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Paper abstract:

In this paper, I look at how my interlocutors – Kyrgyz environmental activists and conservationists – position themselves when encountering the Western-constructed models of indigeneity in international biodiversity conservation projects, and how they renegotiate the meanings of concepts such as “local community” or “local knowledge.” With decolonization historically associated with the Cold War idea about “three worlds,” it is of little surprise that the debates about postsocialist postcoloniality persist, despite the undeniable facts of Russian Empire’s conquests, or the production of knowledge aimed at hierarchizing different subjects of the empire based on their ethnicities, both during the Russian Empire, and during the Soviet Union (Hirsch 2005; Mogilner 2013). A related, but less explored question is how to understand indigeneity in the post-Soviet context. The international indigenous activism arose in the second half of the 20th century for the most part focused on the Americas and Oceania, while the non-indigenous (including Soviet) imagination of indigeneity was and is tied to the ideas of non-modernity and anthropological “savage slot” (Trouillot 1991). This “lack of fit” of Central Asia into the mainstream conceptualizations of postcolonialism and indigeneity is getting its recognition in academic debates within Central Asian studies, but it also has consequences in lived experiences of interactions of Central Asian subjects and international institutions and organizations operating in Central Asia. As I had opportunity to see during my study of environmental activism and biodiversity conservation in Kyrgyzstan, international conservationist projects tend to attempt to take into account matters such as “local knowledge” or “indigenous rights,” but they do so while having these concepts understood based on the binaries of Global North – Global South, or modern – indigenous. I look closely at two strategies my interlocutors were using when encountering these notions: embracing the idea of specifically Kyrgyz traditional knowledge about the mountain ecosystems, but without making an explicit claim of indigeneity; or avoiding the issue, but finding other discursive and practical ways to prioritize and elevate the involvement of rural activists over the usual project participants, such as foreigners or well-connected activists from Bishkek. This shows that the absence of Central Asianist perspectives from the mainstream understandings of postcoloniality and indigeneity can also be a space of possibilities for renegotiation of everyday hierarchies. However, such optimistic analysis must also be cautious, as these possibilities are not available to all Central Asian subjects, nor in all circumstances.