Abstract This article examines the role of the progressive forces in recent revolutions in Kyrgyzstan, and asks why their movements have not led to real political change in this Central Asian country. In Kyrgyzstan, the progressive forces are identified with such groups as young people, the educated middle class, lawyers, and journalists. Their discourses, such as demands for fair elections and the rule of law, have been central to the three revolutions that have taken place in Kyrgyzstan since 2005, as has their concept of Umut, or hope. The central thesis of this article is that, although these forces may have led recent revolutionary movements, they have proved unable to establish political dominance after the completion of revolutionary processes. Instead, after each revolutionary attempt, the rules of “local politics” have been consistently reasserted in Kyrgyzstan. These are rules based on the power of informal social and political networks governed by rules of reciprocity and the pursuit of self-interest. In spite of this recurring outcome, the progressive forces retain their commitment to hope, and it is the prism of hope which this paper uses to make sense of revolution’s failure. In this paper, a contribution to the anthropology of revolution, that idea of hope is deconstructed: this permits a greater focus on how and why the promises of revolution have, so far, been betrayed and unfulfilled in contemporary Kyrgyzstan, where the idea of hope plays a fundamental representational and political role.

Abstract In the 19th century, Mennonites of German origin began to found numerous settlements in Central Asia. Of the once large number of German settlers, only a few remain in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan today, most having emigrated to Germany after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the village of Rot-Front in Kyrgyzstan is an exception: there are still German-Mennonite families living there who maintain a relationship with those who once left. The aim of this article is to investigate these relations with regard to the creation of transnational spaces. Memory can play a central role in the process of formation of such transnational spaces. This article explores these processes through the lens of cultural geography, applying insights of theories of practice to the study of memory landscapes using the case of the village of Rot-Front in Kyrgyzstan. The study is based on a case study approach, including field observation, qualitative interviews, biographical records and discourse analysis. The results of the study unfold in four ways: First, the formation of a collective identity is the main characteristic associated with the village of Rot-Front. Second, the role of artifacts play a minor role in memory practices. Third, the individual memory of Rot-Front is idealized by today’s ‘senior’ generation and fourth, the close exchange between those who emigrated and those who stayed is the basis of a transnational social space of Rot-Front, which will exist only as long as the generations have a personal bond with Rot-Front.

Abstract In the literature on education in Central Asia, the existing scholarship largely focuses on reform processes and administrative issues in the post-Soviet context. There is thus a lack of scholarship that focuses on both how students view the purpose of education and the relationship between education and political engagement in the region. This article aims to address that gap in the literature by presenting findings from a survey we conducted at KIMEP University in Kazakhstan on the issue of how our sample views education and the impact of education on political issues. While we found that majoring in the social sciences, the more time spent at university, and selecting a Western democracy as the country the person admires most are all salient in terms of how a person views the beneficial impact of education on political issues, we found that majoring in the social sciences is the most important factor. Regarding the debate on the impact of education, our argument is that the type of education one receives (i.e. an individual’s major) is more salient than time spent at university.

Abstract The article discusses the features of the interaction of local, national, and global memory of the traumatic past and the current commemorative practices of Kazakhstan. The authors used the concept of transnational, multidirectional, and agonistic memory to make an extended interpretation of Kazakhstan’s postcolonial/post-Soviet situation as avoiding conflict. Traditionally, the traumatic discourse of memory in Kazakhstan is described in the context of post-Gulag analytics. On the other hand, some places as the Baikonur cosmodrome produce technogenic traumas. The fundamental concept of the article is a traumatic memory infrastructure which allows, first, to link the diversity of places of memory with the implementation of technological megaprojects in Kazakhstan; second, to identify their correlation with transnational memory practices; and finally, to show the Kazakhstani outline of trauma, which is still insufficiently represented in academic literature. The article uses empirical materials collected by the authors during field research in Kazakhstan.

Abstract The election of Shavkat Mirziyoyev in Uzbekistan was initially dismissed as, yet another Central Asian transition of power that would ultimately change very little. In this instance however, analysts were proven quite wrong. Since taking the country’s highest office, Mirziyoyev has liberalized the economy, improved relations with neighbors, increased accountability, and signaled willingness to release some executive powers to the people. However, in analyzing these welcomed reforms, we must ask ourselves whether they are genuine. Is Mirziyoyev a radical reformist willing to sacrifice the political order established by his predecessor for the sake of liberalization or are these changes instead part of a broader political agenda for the sake of legitimacy?

Abstract Academic debates on law and society relations in authoritarian regimes continue to revolve around issues of the dysfunctional legal system, corruption and informality, clientelistic legal culture, and how the authoritarian regimes in this region deploy law as a means for suppressing dissent. However, in this article, we argue that the legal landscape of authoritarian regimes should not be viewed from the “black-and-white” perspective. Rather, there is a need for a comprehensive account of how the state law and non-state forms of normative ordering engage in mutually transforming interactions and thereby shape the legal landscape of authoritarian regimes. By examining the law as a social field and legally plural phenomenon, our aim in this paper is to contribute, both empirically and theoretically, to scholarly debates on the role of law in authoritarian regimes by showing that the law is not merely a tool of authoritarian control and repression but various social groups and actors can also harness it for their own purposes depending on the context, time, location, opportunity and situation. These processes will be investigated by presenting ethnographic case studies from Uzbekistan, an archetypal authoritarian regime in Central Asia.

Abstract This article reviews the Soviet legacy in relation to contemporary cotton production in south-western Tajikistan and asks why farmers are still locked in to Soviet cotton production policies and practices despite post-Soviet regulatory, societal and environmental changes. With hindsight on Soviet agricultural production policies in Central Asia, this contribution scrutinises the perception of smallholder dehkhan farmers towards continued cotton production as a primary crop choice, which continues to occupy most of the irrigated land in the Khatlon region. For the analyses of the post-Soviet agricultural developments, the paper applies a path dependence conceptual framework by positing the significance of historical and social contexts in policymaking and socio-economic development in cotton production. Fieldwork data collected in two districts of Khatlon region are used to explain that despite post-independence land reforms and the abolishment of Soviet authority over cotton production, smallholder dehkhan farmers are still cultivating cotton as a primary crop under deteriorating land and irrigation conditions.