Paper abstract:

The aim of this presentation is to reflect on and deconstruct the classroom processes of what many educational reformists in Central Eurasia term “academic corruption”, based on two years of teaching English Composition in an American school in Kyrgyzstan. The first section focuses on the discrepancy between the expectations of the school’s academic Liberal Arts programme and those of certain students. Following Pierre Bourdieu’s analyses of French academia, a second section peers into how economic capital can clash with the cultural capital the school curriculum tries to cultivate. Based on the emerging anthropological literature of affect and emotions, a third section examines the power of nationally-driven, affect-based academic solidarity and Central Eurasian hospitality in education. By way of conclusion, a final section calls for more ground-level academic interest in the Central Eurasian educational and pedagogical spheres, to ensure its integral and perennial survival among the region’s emerging educational and scholarly initiatives.