Everyday Life Governance in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan

The issue of governance has become a fashionable topic of research in the study of post-Soviet societies. The key argument of this article is that there are multiple paradigms and understandings of ‘good governance’, some of which concur with the global (Western) understanding, while others offer alternative criteria. In this article, we explore the specifics of governance system in Uzbekistan and suggest the notion of ‘everyday life governance’ as shorthand for providing contextual understanding of good governance. This local Uzbek governance system consists of two important interrelated components: a government that heavily relies on coercive infrastructure for maintaining political stability and interethnic peace, but at the same time induces its citizens to engage in informal practices and networks as an alternative (to the formal) source of welfare. This article explores how this system emerged in the post-Soviet period and its impact on societal transformation, governance and development processes in Uzbekistan. These issues will be investigated with reference to observations and informal interviews from post-Soviet Uzbekistan. This study is based on three periods of ethnographic field research between 2009 and 2012 in the Ferghana Province of Uzbekistan.Peer reviewe

Political vs everyday forms of governance in Uzbekistan: the illegal, immoral and illegitimate

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Uzbekistan, this article looks at the way official state narratives are challenged by silent, unorganised, often unaware gestures of resistance at the bottom of a society. Footing on a framework suggested by Scott's definition of infrapolitics (2012), we propose to incorporate informal practices in a definition of informality that is more inclusive and better explains the anatomy of a modern state, whose functioning rests on a combination of formal and informal practices. We suggest that this everyday dimension is of particular importance here when trying to understand the governance trajectories, as it allows to look critically, and from a broader perspective, at situations where individual and state perception of events, but also individual and state morality, diverge. By doing this, we propose that governance in transition states and societies may be regarded as a space where formal institutions and citizens (or informal institutions) compete for power and resources and thereby produce informal, alternative "legal orders" and mechanisms that regulate public life in a given area. We will suggest that such a space of informal negotiation is vital in contexts where collective mobilisation and public articulation of social claims is not a preferred, or even available, strategy for citizens

Political vs Everyday Forms of Governance in Uzbekistan : the Illegal, Immoral and Illegitimate

Re-published in Informality, Labour Mobility and Precariousness: Supplementing the State for the Invisible and the Vulnerable (Springer, 2022)Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Uzbekistan, this article looks at the way official state narratives are challenged by silent, unorganised, often unaware gestures of resistance at the bottom of a society. Footing on a framework suggested by Scott’s definition of infrapolitics (2012), we propose to incorporate informal practices in a definition of informality that is more inclusive and better explains the anatomy of a modern state, whose functioning rests on a combination of formal and informal practices. We suggest that this everyday dimension is of particular importance here when trying to understand the governance trajectories, as it allows to look critically, and from a broader perspective, at situations where individual and state perception of events, but also individual and state morality, diverge. By doing this, we propose that governance in transition states and societies may be regarded as a space where formal institutions and citizens (or informal institutions) compete for power and resources and thereby produce informal, alternative ‘legal orders’ and mechanisms that regulate public life in a given area. We will suggest that such a space of informal negotiation is vital in contexts where collective mobilisation and public articulation of social claims is not a preferred, or even available, strategy for citizens.Peer reviewe

Sharpening species boundaries in the Micarea prasina group, with a new circumscription of the type species M. prasina

Peer reviewe

Political vs Everyday Forms of Governance in Uzbekistan: the Illegal, Immoral and Illegitimate

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Uzbekistan, this article looks at the way official state narratives are challenged by silent, unorganised, often unaware gestures of resistance at the bottom of a society. Footing on a framework suggested by Scott’s definition of infrapolitics (2012), we propose to incorporate informal practices in a definition of informality that is more inclusive and better explains the anatomy of a modern state, whose functioning rests on a combination of formal and informal practices. We suggest that this everyday dimension is of particular importance here when trying to understand the governance trajectories, as it allows to look critically, and from a broader perspective, at situations where individual and state perception of events, but also individual and state morality, diverge.By doing this, we propose that governance in transition states and societies may be regarded as a space where formal institutions and citizens (or informal institutions) compete for power and resources and thereby produce informal, alternative ‘legal orders’ and mechanisms that regulate public life in a given area. We will suggest that such a space of informal negotiation is vital in contexts where collective mobilisation and public articulation of social claims is not a preferred, or even available, strategy for citizens