Download or read book Variations on Uzbek Identity written by Peter Finke and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout its history the concept of “Uzbekness,” or more generally of a Turkic-speaking sedentary population, has continuously attracted members of other groups to join, as being Uzbek promises opportunities to enlarge ones social network. Accession is comparatively easy, as Uzbekness is grounded in a cultural model of territoriality, rather than genealogy, as the basis for social attachments. It acknowledges regional variation and the possibility of membership by voluntary decision. Therefore, the boundaries of being Uzbek vary almost by definition, incorporating elements of local languages, cultural patterns and social organization. This book combines an historical analysis with thorough ethnographic field research, looking at differences in the conceptualization of group boundaries and the social practices they entail. It does so by analysing decision-making processes by Uzbeks on the individual as well as cognitive level and the political configurations that surround them.
Download or read book Migration and Identity in Central Asia written by Rano Turaeva and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of Uzbek migrants in the capital city of Uzbekistan. The ethnographic details of the book represent post-Soviet urban realities on the ground where various forms of belonging clash and kinship ties are reinforced within social safety networks. Theoretically, it challenges the existing theories of identity and identification which often considered the relations between ‘We and Them’ taking the ‘We’ for granted. The book offers in-depth insights into the communication strategies of migrants, the formation of collective consciousness and the relations within the ‘We’ domain. Constructed around contradictions regarding Uzbek identity and how various groups relate to one another as different ethnic groups, the theoretical argument of the book is built through such methods and analytical tools as strategic rhetoric and discourse analysis, communication and identity theories, and the analysis of power and dependence. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of Central Asian Studies, Migration Studies, and Central Asian Culture and Society.
Download or read book Constructing the Uzbek State written by Marlene Laruelle and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-12-20 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past three decades, Uzbekistan has attracted the attention of the academic and policy communities because of its geostrategic importance, its critical role in shaping or unshaping Central Asia as a region, its economic and trade potential, and its demographic weight: every other Central Asian being Uzbek, Uzbekistan’s political, social, and cultural evolutions largely exemplify the transformations of the region as a whole. And yet, more than 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, evaluating Uzbekistan’s post-Soviet transformation remains complicated. Practitioners and scholars have seen access to sources, data, and fieldwork progressively restricted since the early 2000s. The death of President Islam Karimov, in power for a quarter of century, in late 2016, reopened the future of the country, offering it more room for evolution. To better grasp the challenges facing post-Karimov Uzbekistan, this volume reviews nearly three decades of independence. In the first part, it discusses the political construct of Uzbekistan under Karimov, based on the delineation between the state, the elite, and the people, and the tight links between politics and economy. The second section of the volume delves into the social and cultural changes related to labor migration and one specific trigger – the difficulties to reform agriculture. The third part explores the place of religion in Uzbekistan, both at the state level and in society, while the last part looks at the renegotiation of collective identities.
Download or read book Uzbekistan Culture Smart written by Alex Ulko and published by Kuperard. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Culture Smart! Uzbekistan will take you beyond the standard descriptions of minarets, kebabs with vodka, embroidered skullcaps, and Soviet-style bureaucracy. It will make you aware of the value systems, attitudes, and behaviors of the different cultural groups in the country, and offer an insider's view of Uzbekistan's fascinating history, national traditions, various cuisines, and cultural scene. It will tell you what the peoples of Uzbekistan are like at home, at play, and in business, and give practical advice on how to behave in different situations so as to make the most out of your visit. Uzbekistan is a land of paradoxes, both enjoyable and surprising for foreign visitors. It is famous for its fabulous architectural monuments and the exotic spirit of the Great Silk Road, the ancient trade route connecting East and West. Uzbekistan is a multicultural society where old and revived traditions coexist with modernity.
Download or read book Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples written by Adrienne Edgar and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-15 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples examines the racialization of identities and its impact on mixed couples and families in Soviet Central Asia. In marked contrast to its Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union celebrated mixed marriages among its diverse ethnic groups as a sign of the unbreakable friendship of peoples and the imminent emergence of a single "Soviet people." Yet the official Soviet view of ethnic nationality became increasingly primordial and even racialized in the USSR's final decades. In this context, Adrienne Edgar argues, mixed families and individuals found it impossible to transcend ethnicity, fully embrace their complex identities, and become simply "Soviet." Looking back on their lives in the Soviet Union, ethnically mixed people often reported that the "official" nationality in their identity documents did not match their subjective feelings of identity, that they were unable to speak "their own" native language, and that their ambiguous physical appearance prevented them from claiming the nationality with which they most identified. In all these ways, mixed couples and families were acutely and painfully affected by the growth of ethnic primordialism and by the tensions between the national and supranational projects in the Soviet Union. Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples is based on more than eighty in-depth oral history interviews with members of mixed families in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, along with published and unpublished Soviet documents, scholarly and popular articles from the Soviet press, memoirs and films, and interviews with Soviet-era sociologists and ethnographers.
Download or read book Nationalism in Central Asia written by Nick Megoran and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2017-10-04 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nick Megoran explores the process of building independent nation-states in post-Soviet Central Asia through the lens of the disputed border territory between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In his rich "biography" of the boundary, he employs a combination of political, cultural, historical, ethnographic, and geographic frames to shed new light on nation-building process in this volatile and geopolitically significant region. Megoran draws on twenty years of extensive research in the borderlands via interviews, observations, participation, and newspaper analysis. He considers the problems of nationalist discourse versus local vernacular, elite struggles versus borderland solidarities, boundary delimitation versus everyday experience, border control versus resistance, and mass violence in 2010, all of which have exacerbated territorial anxieties. Megoran also revisits theories of causation, such as the loss of Soviet control, poorly defined boundaries, natural resource disputes, and historic ethnic clashes, to show that while these all contribute to heightened tensions, political actors and their agendas have clearly driven territorial aspirations and are the overriding source of conflict. As this compelling case study shows, the boundaries of the The Ferghana Valley put in succinct focus larger global and moral questions of what defines a good border.
Download or read book Muslim Women of the Fergana Valley written by Vladimir Nalivkin and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-04 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muslim Women of the Fergana Valley is the first English translation of an important 19th-century Russian text describing everyday life in Uzbek communities. Vladimir and Maria Nalivkin were Russians who settled in a "Sart" village in 1878, in a territory newly conquered by the Russian Empire. During their six years in Nanay, Maria Nalivkina learned the local language, befriended her neighbors, and wrote observations about their lives from birth to death. Together, Maria and Vladimir published this account, which met with great acclaim from Russia's Imperial Geographic Society and among Orientalists internationally. While they recognized that Islam shaped social attitudes, the Nalivkins never relied on common stereotypes about the "plight" of Muslim women. The Fergana Valley women of their ethnographic portrait emerge as lively, hard-working, clever, and able to navigate the cultural challenges of early Russian colonialism. Rich with social and cultural detail of a sort not available in other kinds of historical sources, this work offers rare insight into life in rural Central Asia and serves as an instructive example of the genre of ethnographic writing that was emerging at the time. Annotations by the translators and an editor's introduction by Marianne Kamp help contemporary readers understand the Nalivkins' work in context.
Download or read book Difference and Sameness as Modes of Integration written by Günther Schlee and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to “fit in?” In this volume of essays, editors Günther Schlee and Alexander Horstmann demystify the discourse on identity, challenging common assumptions about the role of sameness and difference as the basis for inclusion and exclusion. Armed with intimate knowledge of local systems, social relationships, and the negotiation of people’s positions in the everyday politics, these essays tease out the ways in which ethnicity, religion and nationalism are used for social integration.
Download or read book Creole Identity in Postcolonial Indonesia written by Jacqueline Knörr and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-03-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributing to identity formation in ethnically and religiously diverse postcolonial societies, this book examines the role played by creole identity in Indonesia, and in particular its capital, Jakarta. While, on the one hand, it facilitates transethnic integration and promotes a specifically postcolonial sense of common nationhood due to its heterogeneous origins, creole groups of people are often perceived ambivalently in the wake of colonialism and its demise, on the other. In this book, Jacqueline Knörr analyzes the social, historical, and political contexts of creoleness both at the grassroots and the State level, showing how different sections of society engage with creole identity in order to promote collective identification transcending ethnic and religious boundaries, as well as for reasons of self-interest and ideological projects.
Download or read book Being Muslim in Central Asia written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-01-03 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the changing place of Islam in contemporary Central Asia, understanding religion as a “societal shaper” – a roadmap for navigating quickly evolving social and cultural values. Islam can take on multiple colors and identities, from a purely transcendental faith in God to a cauldron of ideological ferment for political ideology, via diverse culture-, community-, and history-based phenomena. The volumes discusses what it means to be a Muslim in today’s Central Asia by looking at both historical and sociological features, investigates the relationship between Islam, politics and the state, the changing role of Islam in terms of societal values, and the issue of female attire as a public debate. Contributors include: Aurélie Biard, Tim Epkenhans, Nurgul Esenamanova, Azamat Junisbai, Barbara Junisbai, Marlene Laruelle, Marintha Miles, Emil Nasritdinov, Shahnoza Nozimova, Yaacov Ro'i, Wendell Schwab, Manja Stephan-Emmrich, Rano Turaeva, Alon Wainer, Alexander Wolters, Galina M. Yemelianova, Baurzhan Zhussupov
Download or read book Qazaql q or Ambitious Brigandage and the Formation of the Qazaqs written by Joo-Yup Lee and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Qazaqlïq, or Ambitious Brigandage, and the Formation of the Qazaqs Joo-Yup Lee examines the formation of new group identities, with a focus on the Qazaqs, in post-Mongol Central Eurasia within the context of qazaqlïq, or the qazaq way of life, a custom of political vagabondage widespread among the Turko-Mongolian peoples of Central Asia and the Qipchaq Steppe during the post-Mongol period. Utilizing a broad range of original sources, the book suggests that the Qazaqs, as well as the Shibanid Uzbeks and Ukrainian Cossacks, came into existence as a result of the qazaq, or “ambitious brigand,” activities of their founders, providing a new paradigm for understanding state formation and identity in post-Mongol Central Eurasia.
Download or read book Dynamics of Identification and Conflict written by Markus Virgil Hoehne and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2022-10-01 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dealing with the dynamics of identification and conflict, this book uses theoretical orientations ranging from political ecology to rational choice theory, interpretive approaches, Marxism and multiscalar analysis. Case studies set in Africa, Europe and Central Asia are grouped in three sections devoted to pastoralism, identity and migration. What connects all of these anthropological explorations is a close focus on processes of identification and conflict at the level of particular actors in relation to the behaviour of large aggregates of people and to systemic conditions.
Download or read book The Piety of Learning Islamic Studies in Honor of Stefan Reichmuth written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-08-28 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Piety of Learning testifies to the strong links between religious and secular scholarship in Islam, and reaffirms the role of philology for understanding Muslim societies both past and present. Senior scholars discuss Islamic teaching philosophies since the 18th century in Nigeria, Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, Russia, and Germany. Particular attention is paid to the power of Islamic poetry and to networks and practices of the Tijāniyya, Rifā‘iyya, Khalwatiyya, Naqshbandiyya, and Shādhiliyya Sufi brotherhoods. The final section highlights some unusual European encounters with Islam, and features a German Pietist who traveled through the Ottoman Empire, a Habsburg officer who converted to Islam in Bosnia, a Dutch colonial Islamologist who befriended a Salafi from Jeddah, and a Soviet historian who preserved Islamic manuscripts. Contributors are: Razaq ‘Deremi Abubakre; Bekim Agai; Rainer Brunner; Alfrid K. Bustanov; Thomas Eich; Ralf Elger; Ulrike Freitag; Michael Kemper; Markus Koller; Anke von Kügelgen; Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen; Armina Omerika; Amidu Olalekan Sanni; Yaşar Sarikaya; Rüdiger Seesemann; Shamil Sh. Shikhaliev; Diliara M. Usmanova.
Download or read book Staying at Home written by Rita Sanders and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite economic growth in Kazakhstan, more than 80 per cent of Kazakhstan’s ethnic Germans have emigrated to Germany to date. Disappointing experiences of the migrants, along with other aspects of life in Germany, have been transmitted through transnational networks to ethnic Germans still living in Kazakhstan. Consequently, Germans in Kazakhstan today feel more alienated than ever from their ‘historic homeland’. This book explores the interplay of those memories, social networks and state policies, which play a role in the ‘construction’ of a Kazakhstani German identity.
Download or read book Ethnicity Authority and Power in Central Asia written by Robert L. Canfield and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the perspectives and issues of variously situated peoples in Greater Central Asia in terms of four major issues: government repression, ethnic group perspectives, devices of mutual support, and informal grounds of authority and influence. Responding to the need for in-depth studies concerning the social structures and practices in the region, it provides a distinctive, timely insight into this increasingly influential part of the world.
Download or read book A History of the Tajiks written by Richard Foltz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive and up to date history, from prehistoric proto-Indo-Iranian times to the post-Soviet period, Richard Foltz traces the complex linguistic, cultural and political history of the Tajiks, a Persian-speaking Iranian ethnic group from the modern-day Central Asian states of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan. In eight chapters, the author explores the revitalisation of Persian culture under the Samanid Empire in the Tajik heartlands of historical Khorasan and Transoxiana; analyses the evolution of the politics of Tajik identity; and traces the history of the ethnic Tajik diaspora today. This revised edition includes a new chapter on the Tajiks' situation in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan since 2018, covering notably the effects of the Taliban's return to power in August 2021 and the COVID pandemic in all three countries, as well as border clashes with Kyrgyzstan.
Download or read book Border Work written by Madeleine Reeves and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Central Asia’s Ferghana Valley, where Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan meet, state territoriality has taken on new significance in these states’ second decade of independence, reshaping landscapes and transforming livelihoods in a densely populated, irrigation-dependent region. Through an innovative ethnography of social and spatial practice at the limits of the state, Border Work explores the contested work of producing and policing “territorial integrity” when significant stretches of new international borders remain to be conclusively demarcated or effectively policed. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Madeleine Reeves follows traders, farmers, water engineers, conflict analysts, and border guards as they negotiate the practical responsibilities and social consequences of producing, policing, and deriving a livelihood across new international borders that are often encountered locally as “chessboards” rather than lines. She shows how the negotiation of state spatiality is bound up with concerns about legitimate rule and legitimate movement, and explores how new attempts to secure the border, materially and militarily, serve to generate new sources of lived insecurity in a context of enduring social and economic inter-dependence. A significant contribution to Central Asian studies, border studies, and the contemporary anthropology of the state, Border Work moves beyond traditional ethnographies of the borderland community to foreground the effortful and intensely political work of producing state space.
