Theorizing gender, ethnicity and the nation-state in Central Asia

Abstract

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, one of the greatest emphases of Western scholarship regarding the Soviet Central Asian republics has been upon issues of ethnicity, nationalism and statehood. This has paralleled a general re-focusing in the social and political sciences on these issues in the 1980s and 1990s, an era which has seen the re-emergence and intensi® cation of nationalistic con ict and identity politics in many parts of the world. The study of these issues has been profoundly in uenced by theoretical debates within feminist scholarship and its fruitful interaction with post-structuralism, leading to an epistemology which identi® es gender as a key concern in the study of ethnicity and nationalism. The main argument of this paper is that the ® eld of Central Asian studies has largely ignored this development, and it is time for us to give serious consideration to it. The key question which the current scholarship has failed to address is: how is the process of national identity formation and reconstruction in Central Asia gendered? I will attempt very brie y to outline theoretical developments and look at some practical applications outside Central Asian studies, with emphasis on feminist thought regarding gender and women in other developing areas, particularly Islamic countries. In the light of these considerations, the article will then move on to a more detailed look at writings regarding Central Asia. It will conclude with a case study of gender and change in Ferghana State University. It is important to emphasize that this article is somewhat exploratory, and does not claim to be exhaustive or authoritative.