Chopping carrots and becoming ‘real’ men: Uzbek boys, household work and the reproduction of masculinities in post-Soviet Uzbekistan

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, nationalist discourses have been overtly masculinized, continuing to inform Uzbek males’ daily lives. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Uzbekistan, this article illustrates how Uzbek boys’ domestic relations contribute to the way they learn to (re)produce masculinities, foregrounding a high degree of agency and utility. The analysis uncovered three themes central to the (re)production of Uzbek boyhood in Uzbek families as a site of informal learning: (1) being helpful through domestic labour; (2) being social through showing hospitality; and (3) being tarbiyali through practising national culture. Through scrutinizing the intersections of gender, education and nationalism, this article concludes by connecting Uzbek boyhood in the domestic sphere and nationalist campaigns fostering masculine hegemony in Uzbekistan’s nation building process. Through domesticity – a contentious concept in feminist criticism – this article expands our understanding of the (re)production of boyhood in a conventionally feminized space.