NGOs and Neocolonialism in Postcolonial Literature: The Case of Central Asia

Abstract

NGOs and neocolonialism are among the key concerns of postcolonial theorists, but their representation in postcolonial literature has received surprisingly little attention. This article examines the representation of NGOs and their impact on “developing” societies in postcolonial literature, specifically in two post-Soviet Russophone novels – Kazakhstani author Lilya Kalaus’s The Fund of Last Hope: A Post-Colonial Novel (2013) and Tajik author Eleonora Kasymova’s Tajik (2007). My analysis bridges research in literary studies and social sciences by complementing studies “from above” of the post-Soviet transition, and is intended to reveal how postcolonial societies, especially women, adopt, adapt, or resist the norms promoted by their countries’ NGOs. I argue that rather than taking a side or remaining passive objects in the power games of their nations, women writers use their personal insights into the workings of post-Soviet NGOs to expose the neocolonial tendencies in the agendas of each political player. Echoing Achille Mbembe’s notion of “mockery from within”, the authors satirise how local NGOs’ dependency on the West, and their inability to divorce themselves from Soviet influences, lead to their self-orientalising, contradictory and inefficient practices. Moreover, they reveal the complicity between foreign neocolonial forces, local corrupt elites and their subjects. Thus, Kalaus and Kasymova blur the oppressor/oppressed binaries and problematise the stereotypical anti-western critiques of NGOs in their countries. Furthermore, they point to the specificities of the Soviet colonial project and how its legacies are played out in the post-Soviet context. Much as the competing interests from Russia and the West, Soviet legacies, especially internalised Soviet Orientalism, exacerbate class divisions among women and lead to the depoliticisation of gender activism. By focusing on the understudied post-Soviet cultures through a postcolonial lens, the article widens our understanding of global neocolonial processes and their representation in literature more broadly.