Abstract:

Collectivization Generation, my forthcoming monograph, draws on oral histories to trace the introduction of collectivized agriculture in Uzbekistan and its impact on the lives of dehqons. Interviewers finished each interview with a question about the respondent’s overall view of collectivization, though their positive and critical views were embedded throughout what they told us. In this paper, I reflect on the great variety of their judgments, compare those with Soviet and post-Soviet historiography of collectivization, and examine my own hesitations about using the term ‘decolonial’ as I write their stories.