Presentation short abstract

This contribution aims to reflect on conservation visions and practices in authoritarian Central Asian regimes by looking at relations between state and mountain communities in conservation in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and shows the co-existence of state driven neoliberal visions with conviviality.

Presentation long abstract

Over the last decade, debates on the conservation of nature have been deeply influenced by political ecology which first questioned the controversies and unsustainability of neoliberal conservation and second argued the need to go beyond nature-society dichotomy and promote radical convivial conservation perspectives. Today, however, neoliberal conservation has been intertwined with rising authoritarian, technocratic and nationalistic powers worldwide. Reflecting on interplays between conservation and authoritarian politics, little attention so far has been paid to the former Soviet Union and especially to Central Asia, a region characterized by diverse post-soviet authoritarian regimes in progress of state driven neoliberalization.

Therefore, this contribution reflects on conservation visions and practices in Central Asian regimes by looking at relations between state and mountain communities in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Research analyses conservation and socio-environmental transformations beyond protected areas in the mountain valleys of Agalik and Madm through the adoption of ethnographic methods. Despite their differences, the two case-studies show the centralized role of the state in shaping mountain communities’ socio-environmental practices together with the co-existence of diverse conservation visions. Indeed, ideas and practices of accumulation by conservation through ecotourism driven by the authoritarian state coexist with grassroots collective mountain communities’ socio-environmental relations, shaped by solidarity and mutuality, that echoe the principles of conviviality. Therefore, reflecting on conservation, neoliberism and authoritarianism, the Central Asian region shows a controversial context that merges centralized state conservation, shaped by the Soviet legacy but recently inspired by neoliberalization, with community prospects towards conviviality.