Authors and Authoritarianism in Central Asia: Failed Agency and Nationalising Authoritarianism in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan

Abstract

This paper aims to reconstruct widely accepted concepts of the top-down authoritarian nature of Central Asian politics in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan through a comparative study of the pro-democratic movements that emerged in the late 1980s. By analysing data from interviews with the cultural elites of the late Soviet perestroika period and data on the indigenous nationalist movements such as Erk, Zheltoksan, Birlik and others, we question why such nationalist movements did not “survive” or emerge as a significant political platform as promised in post-independence Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and why they failed to change the political outlook of one party rule or the dominance of one nationalising regime. Furthermore, we analyse how such nationalist movements had an opportunity to turn into semi-democratic movements but failed to transform after their agenda (arguably, independence) was achieved, leaving “communists-turned-nationalists” to continue their policies in newly formed countries. Thus, the paper also looks at how these cultural elites eventually contributed to the local “authoritarianism” and lack of plurality in views and identifications.     

Scaling down or scaling up? Local actor decisions and the feasibility of decentralized environmental governance: a case of Páramo wetlands in Southern Ecuador

In Latin America and the Global South, policy-makers are adopting community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) principles for local governments. The idealized emphasis on ‘local’ collaborative approaches is known to neglect human geographic contexts and issues of capacity, power, and human drivers of change at larger scales. However, critiques lack empirical evidence of policy implementation decisions. How do local government and community actors choose to use decentralized environmental governance policies in relation to a threatened cultural and natural landscape across their jurisdictions? This question is explored in an ethnographic case of a high Andean wetland region in southern Ecuador by focusing on the context and micro-politics of two seemingly contradictory local government decisions: proposals to nationalize a local community protected area and to work with other local governments to construct a road across the wetlands that could threaten protected area status. When different sectors are devolved to different local actors without strong sub-state institutions for conflict management, decentralization may create incentives for conflict rather than conservation. Governance design depends on understanding how and why diverse local actors engage in boundary-spanning regional strategies, calling for additional contributions from political geographers.     

穆斯林的流动与中国新移民——马来西亚回族流动个案研究

论文分不同时期阐述了中国穆斯林移民马来西亚的历史,通过实证调研数据突出了穆斯林跨国流动与穆斯林世界的教育和贸易之间的密切联系,并对"侨乡"流动模式和"回族"流动模式进行了分析比较。认为有关华人移民的研究主要局限于地理(侨乡移民)或阶级(苦力、企业家或学生移民)方面。这些研究隐含一个不言而喻、理所当然的假设,即中国的移民都是汉族,少数民族被封闭在偏远的边疆地区,因而是不流动的。但研究显示,自1978年起,中国穆斯林少数民族无论是在跨境迁移——这在维吾尔族和哈萨克族等穆斯林少数民族中尤为突出,还是在远程的跨国迁移——在回族中尤其明显,都具有异常高的流动性。回族穆斯林少数民族的生活穿梭于中国民族国家和跨国穆斯林世界之间。宗教在回族穆斯林流动决策和流动模式中有重要作用。     

Decorated prehistoric pottery from Castello di Annone (Piedmont,Italy): archaeometric study and pilot comparison with coeval analogous finds

Prehistoric pottery decorated with incisions or impressions filled with white and seldom coloured inlays is well documented in the archaeological literature, but the related in-depth archaeometric studies are sporadic. 43 decorated ceramic shards, dating from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, and an Iron Age fibula from the archaeological site of Castello di Annone (Piedmont, North-Western Italy) were analysed with FTIR, Raman and XRPD for characterization of the ornamental pigments forming these inlays. Few white components were used as fillers, namely talc and bone ash (hydroxyapatite – Bone White), often as a mixture and seldom accompanied by other pigments (i.e. kaolinite and presumably secondary calcite). Comparison with freshly-heated biogenic hydroxyapatite proved that ancient Bone White pigment was calcined at about 900 °C. Such a process was kept separate from pottery firing as these white mixtures show absence of talc degradation by-products and sporadic presence of kaolinite, implying these ceramics were decorated only after firing in furnace. Actual presence of fluorapatite in bone ash could allow dating with the Fluorine Method, but lack of fluorine detection with SEM-EDS causes such an attempt to be impracticable so far. A pilot comparative study with a restricted but representative group (11) of coeval finds from other sites of Piedmont suggests that while recurrence of talc prevails in Castello di Annone from the Neolithic throughout the Bronze age, massive use of bone ash (Bone White) becomes widespread in the close Iron Age settlements, possibly consequent to a more efficient handling of its production technology.     

Ordinary Geographies: Care,Violence, and Agrarian Extractivism in “Post-Conflict” Colombia

In Colombia’s agrarian spaces, war and extractivism are deeply entangled. Almost four years after the peace accords signed between the national government and the FARC guerrilla, post-conflict geographies are best characterised by the ongoing dispossession of local populations related to the entrenchment of extractivism. Drawing from ethnographic work carried out in the Colombian Caribbean on the ordinary practices and spaces of social reproduction, the ordinary geographies, this article explores gendered practices of care and their role in both sustaining and disrupting paramilitary violence and agrarian extractivism. The focus not just on the gendered effects of war and extractivism, but on gender’s constitutive role in the configuration of these processes and dynamics, allows us to contribute to recent literature on extractivism, dispossession and violence from a feminist standpoint.     

Konflikte zwischen Freizeitnutzung und Naturschutzinteressen

In den zurückliegenden Jahren standen die Konflikte, die sich aus den gegensätzlichen Anforderungen von Naturschutz und Freizeitnutzung ergeben, immer häufiger im Fokus des wissenschaftlichen Interesses. Dabei ist es durchaus nicht so, daß der Naturschutz auf der einen Seite und die Freizeitnutzung auf der anderen Seite prinzipiell unvereinbare Gegensätze darstellen. Theoretisch lassen sich naturverbundene Freizeitbeschäftigungen wie etwa Spazierengehen oder Wandern, Lauf-, Rad- oder Reitsport durchaus mit den Anforderungen des Naturschutzes vereinbaren. Praktisch funktioniert dies nur, wenn alle Beteiligten sich an die bestehenden Schutzbestimmungen halten. Leider ist das in der Praxis nicht immer der Fall. Infolgedessen kommt es zu Konflikten, obwohl beide Parteien, Naturschützer und Freizeitnutzer im Grunde ein gemeinsames Interesse haben, nämlich die Erhaltung von natürlichen und naturnahen Räumen.     

Gender Inequality in Asset Ownership in Latin America: Female Owners vs Household Heads

Most studies that incorporate a gender dimension into the study of poverty or other development outcomes focus on the sex of the household head. This article argues that a headship analysis gives only a partial view of gender inequality since it does not take into account the position of women within male‐headed households. Drawing primarily on the Living Standard Measurement Studies for Latin America and the Caribbean, the authors present baseline indicators of the degree of gender inequality in asset ownership for the eleven countries in the region that have collected individual‐level data on asset ownership. Disaggregated data on asset ownership within households suggest that the distribution of property by gender is more equitable than a headship analysis alone would imply. But the degree of gender inequality also varies according to the specific asset and among countries. Further comparative work on asset ownership requires attention to the marital regimes governing property rights in marriage. Finally, the authors suggest how household surveys could be improved by standardizing the collection of individual‐level asset data across countries.     

Frontiers of Individuality: Embodiment and Relationships in Cultural Context

Book reviewed in this article:
Margaret S. Archer, Being Human: The Problem of Agency