Some Responses to Globalisation in Uzbekistan: State Authoritarianism, Migrant Labour and Neo-traditionalism

Author: Bazin, Laurent

Source: Anthropology of the Middle East, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2008 , pp. 10-27(18)

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

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Abstract:

Uzbekistan offers a case study of a country that has blocked the liberalisation of its economy and that is being marginalised in the world market as well as in the international community. Even still, two typical expressions of globalisation processes can be identified: first, an attempt to reconstruct the legitimacy of the state through the reinvention of a 'national identity', and, second, the elimination of a specific form of protected salaried work that had arisen during the Soviet era, along with a concurrent proletarianisation of the population, in particular in the rural areas. The research shows that political coercion and the inculcation of a nationalist ideology, on the one hand, and the economic degradation of living standards, on the other, result in the reinforcement of family ties and repression of individuality, in spite of huge labour migrations and a (minimal) introduction of the market.

Keywords: AUTHORITARIANISM; GLOBALISATION; LABOUR; MIGRATION; POLITICAL ECONOMY; UZBEKISTAN

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.3167/ame.2008.030103

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