Local ordering matters in Central Eurasia, and atomisation is one of its forms

by Karolina Kluczewska

‘Tajikistan’s Atomised Peace: Approaching Conflict Management from the Ground Up’ is part of the special issue ‘Studying Peace in and with Central Eurasia,’ Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 14(4), pp. 551-570.

Local ordering matters – this is the starting point of a recent special issue titled ‘Studying Peace in and with Central Eurasia,’ edited by Anna Kreikemeyer, which explores and theorises a variety of ordering and peace formation practices arising from the ground up. This collection of articles, focusing on the Caucasus and Central Asia, is an outcome of an intellectual journey which began in Hamburg in November 2016 and brought together scholars and practitioners interested in prospects for peace research in and with Central Eurasia. The crises of liberal universalism and the limits of external interference have been long acknowledged in critical peace and intervention studies, which resulted in a local turn focusing on indigenous sources of peace formation. But how to make sense of ‘the local’ – with its multiple actors, conflicting normativities and multi-layered contexts? And can ‘the local’ be really local – exist on its own, independently of the state and international influences?

By unpacking these questions, the special issue aims to bring forward the post-liberal debate, and it does so by following the ethnographic peace research agenda. All contributions zoom in at micro-level processes of coping and resilience characterising local ordering, which determine peace dynamics on the ground, without essentialising and romanticising them.

Local ordering is usually associated with customary orders. These determine how various societies are structured – both divided and connected – across traditional forms of social stratification. Hierarchies characterising customary orders may depend upon kinship, age and gender, but also other aspects, such as family reputation or distribution of resources. These factors often cause conflicts, but they are also sources of subsequent conflict settlement. Undoubtedly, a continuity of traditional forms of social ordering can be observed in Central Eurasia and, like other contributors, I believe that we need to study them – without losing sight of the bigger picture. Ultimately, the region not only safeguards its traditions but is also subject to an inevitable impact of global capitalism and neoliberal forms of governance.

My article in the special issue argues that while customary orders matter on the communal level, a simultaneous atomisation of the society as a unit is taking place across the region, and this process should also be viewed as a possible form of local ordering. In other words, the loosening of horizontal (between different social groups) and vertical (between people and the state) linkages and interactions, rather than their strengthening, can also contribute to peace formation. This is a particularly relevant dimension in the context of the region’s integration into the global political economy after the Soviet collapse in 1991. The case of Tajikistan is illustrative of these dynamics.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the consequent Tajik civil war (1992-1997) resulted in an economic collapse and withdrawal of the welfare state. This led to an impoverishment of the Soviet-era strong middle class and a general precarisation. In the 2000s, the country became a provider of cheap labour for foreign markets, with more than 10% of citizens living and working abroad. How did these dynamics influence local ordering?  In the article, I sketch ethnographic vignettes revolving around routines, duties and ambitions of four individuals, to show how they mitigate everyday challenges to secure a decent life for themselves and their families. These vignettes adopt a biographical approach and focus on the interactions between the individual, the society and the state. They reveal an atomisation based on two types of asymmetries.

First, it seems that the horizontal interactions are in decline because people refer to their closest communities – family, friends, colleagues – but do not identify with the society as a whole. Space is an important dimension of this process. By occupying different socio-territorial spaces and narrowing them down in search of comfort and satisfaction, people cease to interact with other social groups. Second, the vertical interactions are also loosening because of a separation between the state and people. The post-Soviet state does not provide welfare, and people do not blame it for poor socio-economic conditions, nor do they have any expectations. This does not mean that the state is absent. Rather, the society and the state function in parallel to each other. This shows that the atomisation results from a social fragmentation, on the one hand, and a non-interference between the society and the state, on the other.

The story of Malika, a 35-year-old woman from a rural, economically disadvantaged part of the country, is a case in point. She is married to a labour migrant who works in Russia, and lives with four children in her in-laws’ house. Malika does not make long-term plans. In her everyday life, she focuses on household work and upbringing of children, in addition to taking small sewing job at home and awaiting remittances. The socio-spatial configuration of her life is largely limited to her in-laws’ household. She does not interact much with other people –  spending too much time in public place does not add to women’s good reputation in this community. Malika neither feels the state’s presence in her life, nor holds resentment against it. She mainly identifies the state with local officials from her village, who themselves are not more well-off than her family.

Besides illustrating how atomisation looks like, Malika’s story reveals that many dynamics which characterise local ordering largely contradict liberal universalism. It also shows the complexity of local ordering, which includes a multiplicity of actors, socio-territorial spaces and overlapping local, translocal, national and transnational levels. Most importantly, local ordering is a process. This is why, as Anna Kreikemeyer posits in the introduction to the special issue, peace research in and with Central Eurasia, and beyond, demands an openness to emic perspectives and ethnography. The two allow us to grasp how local actors actively navigate their social milieus and by that participate in peace formation. For more details, read the article in full.