Abstract:

In recent years, because of the developments in horse herding and horse farming, horse population in Kazakhstan has been rapidly growing. This report focuses on the narratives of the revival of horse breeding in the spirit of the “postcolonial and decolonial turns.” It analyzes the revival of horse breeding as a “decolonial option” that people had after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many informants associate horse breeding with a national tradition and consider themselves contributing to its continuity. Thus, in addition to the obvious rationale as business, horse breeding and participation in kokpar allows people to have additional cultural capital and authority as “custodians” of the tradition.

Abstract:

The term Bukhara carpet was coined by Russian and Western carpet amateurs in the 19th century. They used the term to refer to carpets purchased in the markets of Bukhara, the largest trading center in the region at that period. The term turned out to be surprisingly tenacious, and in our days in response to the query Bukhara carpets, Internet searches yield a huge number of results, the most popular of which claim that hand-knotted carpets have been woven in Bukhara for thousands of years. Internet-based information on Bukhara carpets is supplemented by various publications, reports by international organizations, and stories from Bukhara entrepreneurs. The narratives about ancient Bukhara carpets illustrate Turkmen carpets woven far outside Bukhara by women from the Yomud, Ersary, and Teke tribes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 20th century, the concept of Bukhara carpet migrated from Central Asia to Afghanistan and Pakistan and began to be applied to carpets made here. Today, the bazaars of Bukhara still demonstrate carpets made by Turkmen weavers, calling them Bukhara carpets, additionally, the carpets are offered by a newly established and a tourist-driven manufactory in Bukhara. This study attempts to shed light on the question of the Bukhara carpet, and it intends to answer, among others, the following questions: how did a term coined in the colonial period find a second breath and become a real craft today? What intentions, other than a tourist attraction, are behind reviving the myth of the Bukhara carpet?

Abstract:

In this research paper, I would like to focus on the shrine complex Abd al-Jalil Bab or Khorasan Ata or Khorasan Ata which is located in Zhanqorghan, southern Kazakhstan. This saint or aulia is often considered by many people in Qazaqstan as one of the country’s most important Muslim saints. The shrine complex Abd al-Jalil Bab is an active place of pilgrimage that attracts people across parts of Central Asia. The data were collected during ethnographic fieldwork in Zhanaqorgan and Saryagash areas and right on the sacred site of Abd al-Jalil Bab. Analysis of four hagiographies written in Kazakh Cyrillic contemporary hagiographies shows that the narrative of this Muslim aulia and his shrine complex is going through a different process of reimagination, where some hybridity and invention of different practices and traditions of secular and religious origins are going on the grassroots level.

Abstract:

Since the end of the Civil war, the ruling elite of Tajikistan has shown a strong endeavor to recast tradition and to endorse the “sound family” with “healthy nation” building (Roche 2016). The laws on ritual expenditure (2007 and 2017) epitomize the State tendency to interfere in family and social affairs of the citizens. Yet it is not the only case: laws on appropriate clothing, on parental responsibility, on the naming of children, or the ban on certain marriages, also partake in the same effort to submit families to national building.

In this presentation I will present how official narratives define what a "good family" created by marriage is – healthy (solimi), united (tifoqi), and based on love (mukhabbat). However, at the same time, marriage as people celebrate it in the country is problematic in the eye of the state: marriages are often arranged, mostly within close networks of kin and neighbors, performed through expensive rituals. As such they may be seen as an obstacle to national building (and the right tradition), on the one hand, and to the rooting of the authoritarian state (tightly controlling family planning), on the other. How do these two definitions of marriage coexist in the country? How these sometimes antagonist understanding of marriage appear throughout the rituals? How do the rituals enable us to understand how far the state controls marriage performance in the country? To answer these questions, I will focus particularly on how “love” is being used both by the government and the families to promote their own vision of what a good marriage is.