on the causes and consequences of the 2010 armed conflict in the Kamarob gorge.” Ethnopolitics Papers 8.
  • 2011, with Sophie Hohmann. “Wedding rituals and the struggle over national identities.” Central Asian Survey 30/1, pp. 113-128.
  • 2010. “Friendship relations in Tajikistan. An ethnographic account.” Ab Imperio 3, pp. 273-298.
  • 2010, with Sophie Hohmann and Michel Garenne. “The changing sex ratios at birth during the civil war in Tajikistan: 1992-1997.” The Journal of Biosocial Science 42/6, pp. 773-786.