Introduction

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements The guest editors would like to acknowledge the VolkswagenStiftung's support of the research project ‘Genealogy and history: collective identities in contemporary Kyrgyzstan’, carried out at the Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Regionalstudien - Vorderer Orient, Afrika, Asien in Halle, Germany. This special issue took shape within the framework of this project. Notes On the earlier developments of this debate, see Kalb and Tak (1996 Kalb, D., Marks, H. and Tak, H. 1996. Historical anthropology: the unwaged debate. Special issue of Focaal, 26/27 Edited by: Kalb, D., Marks, H. and Tak, H. [Google Scholar]). For the most recent contributions to the debate, see Axel (2002), Willford and Tagliacozzo (2009) Willford, A. and Tagliacozzo, E. 2009. Clio / Anthropos: exploring the boundaries between history and anthropology, Edited by: Willford, A. and Tagliacozzo, E. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Murphy et al. (2011) Murphy, E. 2011. Anthrohistory: unsettling knowledge, questioning discipline, Edited by: Murphy, E. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. [Google Scholar]. Baldauf (1992) Baldauf, I. 1992. Kraevedenie and Uzbek national consciousness, Bloomington, IN: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies [Google Scholar] provides a good example of the Soviet practice of kraevedenie in Central Asia. See for instance O'Brien and Roseberry (1991) O'Brien, J. and Roseberry, W. 1991. Golden ages, dark ages: imagining the past in anthropology and history, Edited by: O'Brien, J. and Roseberry, W. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] and, in the case of Central Asia, Sneath (2007) Sneath, D. 2007. The headless state: aristocratic orders, kinship society, and misrepresentations of nomadic Inner Asia, New York: Columbia University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar].