IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ceasxx/v59y2007i2p253-277.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On researching ‘Ethnic Conflict’: epistemology, politics, and a Central Asian boundary dispute

Author

Listed:
  • Nick Megoran

Abstract

Providing a critique of alarmist discussions of the danger of ethnic conflict in Kyrgyzstan, and the positivist epistemological assumptions and research practices that underpin them, this article develops an approach to researching ‘ethnicity’ and ‘ethnic conflict’ through the use of focus groups. Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in southern Kyrgyzstan expressed similar views about the closures of international boundaries, framed in terms of ethnicity. However, this was not an essentialist notion, but rather a concept of authentic ‘Uzbekness’ or ‘Kyrgyzness’ predicated primarily on the performance of endogenous kinship practices and Muslim/Soviet notions of class morality, nuanced by geography. These overlaps and discrepancies provide resources for those wishing to articulate visions of future social formations wider than the range of options currently propagated by ethnic entrepreneurs.

Suggested Citation

  • Nick Megoran, 2007. "On researching ‘Ethnic Conflict’: epistemology, politics, and a Central Asian boundary dispute," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(2), pages 253-277.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ceasxx:v:59:y:2007:i:2:p:253-277
    DOI: 10.1080/09668130601125585
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09668130601125585
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09668130601125585?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arambaşa, Mihaela Narcisa, 2008. "Everyday life on the eastern border of the EU –between Romanianism and Moldovanism in the border area of the Republic of Moldova and Romania," SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 11(3), pages 355-369.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ceasxx:v:59:y:2007:i:2:p:253-277. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/ceas .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.