Traveling Soap Operas, Brazil to Kyrgyzstan: Meaning-Making and Images of the "Muslim Woman" (Report‪)‬

Abstract This paper focuses on one soap opera with global resonance, the Brazilian telenovela Clone, and its reception among an unexpected audience in the post-Soviet country of Kyrgyzstan. Set in Morocco and Brazil, the program's attraction stems largely from its appealing platitudes: Clone places classic and heavily gendered images of the Muslim East in stark contrast to those of a free and uninhibited West. Its trans-generational popularity in Kyrgyzstan, a country with a majority Muslim population, raises interesting questions about how ideas and resources flow, take root, and connect. Drawing from long-term fieldwork, this paper presents Clone and its imagery, the current socio-political milieu in Kyrgyzstan, and active processes of interpretation, identity forming, and meaning-making by diverse women viewers. The study contributes to a growing body of literature that explores how research situated in local sites can be profitably placed in a transnational or "global" perspective and provide a powerful tool for exposing multiple modernities and global interconnectedness.