Paper short abstract:

Central Asian studies were reshaped in the 1990s. Access to the region enabled new empirical information and methods. At the same time, the analytical concepts that became established were colored by the post-cold war Western ideology. This paper explores some of these and their ideological bias.

Paper long abstract:

Central Asian studies were reshaped in the 1990s. Access to the region enabled a wealth of new information, material and methods. At the same time, the analytical concepts with which these new fields were approached and the established terms that stuck, were very much children of their time. Terms popularized during this time, like informality, shadow economy, second economy, corruption and transformation became "gate keeping concepts" (Marilyn Strathern) in Central Asian studies. Still in use today, they betray a state-gaze and an adaptation into the academic analytical approach of the perspectives and concerns or Western led international development organizations, many of whom co-financed such research while they entered with explicitly neo-liberal capitalist agendas. This paper traces the development and ideological background of some of these terms and questions their value as analytical tools to understand rather than as normative measures of certain ideologically predetermined development.