Moving beyond state-centric and elitist perspectives, this volume examines everyday security in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and written by scholars from Central Asia and beyond, it shows how insecurity is experienced, what people consider existential threats, and how they go about securing themselves.
It concentrates on individuals who feel threatened because of their ethnic belonging, gender or sexual orientation. It develops the concept of ‘securityscapes’, which draws attention to the more subtle means that people take to secure themselves – practices bent on invisibility and avoidance, on disguise and trickery, and on continually adapting to shifting circumstances. By broadening the concept of security practice, this book is an important contribution to debates in Critical Security Studies as well as to Central Asian and Area Studies.
Table of Contents:
Preface ~ Nina Bagdasarova
Introduction~ Marc von Boemcken and Aksana Ismailbekova
Studying Danger in Central Asia: Towards a concept of everyday securityscapes ~ Marc von Boemcken
Security Practices and the Survival of Cafés in Southern Kyrgyzstan ~ Shavkhat Atakhanov and Abylabek Asankanov
Securing the Future of Children and Youth: Uzbek private kindergartens and schools in Osh ~ Aksana Ismailbekova
Selective Memories, Identities and Places: Everyday security practices of the Mughat Lyulis in Osh ~ Hafiz Boboyorov and Shavkhat Atakhanov
How to Live with a Female Body: Securityscapes against sexual violence and related interpretation patterns of Kyrgyz women ~ Kathrin Oestmann and Anna M. Korschinek
Romantic Securityscapes of Mixed Couples: Resisting moral panic, surviving in the present, and imagining the future ~ Asel Myrzabekova
The Space-Time Continuum of the ‘Dangerous’ Body: LGBT securityscapes Kyrgyzstan ~ Nina Bagdasarova
Postscript: Towards a Research Agenda on Security Practices ~ Conrad Schetter
About the Author :
Marc von Boemcken is Senior Researcher at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC).
Nina Bagdasarova is Professor of Psychology at the American University of Central Asia.
Aksana Ismailbekova is Senior Researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO).
Conrad Schetter is Director for Research at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BCC).
