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| 1 |
ID:
173334
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this article I argue that the renewed promotion of the Manas epic in Kyrgyzstan after 2010 should not be reduced to an attempt to consolidate a national identity or strengthen the state by endorsing ethno-nationalism. Instead, since the 2009 inscription of the Manas epic on the UNESCO List of Intangible Heritage by China, Kyrgyzstan has undertaken a full-scale heritagization not only of the Manas epic but also of its other tangible or intangible cultural assets. This heritagization has been shaped by an anxiety that Kyrgyzstan’s most valuable cultural asset might be appropriated by China. By shifting the focus from Manas as a potential national role model to the epic as national heritage, I suggest that Kyrgyzstan’s latest outburst of ‘Manasification’ is better understood as an attempt to resist China’s ongoing attempts to harness the heritage discourse in rewriting the cultural and historical narrative of Eurasia.
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| 2 |
ID:
115817
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| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This essay focuses on clan narratives as cultural tools in a particular sociocultural setting where mass literacy meets mass media. It shows how the interactions between different producers of clan narratives - the news media, the academic establishment and an intellectualist movement for the recovery of Kyrgyz history and culture - have resulted in a profound reshaping of the content of clan genealogies, of the claims of their compilers and, more significantly, of the ways various social actors relate to clan identities. Based on these analyses, it is argued that social representations and social practices related to genealogy and clans have undergone significant changes over the last 15 years, and that the production and consumption of clan narratives have played a crucial role in this transformation.
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| 3 |
ID:
095555
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| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The question of pastoral land use in colonial Central Asia is set against the goals and assumptions of present-day laws and regulations in Kyrgyzstan. In order to highlight the main choices of the colonial administration and their consequences on the local level the analysis is focused on three dyads: territorial divisions versus clan divisions, ownership versus administration and administration versus self-government. By pointing out that the colonial reforms on nomads were mainly driven by the phantoms of 'clans' and 'custom', this article argues that certain misconceptions of nomadism are characteristic of any modernization programmes, be they those of colonial Russia or those that are currently being implemented. In Kyrgyzstan the recently introduced 'grazing committees' as the main actors in the management and control of pastures perpetuate the myths of self-government and tradition among nomads. In conclusion the article advances the thesis that the reliance on 'custom' and 'tradition' and the dismissal of real social relations of pastoral land use are among the most important reasons for the failure of pastoral land reforms in the past and in the present.
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