Aigul Zabirova

Head of Sociology Department, Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Eurasian National University, Astana, Kazakhstan.  

My research and writing focus on identity politics in the post-Soviet space, and urbanization and migration in Central Asia. My book, Kazakh People: Between Modernity and Tradition (2003), shows how ethnic and lineage identities functioned among Kazakhs. My current research focuses on power, identity politics, and modernist architecture in Kazakhstan. I was a Visiting Research Fellow at SOAS, London University UK (2010–2011); Lund University, Sweden (2008); Warwick University, UK (2007); Indiana University, USA (2002); Member of International Association of Sociology since 2010.

Applying Postcolonial Approach to Central Asia: Limitations and Opportunities

In my presentation, I explore why postcolonial concepts are absent in Central Asian countries, why local/native Central Asian academics do not refer to postcolonial theories and do not produce postcolonial discourses, and why only scholars from beyond the region brought these ideas to the region. I suggest several methodological and practical explanations.

First, postcolonial discourses are rooted in a Western type of empire practices, in a “Europe and the rest” paradigm, where Europe is Empire and the rest is colonial. Postcolonial theories are oriented to West versus East, to Western marine cultures and Western colonial practices as well as to Eastern/postcolonial practices and discourses. Russian Empire was a type of land Empire; it required appropriate colonial practices in its Asian and Caucasian parts.

Second, Central Asian scholars do not produce postcolonial discourses due to the fact of Russian-oriented foreign policy in all five countries; this means that social science in the region is still restricted by ideology/state agenda. Moreover, all Central Asian countries, especially in nation-building processes, involve produced/reproduced old Soviet approaches and methods (e.g., through national holiday concerts, spectacles, festivals). Keeping in mind the Soviet ideological slogan: “socialist in form and national in content,” I suggest that there are some postcolonial practices, but no postcolonial discourses. Furthermore, after transition to the market economy, all five countries were unable to rival many Soviet economic and social achievements (living standards, mortality, fertility, etc.) This fact is restricting the development of postcolonial discourse in the region.

Third, and perhaps the main explanation – postcolonial theories were developed by postcolonial thinkers, historians and anthropologists such as E. Said, G. Spivak, and others, who moved to the metropolis from colonial countries, who were trained and educated there, and became well-known and established professors. Initially, they developed postcolonial discourses in the West, and only later these ideas shifted to former colonies. Finally, despite the above-mentioned facts, I will attempt to demonstrate not only the limitations but also the potentialities of the postcolonial approach in Central Asian studies.