# Rethinking Agricultural Cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan
## Towards a Postcapitalist Approach to Cooperation in Postsocialism

### THESIS

presented to the Faculty of Science and Medicine of the University of Fribourg (Switzerland)
in consideration for the award of the academic grade of
*Doctor of Philosophy in Geography*

by
Ottavia Cima
from
Blenio (TI), Switzerland

Thesis No: 2187

Printing house: UniPrint

2020

https://doi.org/10.51363/unifr.sth.2022.004

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>
Accepted by the Faculty of Science and Medicine of the University of Fribourg (Switzerland)
upon the recommendation of:

Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christine Bichsel (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)

Jury members:
Dr. Jeanne Féaux de la Croix (University of Tübingen, Germany)
Prof. Dr. Jérémie Forney (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland)
Dr. Bruno Meeus (University of Utrecht, Netherlands)

President of the jury: Prof. Dr. Olivier Graefe (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)

Fribourg, 11.05.2020

Thesis supervisor

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Prof. Dr. Christine Bichsel</figcaption></figure>

Dean

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Prof. Dr. Gregor Rainer</figcaption></figure>
<table><tr><td>PART I – Conclusion</td><td>42</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>PART II – Conceptual and methodological approach</td><td>43</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4</td><td>WEAK THEORY TO RETHINK COOPERATIVES</td><td>44</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.1</td><td>Gibson-Graham's weak theory</td><td>44</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.1.1</td><td>Weak theory to rethink the economy</td><td>45</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.1.2</td><td>Cultivating subjects</td><td>47</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.2</td><td>Weak theory for postsocialism</td><td>48</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.2.1</td><td>Ethnography against grand narratives of transition</td><td>48</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.2.2</td><td>The end of postsocialism (as we knew it)?</td><td>49</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.3</td><td>Weak theory to rethink agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan</td><td>51</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.3.1</td><td>Traversing fantasies to engage with cooperatives</td><td>53</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.3.2</td><td>Cooperation as relational practice</td><td>55</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4.3.3</td><td>Rethinking cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan</td><td>58</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5</td><td>ENGAGING WITH COOPERATIVES: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH</td><td>59</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.1</td><td>Genealogy of the research</td><td>61</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.2</td><td>Constructing a case study and approaching the field</td><td>65</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.2.1</td><td>Studying cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan</td><td>65</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.2.2</td><td>Studying cooperatives in the Issyk-Kul region</td><td>66</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.2.3</td><td>Studying cooperatives in Pjak</td><td>66</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.2.4</td><td>The researching subject as part of the field</td><td>67</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.3</td><td>Constituting data and experience</td><td>69</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.3.1</td><td>Research stays in Kyrgyzstan</td><td>69</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.3.2</td><td>A range of methods to engage with the field</td><td>70</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.4</td><td>Making sense of experience and constructing knowledge</td><td>74</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5.5</td><td>Writing the thesis manuscript</td><td>76</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>PART II – Conclusion</td><td>77</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>PART III – Promoting cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan: representations and practices</td><td>78</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>6</td><td>REPRESENTATIONS AND PRACTICES OF THE PROMOTION OF COOPERATIVES IN CONTEMPORARY KYRGYZSTAN</td><td>79</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>6.1</td><td>The narrative of failed cooperatives by scholars</td><td>80</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>6.1.1</td><td>Service cooperatives to correct market failures</td><td>80</td></tr></table>
<table><tbody><tr><td>6.1.2</td><td>"A psychological resistance to cooperation": explanations for the failure of cooperatives</td><td>82</td></tr><tr><td>6.1.3</td><td>An influential narrative with weak foundations</td><td>84</td></tr><tr><td>6.1.4</td><td>Discussion: a narrative inserted in a developmentalist discourse</td><td>85</td></tr><tr><td><strong>6.2</strong></td><td><strong>The narrative of failed cooperatives by the actors promoting them</strong></td><td><strong>86</strong></td></tr><tr><td>6.2.1</td><td>On farmers and "society": Soviet legacy and laziness</td><td>87</td></tr><tr><td>6.2.2</td><td>On governmental actors: contradictions and failed promises</td><td>88</td></tr><tr><td>6.2.3</td><td>On the Cooperative Union of Kyrgyzstan: "doing remont"</td><td>91</td></tr><tr><td>6.2.4</td><td>Discussion: building a hierarchy of knowledge and experience</td><td>92</td></tr><tr><td><strong>6.3</strong></td><td><strong>Development actors: renegotiating cooperatives and development</strong></td><td><strong>95</strong></td></tr><tr><td>6.3.1</td><td>Differentiations in the narratives of individual development actors</td><td>95</td></tr><tr><td>6.3.2</td><td>Discussion: situating the narratives of individual development actors</td><td>97</td></tr><tr><td><strong>6.4</strong></td><td><strong>Governmental actors: navigating ambiguity</strong></td><td><strong>100</strong></td></tr><tr><td>6.4.1</td><td>Meanings of cooperatives</td><td>102</td></tr><tr><td>6.4.2</td><td>Ideals of modernity and development</td><td>104</td></tr><tr><td>6.4.3</td><td>Discussion: navigating ambiguity</td><td>106</td></tr><tr><td><strong>6.5</strong></td><td><strong>Conclusion: representations and practices of the promotion of cooperatives</strong></td><td><strong>107</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>7</strong></td><td><strong>MAKING SENSE OF COOPERATIVE EXPERIENCES IN THE ISSYK-KUL REGION AND IN PJAK</strong></td><td><strong>111</strong></td></tr><tr><td><strong>7.1</strong></td><td><strong>Approaching cooperatives in the Issyk-Kul</strong></td><td><strong>113</strong></td></tr><tr><td>7.1.1</td><td>Meeting Oktjabr</td><td>113</td></tr><tr><td>7.1.2</td><td>Looking for other cooperatives</td><td>114</td></tr><tr><td>7.1.3</td><td>Discussion: failed cooperatives in the Issyk-Kul?</td><td>115</td></tr><tr><td><strong>7.2</strong></td><td><strong>Performing cooperatives in Pjak</strong></td><td><strong>116</strong></td></tr><tr><td>7.2.1</td><td>Encountering the cooperative Ak-Bulut</td><td>117</td></tr><tr><td>7.2.2</td><td>Performing Ak-Bulut: a double developmentalist narrative</td><td>118</td></tr><tr><td>7.2.3</td><td>Encountering the cooperative Kara-Jer</td><td>121</td></tr><tr><td>7.2.4</td><td>Performing Kara-Jer: defining the "true" cooperative</td><td>123</td></tr><tr><td>7.2.5</td><td>Discussion: "Don't write this in your thesis": performing development</td><td>124</td></tr><tr><td><strong>7.3</strong></td><td><strong>Explaining the decline of Ak-Bulut</strong></td><td><strong>125</strong></td></tr><tr><td>7.3.1</td><td>Lack of support by the state</td><td>126</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.2</td><td>Lack of understanding among farmers</td><td>127</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.3</td><td>"Kyrgyz mentality": laziness and passivity</td><td>128</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.4</td><td>Establishment of markets and loss of solidarity</td><td>129</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.5</td><td>Discussion: "pseudo-cooperatives" and their affects</td><td>130</td></tr><tr><td><strong>7.4</strong></td><td><strong>Assembling Ak-Bulut as a cooperative (or as something else?)</strong></td><td><strong>133</strong></td></tr><tr><td>7.4.1</td><td>Personal networks and membership on paper</td><td>134</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td>7.4.2</td><td>What counts as working together?</td><td>134</td></tr><tr><td>7.4.3</td><td>The Soviet referent and Oktjabr</td><td>135</td></tr><tr><td>7.4.4</td><td>Farmer unions during reforms</td><td>136</td></tr><tr><td>7.4.5</td><td>Farmer groups in the framework of development projects</td><td>137</td></tr><tr><td>7.4.6</td><td>Cooperatives as private businesses</td><td>138</td></tr><tr><td>7.4.7</td><td>Cooperatives as substitutes of the government</td><td>140</td></tr><tr><td>7.5</td><td>Conclusion: rethinking Ak-Bulut, rethinking the economy</td><td>140</td></tr></table>

PART III – Discussion and conclusion.................................................................................. 143

PART IV – Re-reading cooperative experiences in Pjak ................................................................ 150

8 DIVERSE ECONOMIES OF AGRICULTURE IN PJAK: HISTORICAL

TRANSFORMATIONS.................................................................................................................. 151

8.1 General situation and history of Pjak ........................................................................ 151

8.1.1 Arriving in Pjak.................................................................................................................. 151

8.1.2 Early settlements in the region.................................................................................. 152

8.1.3 The advent of Soviet rule and collectivisation.......................................................... 153

8.1.4 The time of “hardship”.................................................................................................... 154

8.1.5 The time of “abundance”.................................................................................................... 155

8.1.6 The “time of chaos”........................................................................................................ 156

8.2 Diverse economies: analytical framework ........................................................................ 156

8.3 Diverse economies of Soviet agriculture........................................................................ 158

8.3.1 Formal state economies: the Soviet farm.................................................................... 159

8.3.2 Informal state economies .......................................................................................... 161

8.3.3 Private formal economies.......................................................................................... 163

8.3.4 Private informal economies.......................................................................................... 163

8.3.5 Discussion: mapping diverse economies of Soviet agriculture.................................. 166

8.4 Diverse economies after independence........................................................................ 168

8.4.1 State economies: dismantling the Soviet farm................................................................ 169

8.4.2 Private economies: establishing private farming ........................................................ 173

8.4.3 Discussion: mapping diverse transitions .................................................................... 175

8.5 New actors in the local arena ........................................................................................ 178

8.5.1 Mobilising local elites........................................................................................................ 178

8.5.2 Privileges and burdens for local elites........................................................................ 179

8.5.3 A new generation of projects .................................................................................... 182

8.5.4 Discussion: new actors, new relations........................................................................ 184
<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>8.6</td>
      <td>Conclusion: transformations of economic practices and social relations in Pjak</td>
      <td>185</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9</td>
      <td>DIVERSE ECONOMIES OF AGRICULTURE IN PJAK TODAY</td>
      <td>190</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.1</td>
      <td>"We do all by ourselves now": individualisation of agriculture and of social relations</td>
      <td>190</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.1.1</td>
      <td>The establishment of agricultural markets</td>
      <td>191</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.1.2</td>
      <td>"We have all become specialists": sense of pride for the establishment of private farming</td>
      <td>192</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.1.3</td>
      <td>"Now you have to pay for everything": monetisation of exchanges</td>
      <td>193</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.2</td>
      <td>A weekend in the potato field</td>
      <td>196</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3</td>
      <td>Everyday practices of agriculture</td>
      <td>198</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3.1</td>
      <td>Exchanges between and within multi-sited households</td>
      <td>199</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3.2</td>
      <td>Land use</td>
      <td>201</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3.3</td>
      <td>Labour</td>
      <td>204</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3.4</td>
      <td>Agricultural inputs, information and knowledge</td>
      <td>206</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3.5</td>
      <td>Agricultural machines</td>
      <td>208</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3.6</td>
      <td>Irrigation</td>
      <td>209</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3.7</td>
      <td>Marketing</td>
      <td>213</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.3.8</td>
      <td>Cash and financial services</td>
      <td>214</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.4</td>
      <td>Diverse economies of agriculture today: cooperation, networks and identities</td>
      <td>215</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.4.1</td>
      <td>Spaces and networks of cooperation</td>
      <td>216</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.4.2</td>
      <td>Inclusion, exclusion and authority in networks</td>
      <td>217</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.4.3</td>
      <td>Networks, identities and structures</td>
      <td>219</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.4.4</td>
      <td>Identities, affects and power</td>
      <td>221</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.5</td>
      <td>Discussion: moralities of work and senses of self and community</td>
      <td>223</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.5.1</td>
      <td>Private accumulation and moralities of work</td>
      <td>224</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.5.2</td>
      <td>Private business as support to others</td>
      <td>226</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.5.3</td>
      <td>Identities of and through work</td>
      <td>228</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.5.4</td>
      <td>Senses of self and community</td>
      <td>230</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9.6</td>
      <td>Conclusion: making sense of diverging representations and practices of cooperation</td>
      <td>231</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2">PART IV – Discussion and conclusion</td>
      <td>234</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>10</td>
      <td>GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION</td>
      <td>243</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<table><tr><td>BIBLIOGRAPHY</td><td>256</td></tr><tr><td>ANNEX I – WHO IS WHO: PERSONS MENTIONED IN THE MANUSCRIPT</td><td>275</td></tr><tr><td>ANNEX II – FIGURES</td><td>277</td></tr></table>
ABSTRACT

In the last three decades, community-based approaches have gained acclamation worldwide as a way to promote sustainable and inclusive development and, in ex-socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, as a way to support the “transition” towards a market economy. International donors have attempted to establish formal institutions for cooperation in local communities; among these, service cooperatives have promised a democratic and market-fit alternative to socialist collective farms. Kyrgyzstan’s liberalised economy after its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 has been a fertile ground for experiments with models of institutionalised cooperation – including agricultural cooperatives. However, today the dominant framing considers most cooperatives in the country as failed and explains this apparent failure through forms of historically inherited negative attitude towards cooperation.

This research aims to provide an alternative reading of agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan in order to generate more positive affects than the feelings of failure and inadequacy produced by the dominant framing. I focus on the promotion of agricultural cooperatives in rural Kyrgyzstan by international actors and on how local communities reinterpret and renegotiate a formal institution for cooperation promoted by external actors. I thereby illustrate how international actors uphold a specific model of cooperatives – as a tool on a prescribed route towards a teleological fantasy of development – and how local actors incorporate, and thereby reframe, this model in their everyday. I do this through an ethnographic engagement with villagers in Pjak, in the north-east of the country, and in particular with the practices and representations that emerge in relation to a local cooperative, Ak-Bulut.

My analysis represents an entry point for rethinking not only cooperatives but also well-established economic theories and models – not only in Kyrgyzstan or in other ex-socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, but globally. The focus on the promotion of cooperatives opens a broader reflection on how communities and individuals locally rearticulate global processes of neoliberalisation and marketisation. I thus interrogate the ways in which hegemonic discourses on the economy, development and modernity produce particular kinds of subjectivities and affects and their consequences on material inequalities; simultaneously, I explore the room for individual agency – for resistance and contestation – that emerges from the discontinuities of these hegemonic discourses. As a way to reinforce and expand this agency, I propose an approach to cooperatives and cooperation in postsocialism – a postcapitalist, postfantasmatic and relational approach – that invites to assume an open, anti-essentialist stance to engage with communities in the here and now. This approach, I argue, is relevant (and indeed needed) globally, especially in the present context of rising nationalist and authoritarian forces.
# RÉSUMÉ

## Repenser les coopératives agricoles au Kirghizistan. Vers une approche post-capitaliste de la coopération dans le post-socialisme

Les approches participatives bottom-up ont été saluées dans le monde entier d'une part, pour leur capacité à promouvoir un développement durable et inclusif, et dans les anciens pays socialistes d'autre part, pour leur propension à soutenir la « transition » vers une économie de marché. Les bailleurs de fonds internationaux ont tenté de créer des institutions formelles de coopération dans les communautés locales ; parmi celles-ci, les coopératives de services – en opposition aux fermes collectives socialistes – ont promis une alternative démocratique et adaptée au marché. L'économie libéralisée du Kirghizistan après son indépendance de l'Union Soviétique en 1991 a été un terrain fertile pour expérimenter divers modèles de coopération institutionnalisée – dont les coopératives agricoles. Cependant, le discours dominant aujourd'hui considère que la plupart des coopératives du pays sont un échec, et attribue cet échec apparent à des formes d'attitude négative envers la coopération, héritées du passé.

Cette recherche vise à fournir une lecture alternative des coopératives agricoles au Kirghizistan, afin de générer des affects plus positifs que le sentiment d'échec produits par le discours dominant. Je me concentre sur la promotion des coopératives agricoles par les acteurs internationaux et sur la façon dont les communautés locales réinterprètent et renégocient une institution formelle de coopération promue par des acteurs externes. J'illustre ainsi comment les acteurs internationaux soutiennent un modèle spécifique de coopératives – en tant qu'outil au sein d'une voie prescrite vers un fantasme téléologique du développement – et comment les acteurs locaux intègrent, et ainsi recadrent, ce modèle dans leur quotidien. Cette analyse se fonde sur mon engagement ethnographique avec les pratiques et représentations qui émergent en relation avec une coopérative locale dans un village dans le nord du pays.

Mon analyse constitue un point d'entrée pour repenser non seulement les coopératives, mais aussi des théories et modèles économiques bien établis – au Kirghizistan, dans d'autres pays ex-socialistes d'Europe Centrale et Orientale et de l'ancienne Union Soviétique, et plus généralement à l'échelle mondiale. L'accent sur la promotion des coopératives permet d'ouvrir une réflexion plus large sur la manière dont les communautés et les individus réarticulent localement des processus globaux de néolibéralisation et de marchandisation. J'interroge ainsi les façons dont les discours hégémoniques sur l'économie, le développement et la modernité produisent des types particuliers de subjectivités et d'affects, ainsi que leurs conséquences sur les inégalités matérielles. Simultanément, j'explore l'espace pour l'action individuelle – pour la résistance et la contestation – qui émerge des discontinuités de ces discours hégémoniques. Afin de renforcer et d'élargir cette capacité d'action, je propose une approche – post-capitaliste, post-fantasmatique et relationnelle – aux coopératives et à la coopération dans le post-socialisme, invitant à adopter une position ouverte et anti-essentialiste pour s'engager avec les communautés dans le présent. Je maintiens que cette approche est pertinente – et nécessaire – à l'échelle mondiale, en particulier dans le contexte actuel de montée des forces nationalistes et autoritaires.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This manuscript is the result and the manifestation of the love and support of people (and other entities)
who have allowed me to write what I wrote and to become whom I have become.

First and foremost, this research would never have been possible without the contribution of the people I
met in Kyrgyzstan and who offered me their incredible hospitality. Kumbat, Dinara, their children,
grandchildren and relatives welcomed me in their family as a family member. I am deeply grateful for the
spontaneity and love with which they made me part of their everyday lives: sharing happy, funny and sad
moments with me as well as their stories, experiences, wishes and thoughts. I am thankful also to the
people, in Pjak and in other parts of Kyrgyzstan, who opened their kitchens, yards and fields to me,
sharing their lives along with tea, bread and delicious jams. A special thank goes to Aisha and her
husband for the openness with which they were ready to discuss my reflections and observations so
frequently.

No words can be enough to thank Saikal – whom I met as an interpreter and who quickly became an
exceptional friend – for her care, patience, explanations and sensibility in dealing with
interlinguistic/intercultural confusion, and for the long hours spent discussing our observations, feelings
and intimate experiences. My acknowledgments go also to Elzada for accompanying me in the discovery
of Pjak and its surroundings and for pulling me out of a few troublesome situations with her resourceful
proactivity.

Several other people contributed to make the stays in Kyrgyzstan not only fruitful for my research but
also pleasant and sometimes fun: Saikal's family, “Apa's” family in Bishkek, local and international
researchers (a special mention to Irène Mestre and her magic garden on Manas and to Daniele Rumolo for
much appreciated introductions to several aspects of Kyrgyzstan and its capital), activists and
development workers from several institutions. I would also like to acknowledge the Central Asian
Studies Institute (CASI) at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) for hosting me as a visiting
scholar.

This research would not have been possible in the very first place without the trust that my future
supervisor, Christine Bichsel, accorded to me when we first met: I thank her for giving me the
opportunity to discover a part of the world I barely knew and for sharing her impressively extensive
knowledge on Central Asia. I have no words to express my gratitude to Bruno Meeus, who was much
more than a jury member: an inspiring and challenging mentor, a role-model academic, a trusted
comrade, a precious friend. I am also grateful to the other members of my doctoral jury, Jeanne Féaux de
la Croix and Jérémie Forney, for their engaged comments and stimulating discussion on the manuscript.

Without all the colleagues at the Geography Unit of the University of Fribourg, I would probably never
have been able to finalise this manuscript – or at least it would have been much less fun. I am immensely
thankful to my colleagues – those who were there since the beginning, those who came later and those
who were there just for a while – for their support, care and love: I was privileged to share with them so
many moments of friendship in the office, in the bars of Fribourg, in the mountains, in the vineyards, in Kyrgyzstan and in many other places. My thanks go to Alyssa, Antoine, Carlo, Cécile, Coline, Dario, Eric, Erlan, Hanna, Imane, Jevgeniy, Jonas, Kaduna, Katja, Laura, Leo, Luc, Luisa, Magali, Marco, Marion, Martin, Mauro, Morgane, Nora, Olivier E., Olivier G., Rebecca, Romain, Ruslan, Surya, Theresa and all other colleagues of the Unit. I am thankful also to Alex, Nicole, Valentine, Sylvie as well as to Eveline Burri for their impeccable and dedicated administrative and technical support. I am particularly grateful to Andrea for introducing me to several aspects of Central Asia (including the best spots for shashliki) and for being an amazing “Diss-Bruder” and a loyal companion of adventures since when I settled in his office at the beginning of my thesis. A special mention goes to Martina and Marlene for providing a roof and much-appreciated company during some of my stays in Bishkek. I am especially grateful to Mario, for the indispensable walks in the *jardin botanique* and for much more. I am thankful for all the feedback and advise provided by colleagues on my research: in particular, I am profoundly indebted to Isabelle for reading through the whole manuscript and for her coaching sessions, as well as to Mathilde for providing precious feedback on the last parts of the manuscript so quickly plus for the numerous, invaluable exchanges about our respective research. Finally, my acknowledgments go to the University of Fribourg for its material contribution, in particular to the Fond de Recherche du Centenaire for covering part of the fieldwork expenses.

The support of numerous other scholars whom I met around the world for short or long time was crucial for my research and for the evolution of my reflections. I am particularly thankful to the doctoral school of the Conférence Universitaire de Suisse Occidentale (CUSO) for the several occasions for exchange with doctoral students and other researchers, as well as to Katherine Gibson, Stephen Healy and the participants of the summer school “Researching Post-capitalist Possibilities” for inspiring inputs and discussions. I am grateful to Christian Schulz for his humanity, flexibility and encouragement during the last part of the doctoral procedure as well as to the colleagues at the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning of the University of Luxembourg for accompanying me during the very final steps of the procedure. I am profoundly indebted to Jennifer Bartmess for her careful and rigorous proofreading of the manuscript and other writings and for her sharp and accurate suggestions.

Nothing of all this would have been possible without the love, care and support that (human and nonhuman) companions generously offered throughout the years or during specific moments. My boundless gratitude goes to Chiara, Claudio, Danilo, Edgar, Eduardo, Eric, Elisa, Fulgenzio, Jean-Michael, Linda, Marie-Adèle, Milena, Nadia, Nico, Paolo/Padre, Richard and Roberto, among many others. I am especially grateful to Alice, Davide, Fulvia, Jennifer and Laura for offering benevolent ears and shoulders during periods of doubt and for engaging in committed debates on my research and research more generally. I have no words to thank Denise for accompanying me with her wisdom and compassion during the last years of my PhD, for making me laugh even in the most desperate moments and for showing up always at the right moment.

Finally, I certainly would not be writing these words without my family. I am thankful to my sister Valentina for always providing a warm, caring and welcoming space to me, as well as to Carlotta and
Pietro (along with Dimitri, Makia, Ruben, Nio and many others) who are teaching me so much – for instance to imagine round colourful houses and to be amazed by every fig, stone or flower met on my way. My most profound gratitude goes to my parents, Giulia and Tarcisio, for their unconditional love, their inexhaustible care, their limitless support (material, intellectual, emotional and moral), for accompanying me on my journey – and travelling with me.

Several places have provided solid ground, a comforting atmosphere and an inspiring environment for this research: Pjak and Dangio, with the force of their mountains; Karakol and Bishkek, with their quiet and swirly familiarity, respectively; various flats and rooms in Bishkek, as protected settings for writing and thinking; other flats and houses in Switzerland, with or without cats, sometimes with baby blackbirds, often with clean windows; a fireplace with elves, sent to remind us of the perfection among all imperfections.

Although I am indebted to all these people and entities for their help and suggestions, I assume full responsibility for the opinions expressed in this manuscript.
ABBREVIATIONS

<table><tr><td>AAG</td><td>American Association of Geographers</td></tr><tr><td>ADK</td><td>Aiyldyk Den sooluk Komitet (Kyrgyz): Village Health Committee</td></tr><tr><td>CB(N)RM</td><td>Community-Based (Natural) Resource Management</td></tr><tr><td>CBO</td><td>Community-Based Organisation</td></tr><tr><td>CEE</td><td>Central and Eastern Europe</td></tr><tr><td>CUK</td><td>Cooperative Union of Kyrgyzstan</td></tr><tr><td>DAC/OECD</td><td>Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development</td></tr><tr><td>EAEU</td><td>Eurasian Economic Union</td></tr><tr><td>EBRD</td><td>European Bank for Reconstruction and Development</td></tr><tr><td>FAO</td><td>Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations</td></tr><tr><td>FSU</td><td>Former Soviet Union</td></tr><tr><td>GAO</td><td>Gross Agricultural Output</td></tr><tr><td>GDP</td><td>Gross Domestic Product</td></tr><tr><td>GIZ (ex GTZ)</td><td>Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (formerly, the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit)</td></tr><tr><td>ICA</td><td>International Cooperative Alliance</td></tr><tr><td>ILO</td><td>International Labour Organisation</td></tr><tr><td>IMF</td><td>International Monetary Fund</td></tr><tr><td>JICA</td><td>Japanese International Cooperation Agency</td></tr><tr><td>LRF</td><td>Land Redistribution Fund</td></tr><tr><td>MDGs</td><td>Millennium Development Goals</td></tr><tr><td>NGO</td><td>Non-Governmental Organisation</td></tr><tr><td>NSSD</td><td>National Sustainable Development Strategy for the Kyrgyz Republic</td></tr><tr><td>POLLEN</td><td>Political Ecology Network</td></tr><tr><td>RAS</td><td>Rural Advisory Services</td></tr><tr><td>SDC</td><td>Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation</td></tr><tr><td>SDGs</td><td>Sustainable Development Goals</td></tr><tr><td>USAID</td><td>United States Agency for International Development</td></tr><tr><td>WUA</td><td>Water User Association</td></tr></table>
GLOSSARY OF KYRGYZ AND RUSSIAN TERMS

<table><tr><td>Aiyl</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Village. Aiyl okrug is the lowest local government entity, with its legislative (aiyl kenesh) and executive (aiyl okmotu) bodies. The term aiyl okmotu is also used to refer to the local government in general, its building and its territory.</td></tr><tr><td>Akim</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Head of the district</td></tr><tr><td>Aksakal</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Elder, local leader</td></tr><tr><td>Artel</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Team</td></tr><tr><td>Ata</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Father; used also as a form of respectful address to older men</td></tr><tr><td>Ashar</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Practice of community work considered traditional in Kyrgyzstan</td></tr><tr><td>Baike</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Older brother; used also as a form of respectful address to men older than the speaker</td></tr><tr><td>Banja</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Bath, bathhouse</td></tr><tr><td>Beshbarmak</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Traditional Kyrgyz dish consisting of boiled meat and noodles, eaten in special occasions</td></tr><tr><td>Bii</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Local leader</td></tr><tr><td>Birikme</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Association</td></tr><tr><td>Borsoki</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Small fried breads</td></tr><tr><td>Chornaya kassa</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Form of rotating savings and credit association</td></tr><tr><td>Dyikan</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Farmer</td></tr><tr><td>Dyikan charba</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Peasant farm</td></tr><tr><td>Fermer</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Farmer</td></tr><tr><td>Gubernator</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Head of the province</td></tr><tr><td>Jailoo</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Summer pasture</td></tr><tr><td>Jarma</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Popular grain-based cold drink in Kyrgyzstan</td></tr><tr><td>Kelin</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Daughter-in-law or, in general, young married woman</td></tr><tr><td>Kolkhoz</td><td>Rus.</td><td>(Soviet) collective farm</td></tr><tr><td>Kristjanske khozjastva</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Peasant farm</td></tr><tr><td>Kulak</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Designation for peasant farmers during the Russian Empire; in Soviet times the term assumed a negative connotation</td></tr><tr><td>Kurort</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Resort</td></tr><tr><td>Manap</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Local leader</td></tr><tr><td>Mirab</td><td>Kyr.</td><td>Water manager</td></tr><tr><td>Oblast</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Province</td></tr><tr><td>Rayon</td><td>Rus.</td><td>District</td></tr><tr><td>Remont</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Repair, renovation</td></tr><tr><td>Sovkhoz</td><td>Rus.</td><td>(Soviet) state farm</td></tr><tr><td>Subbotniki</td><td>Rus.</td><td>Form of community work established during the Soviet Union</td></tr></table>
Toi Kyr. General term for different kinds of social celebrations

Uruu Kyr. Descent line

*Note on plurals:* for the reader's easier understanding, the plural of foreign words is in most cases marked by the English “-s” (in some cases, the Russian “-i” is maintained, as in *fermeri*).

*Note on currencies:* the value of Kyrgyzstan's national currency, the Kyrgyzstani Som (KGS, or som) dropped between 2014 and 2015; since 2016 it has been mostly stable. Prices are indicated in soms with their equivalent in US Dollars (USD) based on conversion rates on 08.06.2016, when 1 KGS corresponded to 0.0146 USD and 1 USD to 68.37 KGS (https://www.xe.com, accessed 23.12.2019).
LIST OF TABLES

<table><tr><td>Table 2.1: ICA cooperative principles</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>Table 2.2: Classification of cooperatives</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>Table 5.1: Research timeline</td><td>62</td></tr><tr><td>Table 5.2: Main activities and points of focus during research stays in Kyrgyzstan</td><td>69</td></tr><tr><td>Table 5.3: Empirical material</td><td>74</td></tr></table>

LIST OF FIGURES

<table><tr><td>Figure 1: Map of Kyrgyzstan</td><td>277</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 2: Map of the Issyk-Kul region</td><td>277</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 3: Flyers from Nurlan's fridge/shelf</td><td>278</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 4: Postcard of the Issyk-Kul lake</td><td>278</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 5: First view of the Issyk-Kul lake from the bus coming from Bishkek</td><td>279</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 6: Land use in the Issyk-Kul region</td><td>279</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 7: An agricultural landscape in the Issyk-Kul region</td><td>280</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 8: Map of Kok-Bulak <i>aiyl</i> by a villager</td><td>280</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 9: Diverse economies iceberg</td><td>281</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 10: Pavlovskaya's representation of diverse economies</td><td>281</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 11: Diverse economies of Soviet agriculture</td><td>282</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 12: Diverse economies after Kyrgyzstan's independence</td><td>282</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 13: A second-hand tractor</td><td>283</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 14: Barley stored in the summer kitchen</td><td>283</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 15: A lavish marriage</td><td>284</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 16: Sowing potatoes by hand</td><td>284</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 17: Kumbat's family</td><td>285</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 18: Summer <i>remont</i> and cleaning</td><td>285</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 19: Exchange of food within the extended family</td><td>286</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 20: Construction work through <i>ashar</i></td><td>286</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 21: Sick potato plants</td><td>287</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 22: Irrigation infrastructure</td><td>287</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 23: The author performing hospitality rituals</td><td>288</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 24: Modern farming in the Issyk-Kul region</td><td>288</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 25: Typical <i>jailoo</i> landscape with yurt</td><td>289</td></tr></table>
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>
# 1 INTRODUCTION

It has been three days since I settled down in Pjak,<fnref n="1" /> a village in Kyrgyzstan’s north-eastern Issyk-Kul province,<fnref n="2" /> with the idea to collaborate with the local agricultural cooperative Ak-Bulut for my doctoral research. The previous week I met Kumbat, Ak-Bulut’s chairman, who provided me with an overview of the structure and numerous activities of the cooperative and invited me to move into his house for the time of my fieldwork. In the last three days I have roamed the streets of the village to meet the persons Kumbat indicated as members of the cooperative. The ones I could meet told me, however, that they are not anymore (or have never been) active in the cooperative, and that now they do all their agricultural activities alone: for instance, they buy agricultural inputs from private companies in the nearby town and sell their produce to private traders. My last interlocutor stated plainly that the cooperative exists only on paper; he is, indeed, a member, but a member only on paper. I am frustrated: it seems that the cooperative I was planning to study does not exist. The decision to focus my research on agricultural cooperatives was motivated by my interest in identifying forms of collective work that persist or emerge as an alternative, and a form of resistance, to the expansion of neoliberal markets started with the reform programmes that followed the independence of Kyrgyzstan from the Soviet Union in 1991. I am, therefore, also disappointed: it seems that “the market” has conquered the agricultural sector, even in Pjak. At the apex of my frustration and disappointment, I fall sick.

After a couple of days of rest, I continue with Elzada, my interpreter, our tour in the village to meet other “members” of Ak-Bulut. When we are told that the person we are looking for is not at home, Elzada suggests that we stop by the house vis-à-vis: some of her in-laws live there. After the conventional introductions, Jamilya invites us to sit in her kitchen. While she pours tea from the samovar, she comments that, like every Sunday, she is preparing the *banja* – a small bathhouse in the garden – for her family. Since in Kumbat’s house there is no *banja*, Jamilya offers me to use hers: she usually asks 50 soms (0.70 USD) for its use. I am happy to accept the offer, especially because the public *banja* is open only every second Saturday and closed this week. Jamilya explains that she has just started the fire and that the water will be ready after one hour. Elzada and I leave and come back one hour later, but the *banja* is not yet ready. I remain alone in the kitchen; the minutes pass slowly.

After a long while, the two women come back in the kitchen and Jamilya starts cutting some meat and potatoes. I understand from Elzada that Jamilya is cooking a *tamak* (the general Kyrgyz term for a hot meal) for her as a way to show respect to her in-law. I sense that this will take some time, so when the *banja* is finally ready, I linger over the washing ritual and enjoy, without rushing, the pleasure of scrubbing away the dust of the village from my skin. When no traces of dust are left and I re-join the kitchen’s door, the pot is still on the fire and Jamilya is preparing a new samovar for the tea. I realise that I misunderstood the situation: I thought that Elzada would eat while I used the *banja* but in fact Jamilya

<footnote n="1">¹ The names of villages, persons and cooperatives are anonymised in the whole manuscript.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² When I use the term “province”, I refer specifically to the administrative entity; otherwise, I speak more generally of the Issyk-Kul “region” to refer to the area surrounding the Issyk-Kul lake (see Fig. 1).</footnote>
was waiting for me to serve the food. I tell Elzada that I should inform Kumbat's wife Dinara that I will not eat at home, since she is waiting me for dinner. Elzada comments that it is not worth calling her: since Dinara is preparing a meal for me, I will have anyway to eat it. I am tired, cold and do not want to eat dinner twice. After a short argument with Elzada, we agree that she will stay and eat Jamilya's food while I go home. I am still standing in the yard and say goodbye to Jamilya: she brings a plate with the steaming-hot food at the door and she does not allow me to leave before having tasted her food. I take a tiny piece of meat and finally leave. On the table at home there is beshbarmak, the Kyrgyz traditional dish consisting of boiled meat and noodles that is eaten in special occasions: Kumbat's daughter has come for a visit and she brought the meat as a gift to her parents. I breathe a sigh of relief that I did not eat the first dinner!

This experience is for me what Marilyn Strathern (1999) calls an “ethnographic moment” – a revealing moment of disruption – which, in this Sunday of early August 2015, manifests bodily and affectively through my irritation. Why am I so irritated? First of all, the rituals of Kyrgyz hospitality can be intrusive and excessively insistent. This experience is not new to me after spending several months in Kyrgyzstan. I have become familiar with situations when, as a guest, I feel like the “host’s hostage”<fnref n="3" /> – feeling obliged to honour hospitality rituals as a way to show respect to the host, even if this means sometimes to go against my own bodily or affective needs. I have also become familiar with the sensation that often the host is herself<fnref n="4" /> hostage of these rituals – feeling obliged to perform prescribed rituals as a way to show respect to the guest rather than following her own mood and needs. Moreover, I am usually relatively high-positioned in the hierarchy of guests because I am a foreigner and a European. I therefore often interpret the excessive hospitality reserved to me as the expression of broader post-Cold War power structures between the West and the East – the host’s material enactment of my privilege within these structures. Therefore, excessive hospitality often disturbs me because it confronts me materially with a privilege I have difficulties coming to terms with.

However, on this Sunday, there is something more in my irritation: it is the clash between my expectations about a commodified service and its actual realisation in Jamilya's house. For me, the service of the *banja* appeared as a commodity exchange: I expected to be able to consume a use value against the payment of an exchange value. I assumed the transaction to be a purely market transaction and did not expect to have to comply with additional social rituals or reciprocations, which, in my experience with “hostaging” rituals in Kyrgyzstan, can be quite burdensome. However, my expectations are betrayed in Jamilya's house: not only does the service not correspond to the description provided (the water is not warm after one hour), but I also have to perform the hospitality rituals I thought to escape thanks to the commodification of the service. I thus realise that “the market” has not taken over everything in Pjak: I experience instead, literally on my skin, its embeddedness in social relations (Polanyi 2001).

<footnote n="3">³ I thank Camille Giraut for suggesting this expression; I am grateful to her and to Sarah Bittel for reflecting with me on my experience in Jamilya's *banja*.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Most of the time the ones who materially perform hospitality rituals are women.</footnote>
In this research I investigate how markets reconfigure social relations and power structures and how, at the same time, these relations and structures embed and shape markets. I interrogate the ways in which hegemonic discourses on the economy, development and modernity produce particular kinds of subjectivities and affects and their consequences on material inequalities. I explore the room for individual agency – for resistance and contestation – that is left in the interstices of such hegemonic discourses. As an entry point for these broad questions, I focus on the promotion of agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan by international actors within rural development programmes paralleling post-independence governmental structural reforms. I thereby illustrate how international actors uphold a specific model of cooperatives as a tool on a prescribed route towards a teleological fantasy of modernity, and how local actors incorporate, and thereby reframe, this model in their everyday practices. I do this through an ethnographic engagement with villagers in Pjak and in particular with the practices and representations that emerge in relation to the cooperative Ak-Bulut.

*Cooperatives as tools for development in the “postsocialist transition”*

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and of other socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia between 1989 and 1992, reforms in many countries have aimed at the privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation of the economy – a “transition”<fnref n="5" /> from the previous socialist economic and political system towards a market economy within a liberal democracy (e.g. Herrschel 2007; Luong 2009; Ahrens and Hoen 2012). International organisations such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank and various governmental and non-governmental development agencies have played an important role in conceiving and implementing reforms after socialism in a similar way, as they have promoted structural reforms and development programmes in the Global South since the start of decolonisation (e.g. Atabaki and O’Kane 1998; Hann 2002) or, more recently, austerity programmes in the Global North (e.g. Dogaru 2014; Hinterleitner, Sager, and Thomann 2016; Farnsworth and Irving 2018). In all these contexts, such programmes for reforms, development or austerity have mainly followed a neoliberal logic that advocates for a reduction of the role of the state in both economic production and welfare provision and for its substitution by private actors within territories framed as nation-states (e.g. Collier 2011).

The outcomes of these programmes remain contested, however. Whereas nationalised economic activities and governmental welfare have been drastically reduced, their effective substitution by private actors and markets is often limited: instead, informal exchanges and patronage relations – often framed as corruption – easily fill the void that results from state withdrawal (e.g. Clapham 1982; Tangri 1999; Collins 2006; McMann 2014). Moreover, even if programmes sometimes specifically target disadvantaged population groups and implement (especially since the mid-1990s) participatory mechanisms, local elites are often better able to “capture” the resources mobilised through these programmes (e.g. Olivier de Sardan 2005).

<footnote n="5">⁵ I generally avoid using the term “postsocialist transition” to refer to the process of socio-economic change that has followed the end of socialist regimes in CEE and the FSU; I prefer to speak instead of “transformation after socialism” (see e.g. Altvater 1998; see Burawoy and Verdery 1999b, 14ff for a critical use of the term “transition”). I sometimes use the term “postsocialist transition” to reflect its use within a discourse where the term implies a linear and teleological vision of this process of transformation.</footnote>
The result of all this is thus commonly the exacerbation of social inequalities and a general precarisation
of living conditions (e.g. Stiglitz 2003). In the Global South and in ex-socialist countries in Central and
Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU),<fnref n="6" /> both scholarly literature and public discourse
often explain the difficulties of reforms or development programmes in complying with their stated aims
because of the persistence of pre-modern cultural habits or Soviet/socialist structures, whose logics seem
to be incompatible with the “modern” logics of reforms and development programmes: entire populations
and regions are thus discursively trapped in backwardness or pre-modernity along determined trajectories
of path-dependencies (e.g. Stark 1992; Jürgen Beyer and Wielgohs 2001).

The idea that local habits or structures are to be blamed when local transformations do not follow the
prescribed trajectories has been questioned, especially from two perspectives. On the one hand,
postdevelopment scholarship has contested the very notion of development, revealing how the hegemonic
discourse on development reproduces and strengthens the divide between developed and underdeveloped
(e.g. Pigg 1992; Escobar 1995). Drawing on Foucault’s notion of governmentality (e.g. Foucault 1991)
scholars have critically unpacked development programmes as instruments of governmentality (see Watts
2003): as devices or “dispositifs” of governance and control that, while presenting development as a
technical issue, depoliticise it and evacuate its promoters from the responsibility and accountability for
their choices and assumptions (e.g. Ferguson 1990; Brigg 2002). On the other hand, ethnographies of aid
(e.g. Mosse 2005; Olivier de Sardan 2005) and of postsocialism (e.g. Burawoy and Verdery 1999b;
Humphrey 2002; Hörschelmann and Stenning 2008) have offered richly documented empirical material
that demonstrates the poverty of “grand narratives” – respectively, development and the postsocialist
transition – to understand how local structures, power relations and representations actively engage with
reform or development programmes. From this perspective, these programmes are not coherent devices of
control but contingent processes whose outcomes are unpredictable and cannot be inscribed into pre-
defined trajectories and path dependencies. The failure or success of such programmes is therefore not
determined by existing structures or habits but, rather, depends on how the actual outcomes of these
programmes are discursively interpreted within dominant frames of legitimation (Mosse 2004).

Initiatives for the promotion of cooperatives, in both the Global South and in ex-socialist countries in
CEE and the FSU, constitute a particular and, I argue, relevant example of how development models are
implemented and legitimised within broader teleological narratives and how they are renegotiated and
reframed at the local level. Cooperatives, intended as a particular form of collective enterprise (e.g.
Hansmann 1999),<fnref n="7" /> have represented, in the framework of development projects, a tool for inclusive
development within market economies (e.g. Birchall 2004) and, in the context of transformation after
socialism, a tool for supporting small private entrepreneurs and farmers in their transition and adaptation

<footnote n="6">⁶ The term “Global South” usually refers to those regions of the world that are not part of the “Global North”; it often implicitly includes also ex-socialist regions in Asia, although these remain underrepresented in work done under the label of “Global South”. In order to differentiate and emphasise the specific experiences of ex-socialist regions in CEE and the FSU, I refer to these separately. I am well aware of the ambiguity and questionability of these and other categories (e.g. “postsocialist” or “Western”): I hope the reader will concede the use of these categories in the manuscript while maintaining a critical stance on them. For a critical discussion of some of these categories see Müller (2018) and also Chapter 4.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ See also https://www.ica.coop/en/cooperatives/cooperative-identity (accessed 22.11.2019).</footnote>
to a new market system (e.g. Deininger 1995). Existing research on cooperatives in ex-socialist countries, however, highlights the difficulties in establishing and maintaining cooperative organisations in these contexts (e.g. Theesfeld and Boevsky 2005; Lerman and Sedik 2014). As an explanation for these difficulties and, more generally, for what seems the scarce success of initiatives for community-based cooperation in ex-socialist countries, scholars have pointed to the legacies of “pseudo-cooperation” in socialist regimes (see Theesfeld 2019). They lament that socialist regimes used (or “abused”, e.g. Gardner and Lerman 2006) the concepts of cooperation and cooperatives within a rhetoric of emancipation that masked their centralised management and authoritarian control. This, according to several scholars, is at the basis of people’s unwillingness to cooperate – an unwillingness due to a “psychological resistance to cooperation” (id. 5), a lack of trust in institutions and in others (e.g. Lissowska 2013) or, as is expressed mainly in oral communications, a generalised passivity and a lack of active entrepreneurial spirit.

Kyrgyzstan does not seem to constitute an exception to this argument, and the little available research on cooperatives in the country agrees with this reading (e.g. Lerman 2013a; Lerman and Sedik 2013). Despite the boom in the number of registered cooperatives that has followed a focus on the promotion of cooperatives by aid agencies especially in the 2000s, today several scholars, development practitioners and policy-makers lament that most of these cooperatives are “fictive”, in that they exist only on paper and do not carry out collective activities in their frameworks (e.g. Beishenaly and Namazova 2012). Also in this context, the “failure” of cooperatives is attributed to the legacies of the Soviet system (e.g. Lerman 2013a). Indeed, as illustrated above, when I started engaging with cooperatives in the Issyk-Kul region and in particular with Ak-Bulut in Pjak, the first impression I had was that these cooperatives correspond to the description of “fictive” cooperatives and that farmers base their agricultural activities mainly on market transactions.

When Jamilya offered me to use her *banja* against a payment, I interpreted this as a clear sign of commodification and, more generally, of the achieved establishment of market economy in the village. However, the experience reported above suggests that we cannot understand market transactions in Pjak as separated from reciprocal relations, hospitality rituals or kinship obligations. In line with the numerous scholars who have conceptualised markets as embedded in social relations (e.g. Polanyi 2001) or in moral economies (e.g. Thompson 1971) or, more radically, as intrinsically social and moral processes (e.g. Narotzky and Besnier 2014; Palomera and Vetta 2016), I argue that this observation is not relevant only for a small Kyrgyzstani village but that, instead, it represents an entry point to question and rethink dominant understandings of formality, markets and economy. Yet the few studies on cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan as well as the more numerous research on community-based management in the country (e.g. Sehring 2009; Dörre 2015; Shigaeva et al. 2016) mostly limit their attention to cooperation practices within formal institutions and usually neglect other, often unformalised, forms of cooperation – although the few studies that include informal cooperation in their analysis suggest that it is crucial for farmers’ livelihoods (e.g. Sabates-Wheeler 2007).

Existing research in Kyrgyzstan (and also a good number of studies in other ex-socialist countries in CEE, the FSU and other parts of the world) thus mostly falls short of accounting for, and therefore
explaining, how local social structures and cooperation practices embed formal cooperatives or more
generally formal institutions for community-based cooperation. These studies also neglect to consider
how local actors renegotiate and reinterpret dominant models and representations of cooperatives,
cooperation or, more broadly, of development and modernity. Therefore, ultimately, these studies fail to
understand the symbolic and material consequences of cooperation initiatives on the livelihoods and
everyday lives of individuals or to provide relevant ideas of how individuals and communities can engage
with such initiatives towards more inclusive economic practices.

Rethinking agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan

This research is motivated by the aspiration to provide a different reading of agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan in order to generate affects more positive than the feelings of failure and inadequacy implied by the dominant framing and thereby to open up alternative possibilities for engaging with cooperation and communities. I therefore question the narrative according to which cooperatives have failed because of socialist legacies and path dependencies. I challenge the assumptions underpinning this narrative as well as the assumptions that inform, in the first place, reforms and development programmes. I provide an empirically grounded understanding of how individual actors construct and reproduce, but also reinterpret and contest, the dominant narrative of cooperatives and how, through their everyday practices, these actors reconfigure, and are reconfigured by, the formal institutions for cooperation proposed by international agencies. I maintain that such an analysis can serve as an entry point for rethinking not only cooperatives but also broader conceptualisations and models of economy – not only in Kyrgyzstan or in other ex-socialist countries in CEE and the FSU, but globally.

I thus aim to answer following research questions:

1. How do actors reinterpret, perform and rearticulate representations and practices of cooperation in the context of Kyrgyzstan's decollectivised agriculture?

1a. How do international and local actors discursively construct a narrative of failed cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan and in the particular case of the Ak-Bulut cooperative?

1b. How do existing cooperation practices, representations and power structures in Kyrgyzstan and in Pjak reframe the model of formal cooperation promoted by international agencies?

1c. How do actors in Kyrgyzstan and in Pjak renegotiate the practices promoted by this model?

2. What are the material, affective and symbolic consequences of these processes for villagers in Pjak in terms of their livelihoods, social relations and subjectivities?

The context of contemporary Kyrgyzstan is particularly well suited for engaging with these aims and
questions. In comparison with other Central Asian republics, Kyrgyzstan has quickly opened to
international cooperation and democratic governance mechanisms. The country has thus represented a
favourable ground for aid agencies to experiment with participatory approaches of formal cooperation for
community-driven development and resource management. Nevertheless, most existing research on the
topic has been less creative in experimenting with different epistemological approaches. This research has
mainly applied the common assumptions about postsocialist transition and path dependencies discussed
above and reproduced the same narrative of failure.

In order to challenge these assumptions and narrative in the specific context of Kyrgyzstan and for the
even more specific case of Ak-Bulut, I therefore build on the two scholarly currents, introduced above,
that have already provided a compelling critique to these assumptions and narrative in other contexts
worldwide. On the one hand, I draw on postdevelopment scholarship and on its critique of a universalised
notion of development to deconstruct the developmentalist discourse that underpins the promotion of
cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan and to critically unpack reform and development programmes as devices for
control and governance. On the other hand, I draw on the ethnographic traditions of scholarship about aid
and postsocialism in order to acknowledge and make sense of the agency of local subjects in the
renegotiation of cooperation models and in the reconfiguration of local cooperation practices, social
relations and power structures in the context of post-independence reform and development programmes.

Gibson-Graham’s “weak theory” (Gibson-Graham 2006a; see also 2014) constitutes an epistemological
approach and a conceptual frame that, I argue, allow to engage with and expand the critique formulated
by postdevelopment scholars and ethnographers of aid and postsocialism. Weak theory challenges
deterministic teleological visions and established categories by refusing to align observed “small facts” to
“grand narratives”. It invites to commit instead to a practice of thick description that leaves analysis open
to the contingencies of social processes, which are never determined by a single factor but co-determined
by a multiplicity of diverse localised experiences. I therefore abandon the idea of cooperatives as formal
enterprises and bounded objects and embrace instead a vision of cooperatives as the always incomplete
and volatile result of open-ended and contingent practices (Byrne and Healy 2006; Gibson-Graham
2006a, 101–26). I draw on the growing commoning scholarship to frame these cooperation processes as
relational practices that co-emerge with other localised practices and subjectivities (e.g. Gibson-Graham,
Cameron, and Healy 2016; Singh 2017) and that imply, therefore, the continuous reconfiguration of
social relations within assemblages of human and nonhuman entities (e.g. Nightingale 2019).

Such an endeavour requires a methodological approach that allows the researcher to be open to the
contingencies and diversity of situated social processes. I therefore apply a reflexive ethnographic
approach inspired by feminist epistemologies – an approach that acknowledges the situatedness of all
knowledge and that draws attention on the material and affective dimensions of social processes (e.g.
Rose 1993; Davies 1999). Within such an approach, the embodied experiences of the researching subject
– such as, for instance, the physical sickness or the frustration, disappointment and irritation I described at
the beginning of this chapter – constitute an analytical entry point to make sense of broader social
processes (e.g. Militz, Faria, and Schurr 2019), such as the transformation of economic practices or
reciprocity relations in a Kyrgyzstani village.
Yet, I argue, such an analysis is relevant well beyond the specific context of this particular village and even of Kyrgyzstan. Hörschelmann and Stenning (2008, 356) have claimed that ethnographies of postsocialism contribute “to reconceptualizations of taken-for-granted concepts [...] while enabling further theorizations of social change and posing questions about the validity of the models now applied in postsocialist countries for established capitalist societies themselves”. In line with them, I maintain that my analysis is relevant to broader debates, especially in the fields of economic geography and critical development studies. In particular, my analysis contributes, first, to question the taken-for-granted concepts of “cooperatives”, “cooperation”, “development” or “economy”, among others; second, to understand the affective and material consequences of taking these concepts for granted; and third, to rethink these concepts in ways that allow a concrete engagement, in the present, for more inclusive communities and, ultimately, a juster society.

## *Outline of the manuscript*

Eight chapters, subdivided in four parts, plus a concluding chapter and this introductory chapter, constitute this manuscript. Part I situates my research in the relevant scholarly literature and in the regional context. Chapter 2 presents current approaches for the promotion and analysis of cooperatives and formal cooperation initiatives. Chapter 3 provides an overview of post-independence reforms and socio-economic transformation in Kyrgyzstan, focusing in particular on the role of international development actors in this transformation.

Part II lays down the conceptual and methodological approach of my research. In Chapter 4, I advocate for a weak theory to engage with cooperatives (in Kyrgyzstan as well as worldwide) and I specify the terms and concepts of the postfantasmatic postcapitalist relational approach that underpins my analysis. In Chapter 5, I develop my feminist ethnographic methodology and, according to its epistemology, I dedicate a section to the presentation of the background and genealogy of my research project.

Four analytical chapters build the following two parts of the manuscript. Part III investigates the promotion of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan. Chapter 6 focuses on the actors engaged in this promotion and reveals the discursive practices through which these actors construct – and sometimes contest – a specific ideal model of cooperative. In the chapter I argue that, since these actors base their evaluation of existing cooperatives on an ideal model that narrowly defines what is a “true” cooperative, it is almost inevitable that their evaluation concludes with the statement that cooperatives have “failed”. This mechanism mirrors thus the developmentalist discourse denounced by postdevelopment scholars – a discourse that reproduces the very categories it aims to erase. In Chapter 7, I first provide an overview of cooperative experiences in the Issyk-Kul region and then analyse the history, representations and practices of the Ak-Bulut cooperative in Pjak. I describe my search for a cooperative: an entity that reveals difficult, or even impossible, to grasp as bounded object. Part III thus concludes by stating the need to abandon the fantasy of such a cooperative in order to be able to see and engage with the actual cooperation practices that are carried out in the village.
Starting from the spaces opened up by the deconstruction process initiated in Part III, Part IV develops the analysis of the diverse economies of agriculture in Pjak. In Chapter 8, I analyse their transformations over the last four decades and highlight their continuities and discontinuities from the late Soviet period throughout the post-independence period. I thus reveal the power relations, privileges and inequalities but also the reciprocity and solidarity relations that shape, and that are constituted by, the diverse economic practices in the village. Chapter 9 provides a similar analysis of the current diverse agricultural practices in Pjak. The chapter starts from the observation of a divide between representations of an individualised village community (representations produced by scholars, development practitioners and villagers) and the observation of widespread forms of cooperation among villagers during my stay in Pjak. I therefore interrogate the representations, moralities and rationalities that constitute this divide and its symbolic, affective and material consequences in villagers’ everyday lives. Part IV concludes by unfolding the mechanisms and effects of subjection processes in the village and discussing how villagers engage with these processes, sometimes reproducing and sometimes resisting them.

In the concluding chapter of the manuscript I propose and outline a renewed approach to engage with cooperatives (but also with cooperation and communities more generally) academically and politically, and I highlight the contribution of my analysis to broader disciplinary debates and social theory.
# Part I – Situating the research in academic debates and the regional context

The two chapters composing Part I situate my investigation on the promotion of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan in the scholarly debates on the topic and in the regional context. In Chapter 2, I start by presenting the commonly accepted definition and conceptualisation of cooperatives that underpin most initiatives for the promotion of this kind of formal collective organisation as well as most scholarly literature on the topic. The historical overview of how these definition and conceptualisation have emerged and changed through time (§2.1) shows that these are far from being fixed and universal, but are instead the result of complex negotiations, controversies and compromises spanning over several decades. This historical contextualisation makes clear that the model promoted by aid agencies in Kyrgyzstan, although it is presented as universal, is instead only one among several other, existing or imaginable, understandings of cooperatives. I extend my review (§2.2) to scholarly literature that deals with other forms of formalised cooperation, in particular with initiatives promoting models for the community-based management of natural resources (CBNRM). This literature is relevant for my study because development projects have promoted both cooperatives and community-based organisations for CBNRM as tools towards a particular idea of inclusive development based on the empowerment and emancipation of citizens as entrepreneurs. I will show that a good part of the literature on CBNRM – and especially on commons – is based on similar assumptions and conceptualisations as the literature on cooperatives. In the last part of the chapter I engage with the critique on these assumptions and conceptualisations provided by the recent commoning scholarship.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of the regional and historical context of post-independence Kyrgyzstan. After a short contextualisation in the broader Central Asian context, I outline the main social and economic transformations that the country has experienced since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. I focus on the main structural reforms in the agricultural sector and their outcomes (§3.1). I then (§3.2) illustrate the role of international actors in supporting these reforms and clarify in particular how development programmes have paralleled governmental reform programmes. I engage with the work of scholars who have pointed to Kyrgyzstan’s increasing dependence on international resources and who have discussed the micro-politics of development intervention in the country. In the chapter, I only marginally mobilise scholarly literature that deals specifically with the topic of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan. Since this literature is very limited and applies relatively homogeneously an economistic approach, I will engage more deeply with this literature in the analytical part of the manuscript (§6.1).
## 2 FROM COOPERATIVES AS COLLECTIVE ENTERPRISES TO COOPERATION AS RELATIONAL PRACTICE

It is today common to refer to the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) for the definition of cooperatives and their principles. For ICA (2019a), “a cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise”. According to this widely shared definition (id., see also ILO 2018, 12), what technically distinguishes a cooperative from other kinds of enterprise is especially its *purpose* (benefit for the members), its *governance* (one member, one vote principle), its *ownership* (by members), and the way *surplus* is handled (proportionally distributed to members and/or reinvested in the enterprise). In contrast to other forms of enterprise, cooperatives are considered to build on specific values (“self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity” as well as “honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others”) and on seven “cooperative principles” listed in Table 2.1 (ICA 2019a).

<table><caption>Table 2.1: ICA cooperative principles (ICA 2016, ii; see also 2019a)</caption><tr><td>1. Voluntary and open membership</td><td>Co-operatives are voluntary organisations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.</td></tr><tr><td>2. Democratic member control</td><td>Co-operatives are democratic organisations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary co-operatives members have equal voting rights (one member, one vote) and co-operatives at other levels are also organised in a democratic manner.</td></tr><tr><td>3. Member economic participation</td><td>Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of the co-operative. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the co-operative. Members usually receive limited compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the following purposes: developing their co-operative [...]; benefitting members in proportion to their transactions with the co-operative; and supporting other activities approved by the membership.</td></tr><tr><td>4. Autonomy and independence</td><td>Co-operatives are autonomous, self-help organisations controlled by their members. If they enter into agreements with other organisations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their co-operative autonomy.</td></tr></table>
5. Education, training and information

Co-operatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-operatives. They inform the general public [...] about the nature and benefits of co-operation.

6. Co-operation among co-operatives

Co-operatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the co-operative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.

7. Concern for community

Co-operatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies approved by their members.

These definition and principles emphasise the formality of cooperatives as a specific form of enterprise and as legal entity with clear boundaries between members and non-members. Cooperatives are often differentiated by categories based on their functions as production, service or consumer cooperatives (Table 2.2).

<table><caption>Table 2.2: Classification of cooperatives (based on Lerman 2013a, 7–10; see also Zamagni 2012; ILO 2018, 23–31)</caption><thead><tr><td></td><td>Production cooperative (or worker cooperative)</td><td>Service cooperative (or producer cooperative)</td><td>Consumer cooperative (or users cooperatives)</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Member owners</td><td>Members are workers of the cooperative, at the same time its owners and employees</td><td>Members are individual producers who use the cooperative to access goods and services, including the marketing and processing of their produce</td><td>Members are consumers and customers of the cooperative who buy consumption goods and services from the cooperative</td></tr><tr><td>Purpose</td><td>Provide employment with good working conditions for its members</td><td>Support members in their individual production, processing and marketing through the provision of goods and services</td><td>Provide members with quality consumption goods and services at affordable prices</td></tr><tr><td>Ownership structure</td><td>Means of production (including land in the case of agricultural cooperatives) can be individually owned and pooled or owned by the cooperative</td><td>Means of production are usually privately owned by members</td><td>Not relevant</td></tr><tr><td>Activities</td><td>Production of goods or services by worker-owners, to be sold to third parties</td><td>Provision of goods and services to members; this can include the purchase of members' production, its processing and/or marketing to third parties</td><td>Purchase and selling of goods and services to members, minimising intermediate costs</td></tr></tbody></table>
Although these definitions, principles and categorisations are often deemed universal, they are in fact the current result of continuous renegotiations throughout the history of the cooperative movement worldwide. The first section of this chapter provides a review of this history and of current scholarly approaches to cooperatives; the second section expands the review to other initiatives for the promotion of formalised community-based cooperation.

## 2.1 Cooperatives: from socialist utopia to market instruments

It is common to trace back the beginning of the modern cooperative movement to the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society (ICA 2019b). The Society was funded by a group of artisans in 1844 in Rochdale, England, with the aim to facilitate the access to staple food for its members. Although the Rochdale Society has become the symbol of modern cooperatives (see Fairbairn 1994), similar cooperative formations had already emerged throughout Europe, North America and Japan since the mid-1700s and further proliferated after the mid-1800s (see Shaffer 1999). Advancing industrialisation was corroding farmers' and workers' living conditions and economic possibilities, so the consequent deepening inequalities urged and boosted the cooperative movement.

ICA was constituted in 1895 as a platform for exchange, rather than coordination, between the heterogeneous cooperative experiences that were emerging worldwide. The ICA principles, inspired by the Cooperation Principles of the Rochdale Pioneers, have been regularly renegotiated and reformulated. Debates and controversies have not been absent within the Alliance and have been mirrored in regular changes in the formulation of the principles (see Fairbairn 1994). The way in which cooperatives should be capitalised, surpluses calculated, profits re-invested and/or distributed or members selected, are all questions that co-operators have always had to face and that have raised, beyond their technical aspects, more fundamental and ethical concerns. For instance, a persistent tension has existed between supporters of gradualism and of expansionism (see Fairbairn 1994, 38–51): whereas the former insist on the local rootedness of cooperatives and advocate for a gradual expansion of their activities through localised action, the latter call instead for more centralisation and a more rapid growth and territorial expansion of activities.

A more profound division concerns the relations cooperatives should cultivate – or not – with governments. This debate was particularly pressing on the background of the two World Wars and the Cold War, when ICA considered whether to expulse members from fascist and socialist regimes (see Fairbairn 1994). Critics denounced the misuse or even abuse of the cooperative concept by fascist and socialist regimes, which were accused to co-opt cooperatives and transform them into state-controlled institutions. In parallel, critiques were also raised against the top-down and state-led promotion of cooperatives in the Global South. In the end, these debates are expressions of the underlying and continuous quest within the cooperative movement for a definition of what a “genuine” or “true” cooperative is (see e.g. Birchall 2004, 14–16). With the end of the Cold War, the voices rejecting the state-led or party-led cooperative experience in socialist countries and/or in the Global South as non-
genuine cooperatives gained more weight. The latest reformulation of the ICA principles in 1995 reflects this with the addition of the principle of “autonomy and independence” – a clear statement against the enmeshing of governments in cooperative affairs (see Shaffer 1999, 131–33; Fairbairn 1994, 36–38).

### 2.1.1 Cooperatives as rupture with capitalism

#### Cooperatives as socialist utopia

Cooperative experiments emerged in the industrialising world in a decentralised way, driven by degrading material conditions and rooted in local communities. Fairbairn (1994), however, warns us from the common romanticised vision of cooperatives as emerging spontaneously from the need of the poorest. He notes that, whereas it is reasonable to see poverty and need as forces that inspired the formation of cooperatives in the context of industrialisation, these forces could be channelled in concrete cooperative formations because of the active role of political social movements: “The Rochdale Pioneers did not rise spontaneously from need, but were organized consciously by thinkers, activists, and leaders who functioned within a network of ideas and institutions” (id. 4). Fairbairn (ibid.) therefore concludes that, “while co-operatives have frequently been tools for the relatively poor and marginalized, there is evidence that (just as in Rochdale) they are rarely led by the very poorest”.

The first modern cooperative experiments were mainly inspired by the utopian socialism of the early nineteenth century in France and Britain (Williams 2016, 10–11). Cooperatives were conceptualised as a way to counter the unfair appropriation by capital of the value generated by labour. The principle of fixed returns of capital (which eliminates the speculative activity of capital) and the principle of profit distribution to members proportional to their engagement in the cooperative were developed to reduce the grip of capital on profits (Fairbairn 1994, 17–24). Cooperatives thus merged pragmatic economic purposes with a visionary ideological outlook of a socialist society. Eventually, local cooperative formations were not an end in themselves but were seen as steps towards a new kind of society, “towards the much larger goal of a comprehensive co-operative system” spanning across the world (id. 6).

This teleology was in contrast to Marxist societal objectives; the relationship between cooperatives and the Marxist labour movement has, in fact, often been distrustful, if not openly confrontational (Jossa 2005; also Williams 2016, 2–3; Shaffer 1999, 83–85). Although both aimed at the re-appropriation of labour value by workers, the labour movement focused on confrontational struggles against employers to improve workers’ conditions, while the cooperative movement offered an alternative to organise workers in self-managed and self-owned enterprises. As employers, cooperatives fell sometimes on the opponent side of the labour movement’s struggles. Classical Marxism was suspicious of cooperatives, which it understood as the expression of a sort of “producer capitalism” (Jossa 2005, 14) or “as mere stopgap measures that would only delay the revolution” that would eventually lead to the establishment of the worker state (Shaffer 1999, 44). Nonetheless, in the context of Soviet “real” socialism, Lenin endorsed the legitimacy of cooperatives on the path towards the full realisation of the communist ideal; however,
for Marxist as well as for the Soviet regime, worker cooperatives, although accepted, were always
considered inferior to state enterprises (Jossa 2005, 12).

***Cooperatives as social movement***

Many co-operators across history have been motivated not only by economic need, but also by a more or
less intentional wish to counter the existing capitalist system and develop an alternative form of economy
and society. Academic scholarship in political economics, sociology and geography has thus studied
cooperatives from the perspective of social movement theory (e.g. Schneiberg, King, and Smith 2008;
Curl 2010; Williams 2016; see also Emery, Forney, and Wynne-Jones 2017, 229–30). This body of work
tends to focus on the confrontational character of the cooperative movement and its embeddedness within
broader socio-economic struggles, rather than on internal everyday dynamics of cooperatives.
Cooperatives are seen here as tools mobilised intentionally to advance political ideals and struggles. For
instance, Schneiberg, King, and Smith (2008, 637) analyse how “movements have mobilized cooperatives
against bureaucracies, markets, corporations to promote community, economic self-sufficiency, local
ownership, regional development, and workplace democracy”. Co-operators are seen not only as
managers and workers of an enterprise, but as political activists connected with local communities as well
as with a global community of activists.

From such work often transpire the ideals not only of co-operators, but also of researchers, who tend to
select case studies of cooperatives where the ideological component is explicitly and intentionally
present. This is the case for instance for the well-known example of the Mondragón Cooperative
Corporation in the Basque Country (e.g. Gibson-Graham 2006a, 101–26; Whyte and Whyte 1991), the
*empresas recuperadas* in South America (e.g. Ranis 2010) or small cooperatives challenging the
monopoly of large retailer companies (e.g. Dyttrich and Wuhrer 2012). This work is important to show
the global connections of the radical component of the cooperative movement, its achievements and
challenges. However, some researchers fall either into a romanticisation of such experiences (e.g. Shaffer
1999; Curl 2010) or into normative recommendations they hope can be applied worldwide for the
expansion – and “victory” – of the cooperative model. To give just one example, Cheney, in his preface
to Williams’ analysis of “the cooperative movement” (Williams 2016, xvi), describes Williams’
endeavour as the synthesis of “the promises, failures and hopes of cooperatives to develop a blueprint for
a more just, more cooperative world”.

2.1.2 Cooperatives as tools for market development

***Cooperatives as enterprises in a market economy***

Almost two centuries after the establishment of the first modern cooperatives, cooperative formations
exist today in myriad forms. In Switzerland, for instance, cooperatives are a form of enterprise well
known to the local population, which shops at the consumer cooperatives Coop or Migros (the two largest retailer companies in the country), entrusts the cooperative bank Raiffeisen with its savings, insures its house or car by the cooperative insurance company Die Mobiliar or lives in a building of one of the numerous housing cooperatives in the country. In these examples, there are few traces of the confrontational attitude and ideological foundations of the anti-capitalist cooperatives described in the former section. Another Swiss example are dairy cooperatives, through which farmers pool their milk production in order to increase their power on the market (see Stock et al. 2014). Like the similar examples of commodity pooling discussed in Fairbairn (1994, 38–51), such cooperatives have rapidly grown into large enterprises; they do not aim to challenge capitalist modes of production in the first place, but rather to maintain and support farmers’ private (sometimes capitalist) production by increasing the rate of surplus they are able to retain from the sale of their produce.

Classic economics has studied cooperatives as a particular kind of firm (Hansmann 1999, 389–90; see also Olson 1985). Whereas vertical and horizontal integration in cooperatives reduces market costs, it also increases the costs of ownerships (e.g. monitoring, control, collective decision-making). The structure of such costs determines whether a cooperative can be competitive or even advantageous in a market economy. Economists have reserved particular attention for service and marketing cooperatives, which can generate comparative productivity gains by achieving economies of scale while maintaining low control costs when production is carried out individually (Altman 2015; Olson 1985; Cook, Chaddad, and Iliopoulos 2004). More generally, economists have maintained that, in comparison with other types of enterprises, “co-operatives can potentially generate higher rates of growth and more equitable growth, even in competitive economic environments” (Altman 2015, 17).

Economists have also investigated the functioning and performance of cooperatives through agency theory, behavioural theory and game theory, focusing for instance on problems such as the cohesion of homogenous and heterogeneous groups of co-operators, the tendency to free-ride within such groups (e.g. Cook, Chaddad, and Iliopoulos 2004), or the role of factors such as human capital, social capital, or property regimes in people’s choice to join a cooperative (e.g. Rizov et al. 2001). Such approaches commonly assume that rational individuals maximise their profits by joining a cooperative and have thus tended to neglect the impact on cooperative enterprises and member behaviour of the broader political context, of specific contextual social, political and cultural factors and of other kinds of rationalities (Tilzey 2017, 317 n.1). Although some economists have recently begun to acknowledge this gap, a real dialogue between economics and social sciences – a dialogue that would allow to integrate the analysis of power and culture into economic research on cooperatives – is still lacking (see Fulton 2017).

Similar approaches have informed the study and promotion of cooperatives in ex-socialist countries. Ironically, while cooperatives emerged originally as an alternative to capitalism and were even recognised by Lenin as a step towards communism, after the end of socialist regimes in CEE and the FSU, cooperatives have rather become a tool in the transition to capitalism and a means to remedy to the “imperfections” of emergent markets (e.g. Deininger 1995). In Kyrgyzstan, as in other ex-socialist countries, international agencies have promoted the establishment of cooperatives as enterprises that
could support farmers in their integration in the new market system, in parallel to the withdrawal of the
state from its role as employer and as provider of infrastructures and social services (Swain 1999; Rizov
et al. 2001; Mathijs and Swinnen 1998; Lerman and Sedik 2014).

Despite the efforts and resources invested in the promotion of cooperatives in ex-socialist countries,
scholars scarcely tend to describe these experiences as successful. They often contend that cooperatives,
in these contexts, fail to fulfil the expected outcomes both in terms of respecting the cooperative
principles and of providing of services to the local population (e.g. Wegren and O’Brien 2018; for
Kyrgyzstan Lerman 2013a). Scholars tend to explain this failure with the persistence of some forms of
“psychological resistance to cooperation” inherited from the socialist experience (Gardner and Lerman
2006, 5, see my discussion in Chapter 6). They view such “Soviet legacies” as deemed to entail, for
instance, a general lack of trust or social capital (e.g. Paldam and Svendsen 2000; see also the critique of
Murray 2008), a lack of trust in political institutions (Lissowska 2013), an abundance of bonding capital
coupled with the lack of bridging social capital (Kaminska 2010) or cultural and institutional “baggage”
(Soliev et al. 2017).

Cooperatives for development

Cooperatives have been considered a means for development in the Global South since the emergence of
international development cooperation in the 1950s in the context of decolonisation. In parallel to the
establishment of multilateral development organisations like the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), ICA instituted an own International Development Fund in 1954, aimed at
supporting the establishment of cooperatives in the Global South. Recommendation 127 of the
International Labour Organisation (ILO), adopted in 1966, sealed international recognition of
cooperatives as a means for development: “The establishment and growth of co-operatives should be
regarded as one of the important instruments for economic, social and cultural development as well as
human advancement in developing countries”.<fnref n="1" />

Initially, in line with the centralised and state-driven development approaches of the time, governments
and development agencies attempted to establish cooperatives as a way to foster economic growth as well
as to deliver goods and social services to local communities. Since the 1980s, mounting discontent has
challenged such approaches, calling for decentralisation and a stronger involvement of beneficiaries in
decision-making and project design (Chambers 1994; Ellis and Biggs 2001). In this vein, Birchall (2004,
3) laments that cooperatives in the Global South “were used in a planned, top-down attempt by national
governments and international aid agencies to deliver economic growth”. In the framework of neoliberal
structural adjustments, the intervention of the state in private economic activities was radically reduced –
thereby also its role in the promotion of cooperatives. This evolution was reinforced in the 1990s: the
renewed emphasis of ICA on autonomy and independence aligned with new development paradigms

<footnote n="1">¹ https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f/?p=1000:12100:34394433083619::NO::P12100 SHOW_TEXT:Y: (accessed 07.07.2019).</footnote>
calling for less governmental involvement and more participation of local communities. Motivating this shift was the assumption that the involvement of direct beneficiaries in project management would allow a more efficient allocation of resources and that, at the same time, local communities would be empowered through democratic mechanisms (e.g. Malena, Forster, and Singh 2004; McGee and Gaventa 2010). A new 2002 Recommendation of ILO (193) on cooperatives invited governments to disengage from cooperatives' internal affairs and to focus instead on the establishment of a conducive legal and institutional environment for the autonomous development of local cooperative movements – a shift endorsed also by the World Bank and the main international development agencies (Birchall 2004, 16; Hussi et al. 1993).

The formulation of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and, later, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) gave new impetus to the idea that cooperatives have a central role to play for global development because they can generate and maintain economic and social benefits in the local communities in which they are rooted (Birchall 2004; ILO/ICA n.d.). By now, therefore, cooperatives have acquired legitimation as an economic and social development tool and have been integrated in the programmes of the main development institutions worldwide: “cooperatives are viewed as potentially important vehicles for community development since they can solve local problems by mobilizing local resources into a critical mass, and by virtue of being locally owned and controlled, cooperatives can keep profits and responsibility in the hands of local citizens” (Zeuli et al. 2004, 18).

The broad application of participatory development, including the promotion of cooperatives, has, however, given raise to critique and scepticism (see e.g. the debate between Cooke and Kothari 2001; and Hickey and Mohan 2004; see also Cima 2015). Scholars have warned against considering participatory tools as a panacea for all economic and social problems, denouncing that too often participatory tools are applied in an instrumental way with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of development programmes rather than with a more open approach that would allow the meaningful participation of local actors; this instrumental use of participation risks depoliticising its meaning and limiting its potential for empowerment (e.g. Cornwall and Coelho 2007; Korf 2010). Indeed, in the quotations above we have seen that cooperatives are defined as “vehicles for community development” that can “solve local problems” (Zeuli et al. 2004, 18), or as “instruments for economic, social and cultural development” (ILO Recommendation 127).

Zeuli and Radel (2005) discuss the tension between the goal of supporting the establishment of cooperatives for development purposes and the bottom-up imperative for their formation and management. They note that too-heavy external intervention in the establishment and management of cooperatives reduces ownership and engagement among the local population and eventually undermines the viability and sustainability of cooperatives (id. 51). As noted by Fairbairn (1994) above, the success of the first modern cooperatives in the nineteenth century relied on the support by existing networks of political activists. Today, political activists have been replaced by development agencies, but the same tension remains between top-down support and bottom-up emergence.
Others have pointed to more practical and material limitations of participation. In particular, the requirements in terms of human and social capital, but also of time and financial resources, often limit the inclusion of the most marginalised in participatory processes (Olivier de Sardan 2005, 166–84). Participating in development projects can represent an additional burden hardly bearable by the most vulnerable groups and even less bearable by women, who often – and worldwide – still perform most reproductive tasks in households (e.g. Walker 2013). Potential future cooperative members might simply lack the essential time, energy and financial capital to start a cooperative, or the local community networks might be too loose to constitute a solid basis of trust necessary for a cooperative to function (Zeuli and Radel 2005, 51–52). The risk is thus that local elites appropriate participatory mechanisms (and the resources mobilised through development projects or cooperatives), generating further exclusions and inequalities in communities through the process of “elite capture” (Olivier de Sardan 2005, 166–84).

### 2.1.3 From cooperatives as objects to cooperation as process

In the former sections, we have seen that, whereas modern cooperatives emerged in the nineteenth century as an alternative and direct challenge to capitalist modes of production (§2.1.1), their inclusion in the programmes of development agencies made them integral part of market economies (§2.1.2). On the one hand, cooperatives have been conceptualised as a tool within broader political struggle; on the other, as a type of firm concerned with business performance and efficiency. There is, however, a commonality between the two approaches: both see cooperatives as means towards a better society – a better society located in the future. For utopian socialists, the ultimate goal is a comprehensive co-operative system; for Marxists, the worker state and communism; for classical economists and development agencies, an efficient and perfect market system in which empowered citizens-entrepreneurs will finally lift themselves out of poverty.

Byrne and Healy (2006) suggest that this kind of attitude is typical of the mechanisms of Lacanian fantasy: being oriented towards a goal in an idealised future, this attitude forecloses an engagement with the concrete challenges and achievements of actual cooperative experiences in the present (see also Healy 2010; Gibson-Graham 2006a, 101–26). In order to avoid such mechanisms, Gibson-Graham (2006a, 103) proposes to perform “an ethical practice of weak theory<fnref n="2" /> – choosing to view [cooperatives] not as predictably limited and shaped by a capitalist world order, but instead as the complex, surprising, unfinished outcome of innumerable contingent acts and decisions”. The analysis of cooperatives should thus be open to see and discuss the unpredictable ways in which co-operators discuss, negotiate and finally find together solutions for the multitude of small or big issues they face day after day. Instead of evaluating cooperatives against an ideal goal in the future, or focusing on the inherited structures that limit their action, the mentioned authors invite to look at the present – the *here and now* – of actual

<footnote n="2">² I present and discuss more in detail the concepts of “fantasy” and “weak theory” in Chapter 4.</footnote>
cooperative experiences in their nonfixity and contingency, but also in their openness to diversity and transformation.

Such an approach to cooperatives also implies to loosen the definition of cooperatives as objects with a certain degree of formality, oriented towards either political or commercial goals and with rigid membership boundaries. Instead, analysis should focus on “cooperation as a process rather than a means to fixed ends” and on how this process “underpins sociality, ways of relating, cultural affirmation and affective inter-subjectivity” (Emery, Forney, and Wynne-Jones 2017, 234, 233 emphasis added). Analysis should thus pay more attention to the ways in which new subjects and identities emerge through practices of cooperation, but also through other practices, converging into and at the same time spreading from an unfix “cooperative” object (see also Gibson-Graham 2006a, 127–63; Cornwell 2012). Following this approach, for instance, a recent special issue of the *Journal of Rural Studies* explores the “more-than-economic dimensions of cooperation” (Wynne-Jones, Emery, and Forney 2017). The analyses in the special issue reveal a series of dimensions, beyond the economic one, that are crucial for the unfolding of cooperative experiences – and that we should therefore consider when engaging with cooperatives. In their introductory contribution, the editors highlight in particular three dimensions: how communities relate to and embed cooperatives and how the benefits of cooperatives spread among broader communities beyond formal membership boundaries; how formalised and informal cooperative agreements enmesh and the opportunities and constraints this enmeshment creates; and how temporality, expressed in visions of histories and futures, informs and is entrenched into cooperative experience (Emery, Forney, and Wynne-Jones 2017).

These scholars invite thus to loosen the focus on cooperatives as a formally bounded object and to look instead at cooperation processes. In the next section I therefore turn to academic approaches to broader forms of cooperation beyond cooperatives.

## 2.2 Cooperation: from commons to commoning

Economic theory commonly assumes that competition – embodied in the *homo economicus*<fnref n="3" /> as the self-interested, profit-maximiser individual – to be at the basis of human behaviour: an individual will always privilege her own interests and attempt to maximise her own benefits while disregarding the interests of others, which are often rivalrous. In this model, cooperative behaviour (or *cooperation*), intended as considering the interests of others and benefitting them, is conceivable only when it brings a higher benefit for the individual than competitive behaviour. The popular model of the Prisoner's Dilemma posits that in an interaction between two individuals, both parts will assume that the other will not cooperate and both will therefore decide not to cooperate, even if this decision will lead to a suboptimal outcome. On this basis, Mancur Olson's famous “zero contribution” thesis postulates that “rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests” (Olson 1965, 2).

<footnote n="3">³ For a discussion of the origins and meanings of the term see Persky (1995).</footnote>
Applying this thesis to the use of common goods (defined as non-excludable but rivalrous goods), Garret Hardin (1968) formulated his thesis of the “tragedy of the commons”. With the example of pasture land management, Hardin concluded that a regime of common property leads to the overexploitation of resources. Individuals have an incentive to “free ride”, or to use a resource as much as they can without regards to the interests and needs of others. In Hardin’s example, herders will increase the number of animals on pastures regardless of agreements to limit their number. Hardin therefore calls for the privatisation of commons, arguing that private property provides incentives to avoid overexploitation.

Olson's and Hardin's reflections have informed decades of privatisation and enclosure of the commons. At the same time, numerous critical voices have questioned their conclusions with both conceptual and empirical arguments. In this section, I present the critique by neo-institutionalists inspired by the work of Elinor Ostrom (§2.2.1) and the critique by the more recent commoning scholarship (§2.2.2). Both lines of scholarship have contributed to advance the understanding and conceptualisation of cooperation and are thus an important basis for my endeavour to investigate cooperatives as the result of cooperation practices.

### 2.2.1 Managing the commons

Ostrom (1990) challenged Hardin's and Olson's conclusions by extensively documenting numerous successful examples of common-pool resource management worldwide. Her work provided an important argument against privatisation and for the maintenance of common property, since it showed that cooperation is indeed a viable and even rational choice under certain conditions.<fnref n="4" /> She was concerned with how participants in interactions can “avoid the temptation of suboptimal equilibria and move closer to optimal outcomes – in other words, gain a ‘cooperators’ dividend”” (Ostrom 2010, 156). This question is also referred to as the “problem of collective action” (ibid.), where collective action is intended as “an action taken by a group (either directly or on its behalf through an organisation) in pursuit of members’ perceived shared interests” (Marshall 1998, quoted in Meinzen-Dick, DiGregorio, and McCarthy 2004, 200). The task of researchers becomes therefore to identify the specific conditions under which cooperation is the best rational choice and collective action can thus emerge. Building on game theory, scholars investigated the “structural variables” of interactions that make cooperation more likely, such as the size of the group, the existence of face-to-face communication, the availability of information about past actions, the probability of a future interaction with the same individuals, or enter/exit possibilities (Ostrom 2010, 157).

<footnote n="4">⁴ It must be noted that already Olson and Hardin had qualified their statements about the “zero contribution” and the “tragedy of the commons” in this direction; these qualifications, however, had gone forgotten in successive work based on their research. Olson (1965, 2) had observed that his thesis was valid only “unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest”. Hardin (1998, 682), thirty years after his own influential paper, noted that “the weightiest mistake in my synthesizing paper was the omission of the modifying adjective ‘unmanaged’” and reformulated his thesis as follows: “The *unmanaged* commons would be ruined by overgrazing; competitive individualism would be helpless to prevent the social disaster” (emphasis added). See also Gibson-Graham, Cameron and Healy (2016, 192).</footnote>
The task of policy-makers, on the other hand, becomes to provide those conditions through the right structure of incentives, rules and sanctions. According to Ostrom (2000; Ostrom et al. 1994), this can be achieved through the design of specific institutions – intended as systems of rules that are applied and reproduced iteratively. Following Ostrom’s reflections, New Institutional Economics was concerned with the identification and design of the best suited institutions for the common management of resources (Williamson 2000). Ostrom (2000) formulated eight “design principles” that, based on her empirical observations, should be fulfilled if these institutions are to be long-surviving and sustainable. These principles include the clear definition of group boundaries; clear rules-in-use defining benefit allocation and cost distribution; participation in decision-making by those affected; an effective monitoring system and enforceable graduated sanctions for non-compliance. These universal principles, however, have to be adapted to the specificities of each local context: scholars warned from top-down blueprint approaches and insisted that institutional systems need to be developed and enforced by local users.

Applications in practice

These reflections have been very influential and have contributed to the expansion of community-based
and participatory development approaches. Development programmes have applied these principles for
the promotion of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) worldwide, with the goal of
achieving a more sustainable and inclusive management of these resources (see Twyman 2017).
Following Ostrom’s principles, development agencies have attempted to design local institutions with “a
focus on formal public structures with clear boundaries, transparency, representativeness and the
codification of rules through written by-laws, contracts and the specification of property rights” (Cleaver
2002, 13).

These reflections have informed not only initiatives for the establishment of formal cooperative
management institutions but also research assessing the impact of such initiatives. These assessments
have often pointed to the limited success of community-based initiatives, especially in ex-socialist
countries in CEE and the FSU. For instance, confronting the implementation of recent pasture reforms in
Kyrgyzstan with Ostrom’s design principles, Shigaeva et al. (2016) have noted that the boundaries of user
associations are not neat; users are unaware of the rules and of their rights and obligations; users’
representation in decision-making is limited; effective monitoring and sanctioning is lacking; and
conflicts are usually tackled in informal arenas. With the same approach, Sehring (2009) has found
similar results in her analysis of water management in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where users are
commonly excluded from decision-making.

Scholars have interrogated why institutions, even when designed on the basis of Ostrom’s principles,
have failed to comply with these principles. These scholars mainly identify two factors leading to this
“failure”. First, they denounce the top-down establishment of institutions, which limits their legitimacy
among local users and their adaptation to the specific local context (e.g. Theesfeld 2004; Sehring 2009;
Dörre 2015; Shigaeva et al. 2016). Their recommendation for policy-makers and aid agencies is therefore
to study more carefully the local context of interventions and to build institutions "upward from the
ground level", increasing users' participation in their design and management (Shigaeva et al. 2016, 100;
also Sehring 2009; Baerlein, Kasymov, and Zikos 2015; Dörre 2015; Soliev et al. 2017). However, some
scholars have warned about the assumption that bottom-up processes necessarily result in sustainable and
inclusive institutions – an assumption that is often rooted in visions of local communities as
homogeneous and as repository of "the 'natural' basis of co-operation latent in village life" (Cleaver
2002, 12; see also Dörre 2015). Second, authors argue that some local norms and informal regulations
constrain collective action in formal institutions and influence negatively the outcomes and success of the
latter (Sehring 2009; Baerlein, Kasymov, and Zikos 2015; Kasymov and Zikos 2017; Klümper,
Theesfeld, and Herzfeld 2018; Theesfeld 2019). Since these local norms and regulations predate formal
institutions, scholars often conceptualise their persistent influence as path dependency, intended as the
determination of present (and future) trajectories by past experiences (e.g. Sehring 2009; Soliev et al.
2017).

In ex-socialist regions, path dependency usually refers to the persistence of structural features from the
socialist past. For instance, Sehring (2009, 71) claims that the exclusion of users from decision-making is
due to the "conflicting co-existence of formal democratic mechanisms [within the new water management
institutions] and authoritarian and personalistic leadership patterns, clientelism, and corruption" rooted in
inherited Soviet hierarchies and patronage networks. In most analyses, the main features of such "Soviet
legacy" include "1) the discrepancy between formal political intentions and informal effective
institutional change at the local level; 2) the high information and knowledge asymmetries, and 3)
deteriorated social capital" (Theesfeld 2019, 351; see also Kaminska 2010; Gerkey 2013 see also above,
§2.1.2). These legacies are believed to hamper collective action and to create favourable conditions for
opportunistic behaviour, fostering power abuse and corruption and limiting trust especially in political
institutions (Theesfeld 2004; Lissowska 2013). For several authors, thus, the Soviet experience erased the
collective memory of previous effective and sustainable management institutions: instead, the persistent
memory of socialist "pseudo-commons" institutions generates now "an inherited behavior promoting a
pseudo-implementation of rules and organizations for the management of common pool resources"
(Theesfeld 2019, 354).

The recommendation for development programmes deriving from these reflections is somehow in
contradiction with the first recommendation (“more bottom-up”): authors recommend “more tailored
advice and training for [users] to increase acceptance of formal rules and establish trust in the authorities”
(Klümper, Theesfeld, and Herzfeld 2018, 337). They recommend to insist on the compliance of local
institutions with Ostrom’s design principles, prescribing more formality especially in what concerns
monitoring and the structure of incentives and sanctions (Theesfeld 2004; Baerlein, Kasymov, and Zikos
2015; Shigaeva et al. 2016; Klümper, Theesfeld, and Herzfeld 2018).
## Contribution and critique

By emphasising the importance of cooperation in opposition to competition, neo-institutionalist approaches emerged as an alternative and critique to classical economic theory's assumption of fully-rational self-interested individualistic behaviour as the natural basis of human evolution. They importantly contributed to the deepening of the understanding and conceptualisation of human behaviour, its motivations and constraints by drawing the attention of economists on the contextual and structural factors that influence and constrain people's choices. Building on Herbert Simon's work (1955), Ostrom (2010) advanced a theory of "bounded rationality", arguing that in real life the conditions for full rationality are never fulfilled. For instance, information is always partial and individuals, with cognitive limitations, base their decisions also on heuristics ("rules of thumb" learned in past interactions) and social norms (id. 160-61). The notion of social norms was particularly important to open economic analysis to moral, emotional and social aspects of decision-making, drawing attention on the role of existing social relations and social capital – the latter intended as "the shared knowledge, understandings, norms, rules and expectations about patterns of interactions that groups of individuals bring to a recurrent activity" (Ostrom 1999 quoted in Meinzen-Dick, DiGregorio, and McCarthy 2004, 201).

Nevertheless, neo-institutionalist approaches maintain similar assumptions about human behaviour as classical economic theory. They still conceive individuals, even if "boundedly rational", "as 'resource appropriators' cleverly deploying sociocultural norms and positions in maximizing their access to and use of resources" (Cleaver 2007, 223-24). In these approaches, self-interested individuals, even if they happen to simultaneously benefit others, still pursue the maximisation of their benefits; individual behaviour is a response to incentives, rules and sanctions – a response based on economic calculation and free choice (see Singh 2017). Furthermore, the structures and institutions that shape individual behaviour are given (or "to be given") and basically static and unitary. Neo-institutionalist scholars in fact neglect to consider how these structures and institutions emerge in a specific situated context and how human agency shapes them (see Cleaver and de Koning 2015).

A critical current within neo-institutionalism has advanced a more fluid understanding of institutions as the result of "bricolage", or "a messier process of piecing together shaped by individuals acting within the bounds of circumstantial constraints" (Cleaver 2007, 17). Formal legislation and informal norms, traditional and modern regulations overlap and enmesh within multiple institutions creating a context of legal pluralism that can limit the availability of options of choice in the first place (Engle Merry 2012; also Dörre 2015, 1). Critical institutionalists have also called for a stronger attention to plural identities, rationalities and livelihood strategies in the study of institutions, in opposition to the fixed and singular identities (e.g. "the herder") and motivation (economic rationality) assumed by neo-institutionalists (Cleaver 2002; 2007).

Despite these important nuances, critical institutionalists – like neo-institutionalists – maintain the assumption that it is possible to design institutions to shape individual behaviour in a determined direction (for instance towards cooperation): the goal remains the proper design of institutions for
sustainable and inclusive resource management. This is possible because these institutionalist approaches – both within their neo and critical currents – conceptualise power structures, identities and rationalities (even if plural) as given, falling short to account for how they are constituted in their turn. In this regard (and with the due distinctions), institutionalist scholars are close to Marxist currents within political ecology in that both consider “power as existing in persistent structures in society that influence access to and control over resources” (Bennett et al. 2018, 335–36). For instance, it is these persistent structures – including identities and rationalities – that shape and set the terms for the process of institutional bricolage conceptualised by critical institutionalists.

### 2.2.2 Commoning and being-in-common

In contrast to the mentioned Marxist currents, another current within political ecology addresses power in human-environment relationships from a poststructuralist perspective. Scholars within this current thus understand “power as the product of contingent and variegated relationships between different actors and ideological and material elements” (Bennett et al. 2018, 337). In particular, feminist political ecology has contributed to the understanding of how power emerges from embodied everyday more-than-human relations (Harcourt and Nelson 2015) by conceptualising “power as operating both horizontally and vertically so power is not only expressed in vertical oppressive and hierarchical relations but also horizontally in intimate connections that are embodied and emotional among humans and environment” (Clement et al. 2019, 4). Feminist political ecology scholars are engaging in a dialogue with commoning scholars that is opening promising avenues for a deeper understanding of cooperation (id.).

The recent commoning scholarship has emerged as a critique to institutionalist approaches and has shifted attention away from institutions as objects and commons as resources towards an understanding of commoning as a relational process and of institutions, resources, subjects and societies as co-emerging (Nightingale 2011, 120; see also Singh 2017; Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy 2016). These reflections originate from Linebaugh’s “manifesto”, where he notes:

> To speak of the commons as if it were a natural resource is misleading at best and dangerous at worst – the commons is an activity and, if anything, it expresses relationships in society that are inseparable from relations to nature. It might be better to keep the word as a verb, an activity, rather than as a noun, a substantive. (Linebaugh 2008, 279)

Instead of focusing thus on the commons as a resource that needs to be managed through the establishment of specific rules and incentives, these authors shift the attention from the noun (commons) to the verb (commoning) to emphasise the dynamic, fluid and relational character of the commons. Rather than *having a commons*, groups *hold a resource in common* in “an active political relationship” (Amin and Howell 2016, 10). Commoning is not about *managing* a commons, but rather about *being in-common* (Singh 2017; see also Popke 2010); commons “are not [...] ways of *interacting* in the world, but [...] ways of *being* in the world” (Nightingale 2019, 22 emphasis added). Commoning is thus “a relational process [...] of negotiating access, use, benefit, care, and responsibility”; it “involves establishing rules or protocols for access and use, taking caring of and accepting responsibility for a resource, and distributing
the benefits in ways that take into account the well-being of others” (Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy 2016, 195).

Scholars have applied this framework to evaluate governmental or development programmes for the management of the commons designed on the basis of institutionalist theorising. Environmentality approaches had already suggested that environmental governance institutions are in fact disciplining devices that aim at transforming the subjects they govern: by treating human subjects as rational economic actors and relying on economic incentives to transform their behaviour, such institutions indeed create the kinds of subjects they assume (Agrawal 2005; Singh 2013). For instance, Singh (2015, 55) showed that in market-based forest conservation paradigms (payments for ecosystem services models), “a sole emphasis on payments can lead to the erosion or replacement of social norms with market norms, and the ‘crowding out’ of intrinsic motivations: a ‘you pay, I conserve’ attitude, the corollary of which is ‘no payments, no conservation’”.

Singh (2013), however, has lamented that environmentality approaches fall short of considering how subjects are transformed not only by disciplining mechanisms, but also through intimate practices of commoning. She has therefore urged environmental programmes to “look beyond political-economic rationalities and pay attention to the role of affect and everyday human practices in the environment to understand how subjectivities and way of relating to the biophysical environment emerge in affective relations” (id. 196–7). In this vein, Nightingale (2011; 2013) has interrogated the outcomes of common inshore fishery management in Scotland and has shown that the subjectivities of fishermen are fluid, often contradictory and can sometimes result in environmentally damaging behaviour. She has suggested that problems with institutional agreements probably derive from the scarce consideration, in these agreements, of complex subjectivities and relationships, rather than primarily from fishermen’s behaviour (Nightingale 2013). Nightingale (id. 2363) thus concludes that “understanding how fishers are positioned in conflicting ways in relation to fisheries policy is a prerequisite for more successful cooperation over management objectives”.

By conceptualising the co-emergence of institutions and subjects, commoning scholars have overcome the institutionalist fixation with the design of institutions as sets of rules and have insisted instead on fostering linkages and relations. If commoning is understood as “a set of practices and performance that foster new relations and subjectivities” (Nightingale 2019, 21) – or, in other words, as a process that continuously reconfigures relations within more-than-human assemblages – commons acquire “a *biopolitical potential* to transform subjectivities and sociality based on relations of reciprocity and interdependence” (Singh 2015, 59). If commons nurture our subjectivities, our task as researchers is not limited to understanding how these subjectivities emerge from certain ways of being with the world (Singh 2017), but we can also ask what kind of linkages and relations we want to nurture and create space for thinking new possibilities of relations that were previously difficult to conceive (Nightingale 2019, 22–23; also Singh 2017; Clement et al. 2019, 7).
## 2.3 Conclusion: cooperatives as a relational process of cooperation

The growing literature on commoning from a “relational-vitalist” (Vasile 2019a) ontological perspective has impressively enriched our understanding of the complexities of social relations to commons. However, the reflections – indeed, complications – revealed by these scholars “can prove overwhelming for policy-makers trying to apply [their] findings” (Bennett et al. 2018, 348). Besides recommending to pay more attention to the complexity of embodied emotions, affective practices, multiple and fluid subjectivities, other-than-market rationalities, scholars – *because* of the complexity they acknowledge – have difficulties in proposing to policy-makers concrete tools and methods for adapting their policies to these new reflections.

One crucial point that is applicable for us as scholars, however, is the invitation to rethink our way to speak about communities’ experiences with, and relations to, the commons. Building on the poststructuralist assumptions that the way we speak about the world also contributes to shape the world, the literature reviewed in the last section suggests a reframing of our representations of such experiences and relations. The commoning practices discussed above entail also discursive practices, which – like affective labour and bodily encounters – contribute to the co-emergence of institutions, subjectivities and the commons (Gibson-Graham 2008 see also Chapter 4). The statements of failure produced by institutionalist scholars (§2.2.1) in the best case frustrate individuals’ motivations for engaging in the formal institutions promoted by development programmes and reduce self-confidence among local individuals and groups; in the worst case they disrupt forms of cooperation that already take place outside these formal institutions (see for instance the disruption of gift and reciprocity practices in forest conservation observed by Singh 2015).

I suggest that in ex-socialist contexts, a shift away from such representations is particularly crucial. The framing of failure and deficiency as the results of socialist legacies produces the idea that local communities are unfit to comply with the standards of development or modernity, similarly to what Gibson, Cahill, and McKay (2010) have noted in the Global South. My hypothesis is that this idea limits the capacity of local communities, but also of us researchers, to think outside the structure of socialist/capitalist dichotomies and thus to see and value already existing alternatives or to imagine new ones.

Vasile’s (2019a) analysis of forestry and pasture self-management in Romania gives a hint of how a relational approach can illuminate the complexity of local realities beyond dichotomous readings. She notices among villagers a suspicious attitude towards formalised institutions that propose spaces for negotiations on resource management. Although Vasile suggests that such a suspicious attitude probably derives from how resource management was organised by the former socialist government, she refuses to inscribe this attitude in a deterministic trajectory of path dependency. Instead, she focuses on how the new participatory spaces create new relations and encounters – both convivial and conflictual – or “new possibilities for reciprocal relationships between commoners and the environment” (id. 140).
The point is thus to analyse cooperation (for instance but not necessarily within a formal institution for
the management of commons or a cooperative) as a relational process constituted by intimate practices –
by encounters with humans and non-humans, affective relations as well as discursive representations.
Collective action does not have to necessarily pursue an explicit collective end – an economic interest or
political aim – but can also emerge as a way to acknowledge, and ethically deal with, the
interdependencies that are at the basis of our being in the world. In this sense, cooperation – which is then
conceivable as caring for the well-being of others and benefitting them independently from one’s own
individual interest – becomes a way to nurture new subjectivities. Whenever confronted with programmes
attempting to establish a specific kind of cooperation institution (be it for the management of commons or
of other economic activities), we need thus to ask how they reconfigure social relations and what kind of
subjectivities they nurture. Before digging more in detail into this epistemological approach and the
concepts it mobilises (Chapter 4), the next chapter discusses the specificities of the regional context of
Kyrgyzstan.
3 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY
KYRGYZSTAN

After the end of socialist regimes in CEE and the FSU between 1989 and 1992, multilateral institutions
such as the IMF or the World Bank supported the idea of a “shock therapy” approach for the transitioning
of these countries from the centrally planned socialist economy to a market economy. This approach,
inspired by the Washington Consensus principles that had informed structural adjustments programmes in
Latin America and Africa in the 1980s, prescribed the quick implementation of reform programmes for
the privatisation of state or collective property, the liberalisation and deregulation of markets and the
reduction of the role of the state in economic production and in welfare provision (see e.g. Steimann
2011, 13). In parallel to these economic reforms, shock therapy prescribed political reforms mainly
directed at the establishment of mechanisms of representative democracy within nation-states (e.g. Luong
2009). Shock therapy was applied especially in ex-socialist countries in CEE (see Stenning et al. 2010,
38–57); in Central Asia, only Kyrgyzstan and, to a lesser extent, Kazakhstan embraced this approach,
while the other republics preferred to maintain control of the national economy by a strong centralised
state (Abazov 1999).

Certainly, shock therapy reforms have reduced state welfare provision and nationalised economic activities. However, what was strengthened in the void resulting from the withdrawal of the state from these activities was often not primarily formal private economy but rather the informal sector and patronage relations (e.g. Morris and Polese 2013; McMann 2014), giving rise to “neo-patrimonialist” regimes (e.g. Veldwisch and Bock 2011; Sehring 2009; see also Collins 2009; for the concept of neo-patrimonialism in general see Eisenstadt 1973). Scholars have observed that the expansion of patrimonial practices (such as patronage relations or personal favours) in ex-socialist countries represents a continuity from socialist hierarchies and power structures (e.g. Ledeneva 1998). In regard to Central Asia, scholars have also pointed to the persistence of clan-based relations that pre-date the Soviet experience and have noted that, today, both clan-based and Soviet hierarchies determine the access to political power and economic resources and that clan loyalties underpin decision-making in formal political institutions even in the few countries that have introduced mechanisms of representative democracy (e.g. Roy 2000; Collins 2009; Luong 2009).

At the same time, even when not embracing democratisation reforms, the newly independent republics of Central Asia – a context where the territorial division in nation-states is recent and dates back to the Stalinist reconfiguration of Soviet Turkestan in the 1920s and 1930s – have embarked in a process of nation-building (e.g. Everett-Heath 2003; Haugen 2003). This process includes an increased emphasis on national identities, which are built also through the reviving of historical traditions including the community (and clan-based) bonds that are deemed typical of pre-Soviet Central Asia (e.g. Dadabaev 2015; Isaacs and Polese 2016). Pre-Soviet habits and identities acquire therefore an ambivalent character in postsocialist Central Asia: they represent a basis for nationalistic rhetoric in the process of nation-
building on the one hand, and, on the other, a pre-modern element that seems to undermine the
establishment of market economies within the newly independent nation-states.

In Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian republic that has applied most thoroughly shock therapy economic and political reforms and that has opened the most to cooperation with international institutions, these processes are particularly well visible. This chapter offers an overview of these processes in the country, focusing in particular on reforms in the agrarian sector (§3.1) and on the role of international actors and development programmes in this context (§3.2).

**3.1 Reform programmes and their outcomes in the agricultural sector**

**3.1.1 Reform policies**

Abazov (1999, 218) has observed that “the economic policy of the Kyrgyzstan government may be characterized as ‘inconsistent shock therapy’ accompanied with an ‘open door’ policy and maximum economic liberalisation”. Despite their quick launching, in fact, reform programmes have encountered resistance especially in some sectors, where they have therefore been implemented only partially until today. One of these sectors is state governance and administration, where reforms have promulgated the devolution of state tasks to local administrative bodies and the decentralisation of state powers to local executive and legislative bodies (see Abazov 1999; Alymkulov and Kulatov 2001; Steimann 2011, 59–63; INTRAC 2011; Urinboyev 2015). Since 1991, local governance is organised on a three-level structure: the *oblast* (province), the *rayon* (district) and the *aiyl okrug* (village) levels. *Oblasts* and the *rayons* have the functions of local state administration units and are directly accountable to the national government and to the *oblast*, respectively. The *aiyl okrug* is a local self-government entity and includes an executive (*aiyl okmotu*) and a legislative (*aiyl kenesh*) body.<fnref n="1" /> In practice, however, the *aiyl okrug* has limited autonomy. Its modest budget (derived mainly from land taxes) is often hardly sufficient to cover its basic responsibilities and is further eroded by other functions that the central government delegates without providing adequate financial resources (INTRAC 2011).

Also in the agrarian sector, some reforms have been implemented more quickly and more thoroughly than
others (see Sabates-Wheeler and Childress 2004; Lerman and Sedik 2009a; Mogilevskii et al. 2017;
Akramov and Omuraliev 2009). The first phase of land reforms started as soon as 1991 with the
distribution of paper shares of arable land to the rural population; the Law on Peasant Farms the same
year opened to the privatisation of Soviet farms into joint-stock companies, agricultural cooperatives or
peasant farm associations. The actual distribution of arable land, however, started only with the 1994
presidential decree *On Measures to Promote Land and Agrarian Reforms*, which marked the beginning of

<footnote n="1">¹ Note that the administrative unit of the *aiyl* (“village” in Kyrgyz) can in fact include more than one village. *Aiyl okmotu* in its narrowest meaning refers to the executive body of the *aiyl okrug*. However, it is currently used to refer to the local government and administration in general, its building as well as the territorial unit of the *aiyl okrug*.</footnote>
the second phase of land reforms. The decree mandated the dissolution of collective farms and the distribution of shares of arable land; the rural population could withdraw its shares in concrete plots with transferable use rights. The new 1999 Land Code set the basis for the private ownership of land, which was fully realised only in 2001 with the lift of a moratorium on private land transactions. Actual regulation still limits the transfer of arable land to residents of rural areas, however.

For other assets previously owned by Soviet farms, the distribution and privatisation process was slower and/or only partial and was delayed with respect to the distribution of arable land (Sabates-Wheeler and Childress 2004, 18 define this process as ‘lumpy’; see also Lerman and Sedik 2009a; Mogilevskii et al. 2017; Akramov and Omuraliev 2009). By the time livestock was distributed, most of the animals had been already sold by the ex-Soviet farms or had “disappeared” from formal registers and appropriated by local elites (Steimann 2011, 67). Similarly, when shares of agricultural machinery were officially distributed, few machines were still with the original farms: many had been sold or “given” to the few peasant farms that had emerged during the first phase of land reforms; the machines that remained in the collective farm were in bad condition due to insufficient maintenance. The lack of maintenance and looting for the burgeoning scrap metal market also left buildings almost in ruin when shares were distributed. First attempts to decentralise the irrigation system occurred in 1997 with the institution of Water User Associations (WUAs). However, it was only with the 2002 Law on Water User Associations that WUAs were formally recognised as non-commercial organisations, owners of on-farm irrigation networks and entitled to collect taxes for water use; the actual implementation of these measures is still ongoing, however (Mogilevskii et al. 2017). Pasture land was excluded from the privatisation process and has remained state property. Local governments controlled pasture land until the 2009 Law on Pasture, which transferred the responsibility of pasture management to local Pasture User Committees; in this case too, the implementation of these measures is ongoing (id.).

### 3.1.2 Reform outcomes and current situation

If we compare the results of reforms with their stated aims (in short: privatisation, liberalisation, deregulation), we can state that, despite their lengthy and “lumpy” application (Sabates-Wheeler and Childress 2004, 18), Kyrgyzstan was relatively successful in their implementation. As Abazov (1999, 218) summarised, “the republic conducted one of the most radical programmes of privatization in the region, established one of the most liberal economic regimes and managed to limit state intervention in the private sector”. In terms of quantitative aggregated indicators for economic performance, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) dropped dramatically after independence (in 1999 it was only half as in 1991), but rose constantly since 2000, firstly timidly and then, after reaching pre-reforms levels in 2006, more decidedly.<fnref n="2" /> Also the gross agricultural output (GAO) almost halved in the years after independence, but started recovering already in the mid 1990s; since 2000, its growth has been timid and irregular (Akramov and Omuraliev 2009, 12–13).

<footnote n="2">² Data from the World Bank: https://data.worldbank.org/country/kyrgyz-republic (accessed 09.06.2019).</footnote>
In terms of structural transformation, reforms achieved to privatise over 75% of the total arable land<fnref n="3" /> by the beginning of the millennium and to create a new class of individual farmers, which in 2010 contributed to 98%<fnref n="4" /> of total GAO (Lerman and Sedik 2018, 907). After a dramatic drop in the first half of the 1990s, crop productivity increased constantly, especially within peasant farms. The increase in productivity, especially in the first years of reforms, was driven by the increase in land productivity through the intensification of labour as a consequence of the de-mechanisation of agricultural activities. Farm product mix, which was dominated by livestock before reforms, gradually shifted to a prevalence of crops – a shift driven by the dramatic decline of the number of livestock in the whole country. In this process, the average farm size has dropped to about 3 hectares (Lerman and Sedik 2009a).

Despite these achievements, scholars have denounced “the very high social cost of reform and economic change [which] includes a tremendous social cost in the form of the increasing spread of unemployment, poverty and social polarization” (Abazov 1999, 218). Despite the recovery in GDP and GAO, these problems are still present in Kyrgyzstan. The country is still classified as a low-income food deficit country by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), with high poverty rates (25% countrywide in 2016), mostly in rural areas (66%, FAO 2018). A strategy to mitigate poverty is labour migration by young Kyrgyzstani, primarily to Russia and Kazakhstan: outmigration has exploded since 2000 and remittances represent today more than 30% of total GDP.<fnref n="5" /> Migration is an opportunity for rural communities insofar as it constitutes an increasingly important source of revenue; however, like in other contexts, it poses a new series of social and economic problems (see e.g. Zhunusova and Herrmann 2018; Isabaeva 2013).

In the agricultural sector, farmers face the problems linked to the fragmentation of production and to the reduction of farm size – what Lerman (Lerman 2013b, 5; also Lerman and Sedik 2014) has defined as the “curse of smallness”. Moreover, the changed patterns of integration in international markets have posed new challenges and opportunities for Kyrgyzstan’s agricultural sector, which is strongly dependent on international trade (Pomfret 2010). The complex geopolitical relations between ex-Soviet republics in the region also express in highly unstable border regimes with precarious export possibilities (Grafe, Raiser, and Sakatsume 2008; Kurmanalieva 2008). The proximity to the Chinese market offers export opportunities but the competition of cheap Chinese products drives down profit margins for farmers (Alff 2016). Kyrgyzstan’s integration in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) since 2015, which has considerably reduced trade exchanges with China, promises increased export opportunities in the EAEU market. At the same time, it poses new challenges to farmers, especially concerning the adaptation to quality standards, technical regulations, administrative procedures and the increased competition with

<footnote n="3">³ 25% of the total arable land remains state property within the Land Redistribution Fund (LRF) and is managed by local governments.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ The percentage includes both household plots and peasant farms. The contribution to GAO of the household plots remained almost stable throughout the 1990s and the 2000s (between 30 and 40%), whereas peasant farms, inexistent in 1990, increased their contribution to GAO from 0 to about 60% in one decade (Lerman and Sedik 2009a, 8–10). The other data in this paragraphs are from Lerman and Sedik (2009a) and Mogilevskii et al. (2017).</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ Data from the World Bank: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?locations=KG (accessed 10.06.2019).</footnote>
Kazakhstani and Belarusian products (Choi et al. 2016; Mogilevskii, Thurlow, and Yeh 2018). The structural changes in the agricultural sector have also an impact on soil conditions: in particular, land degradation is increasing due to the intensified agricultural use without the necessary application of fertilizers and inappropriate irrigation as a consequence of the decrepit conditions of irrigation and drainage systems (Shigaeva, Wolfgramm, and Dear 2013, 31–33). These problems are worsened by the impact of climate change in the region, already visible in the reduction of average humidity, the increased sensitivity of some forms of land use and the changes in water runoff (id. 35–36).

The 2004 presidential decree “On New Directions and Measures of Land and Agrarian Reforms” represents the starting point for the third phase of agrarian reforms, after the distribution and privatisation of arable land was concluded. The “new direction” proposed by the Kyrgyzstani government is towards the further development and reinforcement of private agriculture and agri-business, in particular through land concentration (see also the *National Strategy of Sustainable Development of the Kyrgyz Republic for 2013–2017*).<fnref n="6" />

### 3.1.3 Forms of grouping and association in farming

One of the most radical transformations provoked by agrarian reforms is the individualisation and fragmentation of agricultural production. On the one hand, some scholars point to the superior productivity of smallholder agriculture and thus to its important role in the recovery and development of Kyrgyzstan’s agricultural sector after independence (e.g. Lerman and Sedik 2018). On the other hand, this fragmentation poses to farmers the new problems mentioned above – problems that the promotion of service cooperatives has tried to mitigate (see Chapter 6). The little research available on farmers’ grouping strategies reveal the existence – and importance – of forms of unformalised cooperation (Sabates-Wheeler and Childress 2004; Sabates-Wheeler 2004; 2007; also Lerman 2013b, 26–27). This kind of cooperation is difficult to assess with the analysis of aggregated quantitative data or with standardised surveys and is therefore often neglected in analyses of the agricultural sector. Sabates-Wheeler and Childress (2004, 1) have noted indeed that “the gross trend towards individualisation of agricultural production throughout the post-socialist world obscures a great deal of differentiation in both sectoral and farm performance”.

A survey by Lerman (2013b, 26) on cooperatives and cooperation in Kyrgyzstan revealed the widespread presence of informal cooperation among farmers (22% of respondents declared to “participate informally in some joint activity with other nearby farmers”), whereas formal cooperation remains “very limited” (only 8% of respondents declared to be member of a cooperative). Lerman (ibid.) thus observes that “it is somewhat surprising to find that 10% of peasant farmers surveyed report informal cooperation in agricultural production outside a production cooperative”. Sabates-Wheeler’s comparative studies on agricultural cooperation in Kyrgyzstan (2004; 2007; Sabates-Wheeler and Childress 2004) had a broader

<footnote n="6">⁶ See Government of the Kyrgyz Republic (2013); see also Section 6.4.2.</footnote>
scope than Lerman’s survey and offered also some qualitative data. Results suggest that the 22% of informal cooperation found by Lerman is very probably underestimated. Sabates-Wheeler (2007, 1428) noted “a variety of new informal structures” in the agricultural sector, for instance “individual farms often band together to work larger areas of land”. On the one hand, “surrounding the new class of individualised landholders a variety of cooperative forms have rapidly come into existence to provide them with services, such as, producers associations, input-cooperatives and associations of contract farmers” (ibid.). On the other, “a variety of clan-based reciprocal institutions co-exist with formal institutions of agricultural management” (ibid.).

Sabates-Wheeler (2004) identified two main motivations for farmers to engage in joint activities. First, the result of the uneven distribution of agricultural assets was a diversified landscape of households unevenly endowed with the assets necessary to engage in individual farming. Limitations in the access to assets, although having improved considerably, persist until today. In this context, cooperation with other farmers is a strategy to expand the asset endowment of a farm by pooling its assets with other farmers (Sabates-Wheeler and Childress 2004, 10, 18). Second, the collapse of the Soviet welfare and safety system has exacerbated farmers’ insecurity until today, when still no farm insurance exists and access to cash and credit is limited. In this context, grouping represents a crucial strategy of risk management, since it allows to expand or reduce farm assets when needed (Sabates-Wheeler 2007, 1440–43).

According to Sabates-Wheeler (2004; 2007), in short, grouping in farming can be both a strategy for the optimisation of production via asset pooling and a strategy of risk management. The possibility to group (and un-group) represents a crucial safety strategy in a context of insecurity and uncertainty. Sabates-Wheeler (2007, 1442) further notes that these groups are usually based on kinship and friendship ties and that this contributes to their stability. She underlines, however, the risk of a “downward levelling pressures of social capital”: the close social relations constituting these groups can in fact imply social obligations and constrain alternative strategies, thus reinforcing “the static nature of these small farm groups” (id. 1435).

## 3.2 The role of international actors in Kyrgyzstan’s transformation

International actors played an important role in the definition of the reform approach adopted by Kyrgyzstan’s government after independence. Accompanying the reforms outlined in the previous section was a foreign policy directed at the quick opening of the country to international cooperation and trade, as testified by its rapid access to the World Trade Organisation in 1998 (Abazov 1999; Gleason 2001). Multilateral organisations like the IMF, the World Bank, or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) did not only play a crucial role in the definition of reform strategies through technical and political advice but also supported their actuation with heavy injections of liquidity (over 2
billions US dollars between 1991 and 2000).<fnref n="7" /> Gleason (2001, 174) noted that, “were it not for foreign aid, Kyrgyzstan’s domestic reform efforts might not have been politically sustainable” – nor economically viable (see also Abazov 1999).

International development assistance by both multilateral and bilateral donors proliferated since the mid-1990s in Kyrgyzstan. In rural communities, this assistance manifested initially in a series of rural development programmes that provided among others agricultural inputs, extension services and infrastructure. The recovery of agricultural production discussed above is probably due in part also to the injection of such resources in local communities by foreign donors (see Schmidt 2012). Contemporary Central Asia has attracted the attention of powerful neighbours and other international powers competing for the geopolitical influence in the region, as it has been often the case throughout the history of the region. Besides the aforementioned multilateral organisations, other Western donors include bilateral governmental organisations from the US (USAID), Germany (GIZ), Switzerland (SDC), Japan (JICA), South Korea (KOIKA) and the UK (DFID), whose programmes are often implemented by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from the same countries. Besides these “traditional” donors, other development funds have reached Kyrgyzstan from emergent donors from Turkey (Kulaklikaya and Nurdun 2010) and China (Kassenova 2009) in particular. Both countries have recently invested significant resources in development programmes in Kyrgyzstan, especially in the infrastructural, industrial and health sectors. Russia has remained a close economic and political partner for Kyrgyzstan (see Gray 2011; Freiré 2009).

The topics of agricultural cooperatives and, more generally, of participation and community-based cooperation are a common feature in the development programmes of the mentioned multilateral organisations and “traditional” governmental donors (i.e. those who are part of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, DAC/OECD), whereas they are less present in the agendas of emergent donors and other international actors. For this reason, in this manuscript I focus mainly on DAC/OECD donors and organisations.<fnref n="8" /> In the next sections I offer an overview of the evolution of these donors’ agendas and strategies in Kyrgyzstan and discuss initiatives for the promotion of local cooperation and their impact. Although international support focused initially on rural communities, more recently several initiatives have concentrated in urban areas, especially in the southern part of the country (in particular after the 2010 outburst of ethnic violence in the Osh region). I maintain here a focus on rural areas, however.

### 3.2.1 Donor agendas: from civil society to community-based development

Donors in contemporary Kyrgyzstan have supported structural reforms for the transition from a socialist economy to a market economy and shared similar assumptions, values and visions about such a transition

<footnote n="7">⁷ Data from the World Bank: https://data.worldbank.org/country/kyrgyz-republic (accessed 09.06.2019)</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ Therefore, unless specified, when I write of “donors” or “international organisations” I refer to DAC/OECD donors and to multilateral organisations such as the World Bank, IMF or the EDRD.</footnote>
as the multilateral agencies mentioned above (Babajanian, Freizer, and Stevens 2005; Earle 2005; Pétric 2005). In particular, similar to in other ex-socialist countries, the reinforcement of civil society at national and local levels has been on top of donors' agendas since the beginning of their activities in Kyrgyzstan in the early 1990s. Whereas other Central Asian republics have maintained strong centralised – and in large part authoritarian – control over civil society, the Kyrgyzstani government has reduced this control and thereby opened up new space for citizen initiatives. Kyrgyzstan has therefore become a sort of “laboratory” for donors and NGOs for experimenting with civil society promotion and participation tools, attracting great international interest and resources (Pétric 2013, 189–99).

The focus on civil society has been motivated by the assumption that civil society actors could take over part of the functions of the former Soviet state, especially in regard to social services provision, thereby encouraging the rolling back of the state (Babajanian, Freizer, and Stevens 2005, 211–12). Donors have also proclaimed the reinforcement of civil society to be a solution to reduce the risk of conflict and extremism in communities, and therefore as a way to tackle international concerns about the emergence of ethnic conflicts and Islamisation in the institutional void left in the Central Asian region by the breakup of the Soviet Union – a concern that has grown especially since 2001. Donors’ focus on civil society translated initially into the establishment of NGOs at the national level through capacity-building programmes for local development workers (Babajanian, Freizer, and Stevens 2005). International donors, with national NGOs as intermediaries, took over a part of the provision of basic goods and services (such as agricultural inputs and infrastructure or social services) previously assured by the Soviet state. As a result, local NGOs “mushroomed” in the country (Pétric 2005), according to some estimations exceeding the 17,000 units in 2019.<fnref n="9" />

In line with the global trend since the late 1990s, international donors in Kyrgyzstan have gradually shifted their interest to participatory approaches and have thus promoted the decentralisation of responsibilities and decisional power as well as mechanisms of good governance (Pandey and Misnikov 2001). This shift has translated in practice into the diversion of donors’ attention (and resources) from national NGOs to smaller community-based organisations (CBOs) at the province or even village level which are meant to take over project management responsibilities and assure the representation of local voices (Earle 2005). In the same period, a series of reforms has shifted resource management responsibilities (for instance for water or pasture land) from local governmental bodies to newly-created CBOs such as water users associations or pasture users associations (see also Bichsel et al. 2010).

### 3.2.2 Implementing donor agendas: reinterpretation and consequences at the local level

The consequences of the promotion of community-based cooperation in its different forms in Kyrgyzstan have been an object of debate. On the one hand, scholars agree that donors’ programmes have provided rural communities with resources and services that had become scarce in the context of state withdrawal

<footnote n="9">⁹ Data from http://www.icnl.org/research/monitor/kyrgyz.html (accessed 17.06.2019). The same source notes that of these 17,000 registered NGOs, only about 5,700 are “operational”.</footnote>
(e.g. Babajanian 2011; Earle 2005). Scholars also agree that a new “class” of development workers and NGO/CBO leaders has emerged as an intermediary between foreign organisations and the local population (e.g. Féaux de la Croix 2013). On the other hand, the consequences of such processes on inequalities, people’s well-being and the environment, i.e. the extent to which donor intervention has actually achieved to reduce poverty, to preserve environmental resources and to empower the local population, remain questioned and questionable.

## A new development class

The emerging class of development workers and NGO/CBO leaders has been the object of a few anthropological studies (Pétric 2005; 2013; Buxton 2009; Féaux de la Croix 2013). Development workers are usually young, urban or urbanised, ethnic Kyrgyz, often women, with high education (Féaux de la Croix 2013). CBO or local NGO leaders, in contrast, are frequently local powerful middle-aged, ethnic Kyrgyz, men, who are often well rooted in local power networks (Pétric 2005). Pétric (2005; 2013) sees the emergence of this social group very critically. He has argued that because of the proactive foreign policy of its government, Kyrgyzstan has lost its production potential and has instead turned into a “globalized protectorate” whose revenues depend on the transfers from foreign actors, in particular from development agencies. In this context, the local development class is the expression of the new strategy of (many old and few new) local elites to accumulate resources and maintain their power. The dependence from international funds also shifts accountability of local elites towards international organisations: the local civil society tends to follow donors’ agenda of the moment rather than respond to specific local needs. This situation also engenders an “internal brain drain” (Pétric 2005, 326): the most qualified workers are drained from the public sector to the development sector, which further weakens the state.

Other scholars, while acknowledging these problems, have nuanced Pétric’s dismal picture of the sector and questioned his representation of local development workers and CBO leaders as individualist rent-seekers by highlighting the variety of their motivations. For instance, Féaux de la Croix (2013) has shown that local development workers sometimes pursue ideological goals that differ from the ones promoted by donors and are able, at least in part, to promote their own visions and values. Researchers have also pointed to some recent evolutions of local civil society actors in Central Asia, noting that these actors are sometimes able to challenge some of the existing hierarchies and raise more radical claims against discriminations and inequalities (Giffen, Earle, and Buxton 2005; Buxton 2009; Paasiaro 2009).<fnref n="10" />

Féaux de la Croix (2013) has further shown that the new employment possibilities in the development sector allow some development workers, especially young women, to challenge social expectations about life trajectories and gender roles. Her findings suggest that the emergent development class is not only a new manifestation of old class relations and hierarchies but can also offer new spaces for emancipation to

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Two examples are the “Bishkek Feminist Initiative” (https://bishkekfeminists.com) and the first gay pride march in Bishkek (https://www.rferl.org/a/rainbow-rage-kyrgyz-rail-against-lgbt-after-central-asia-s-first-gay-pride-march/29825158.html, both accessed 17.06.2019).</footnote>
the younger generations. This emancipation, however, is certainly not accessible to all Kyrgyzstanis indiscriminately. Not only, as mentioned, are development jobs reserved to a specific profile of people, but the very existence of this new class relies on the reproduction of binary categories related to hierarchies of knowledge and degrees of “developed-ness” – categories that further cement the exclusion of the most vulnerable parts of society (id., also Pigg 1992). It must be also noted that Féaux de la Croix’s study is limited to NGOs workers: it seems that participation in CBOs instead remains very much gendered and limited to local elites.

Empowerment and patronage relations

Certainly, the profound socio-political changes of the last century have reconfigured systems of patronage
within personal networks (Pétric et al. 2004; Yoshida 2005). The Soviet organisation of local institutions
sought to weaken kin and clan bonds, while reinforcing other kinds of ties (especially professional or
party-based ones), as a way to shift loyalties from kin to state. Exchanges and reciprocities in personal
networks, within or outside kinship, remained crucial in Soviet society, however. Scholars mostly agree
in depicting contemporary Kyrgyzstan as a society that is structured around patronage relations and
patrimonial practices based on kin and clan ties but also on friendship and professional bonds (e.g. Pétric
et al. 2004; Collins 2009; Ismailbekova 2017). The competition for increasingly scarce resources in the
context of post-independence reforms and the emergence of representative democracy seem to have
strengthened patrimonial practices and patronage networks, since these now determine the access to state
resources and services (Babajanian, Freizer, and Stevens 2005; Pétric 2005).

Donor focus on civil society strengthening and community-based development worldwide also aims, at least according to official rhetoric, to empower citizens so that they can hold the government and local leaders better accountable and thus emancipate from their dependence on patronage relations (see e.g. Malena, Forster, and Singh 2004; Cornwall and Coelho 2007). Like in other contexts worldwide (see §2.1.2), scholars have noted that, also in the case of Kyrgyzstan, projects often apply participation tools in a mechanic and functionalistic way motivated more by the will to comply with project requirements than to promote meaningful empowerment (Earle 2005; Babajanian 2011; Kim et al. 2018). Furthermore, the same scholars have observed that participation in development projects or civil society activities often represents an additional and hard-to-bear burden (in terms of financial, material or time resources) for the most disadvantaged groups. Active participation in such activities remains often a privilege of local elites, whose position is therefore strengthened within local patronage networks since they can now access and mobilise also donor resources.

At the same time, projects often explicitly rely on existing local networks to improve the efficiency of
their intervention and/or its local acceptability (Earle 2005; Babajanian 2011; 2015). Since personal
networks are the common way to access goods and services, projects mobilise such networks to channel
and distribute resources in communities. Projects also refer to local leaders as gatekeepers and managers
who have the necessary authority and connections to mobilise villagers for the projects’ aims. Babajanian
(2015, 501) points to the role of “benevolent leaders” for the success of projects and for the initiation of further micro-projects benefitting the local community. He further signals the “burden of responsibility” faced by local leaders, who take over the responsibility of mobilising the local population in project activities (Babajanian 2011, 323–24). Local leaders, however, often have to rely on authoritative methods and threats to convince villagers to participate in projects, which in turn contradicts the aims of the project itself (ibid.). Although projects have proposed formal instruments to make these leaders more accountable to the local population, it seems that such instruments are rarely effective (Babajanian, Freizer, and Stevens 2005, 217). Considering all this, donor initiatives often end up in reproducing, if not strengthening, existing patronage relations and the power relations that underpin them (Earle 2005; Pétric 2005; Kim et al. 2018).

Reviving traditions

When mobilising local networks and authority for the implementation of their activities, projects commonly refer to pre-Soviet forms of cooperation, in particular to pre-Soviet “traditions” of clan solidarity, mutual help or the community work practice of *ashar* (Earle 2005; Giffen, Earle, and Buxton 2005; Jacquesson 2010; Babajanian 2011; see also Pétric et al. 2004; Bichsel 2009, 71–76). Often, however, this strategy neglects that some of these “traditions” were meanwhile transformed, first, through their inclusion (or co-optation) in Soviet institutions (see e.g. Earle 2005; Judith Beyer 2006; Jacquesson 2010) and, second, through the emergence of markets in the post-independence period (see e.g. Earle 2005, 252; Babajanian 2011, 328; G. Botoeva 2015). Jacquesson (2010), for instance, has shown that pasture land reforms both in Russian colonial time and in contemporary Kyrgyzstan relied on generalised and imprecise notions of traditions. Vague understandings of “clan” and “custom” are used as general categories for complex social relations that the designers of reforms have difficulties to grasp and conceptualise.

Thus, romanticised ideals of *ashar*, clan solidarities and mutual help referring to pre-Soviet practices are raised to the status of precious “traditions” that need to be revived for the successful implementation of reforms and donors’ programmes and, perhaps, also as a way to disengage from “Soviet legacies” (Earle 2005; Jacquesson 2010). As Bichsel et al. (2010, 264) have noted, however, donors “include only selective aspects of these traditions that are of interests, while at the same time attempting to transform their underlying societal model”. In this sense, donors tap into conceptions of (imagined) pre-Soviet decentralised self-governance that resonate with the project of state roll-back and of shifting responsibilities (and burdens) to local communities (Jacquesson 2010). Or they refer to *ashar* to legitimise project contribution requirements that are actually informed by an utilitarian conceptualisation of participation and a commodified idea of communal services (Earle 2005).

In this framework, communities are idealised as homogeneous entities, and their internal divisions, differences and inequalities are neglected. Projects for instance ignore that *ashar* and other forms of community cooperation are often authoritarian, conservative and patriarchal (Babajanian, Freizer, and
Stevens 2005; Earle 2005; Babajanian 2011), or that pre-Soviet decentralised decision-making “actually resulted in permanent conflict and the competitions for pastureland were overwhelming, not limited” (Jacquesson 2010, 115). Therefore, the reliance on traditional practices within development projects often reproduces authoritative relations between local leaders and villagers. Moreover, the reference to “traditions” adds a moral pressure on villagers, who are even more reluctant to question project requirements when asked by local leaders because they fear social stigma and communal condemnation (Babajanian 2011, 325–26). Jacquesson (2010, 104) therefore concludes that “the reliance on ‘custom’ and ‘tradition’ and the dismissal of the real social relations of pastural land use are among the most important reasons for the failure of pastoral land reforms in the past and in the present”.

## 3.3 Conclusion: reforms and development projects as governmentality devices?

As Burawoy and Verdery (1999a, 5) have noted, shock therapy reforms in ex-socialist countries constituted “a package [...] aimed to dissolve the past by the fastest means possible”. Not only the centrally planned socialist economy had to be dissolved to make place for a new and efficient market system; the very subject of the socialist worker had to be transformed along with the disintegration of collective enterprises to make place for a new type of citizen (Alexander 2004; Empson 2011). The “project of transition”<fnref n="11" /> from socialism to capitalism has been not a purely material and economic one, but it implies also a symbolic transformation aimed to reframe subjects as democratic citizens and capitalist entrepreneurs (Humphrey 2002). This chapter has shown that donor intervention in Kyrgyzstan throughout the last three decades has paralleled and supported shock therapy reforms in their attempt to transform economic practices as well as subjects. The literature discussed in this chapter generally agrees that most donor programmes in contemporary Kyrgyzstan assume, and at the same time produce, a specific type of subject that Pétric (2013, 13) has synthetised with the concepts of *biznesman* and *demokrat*, two English terms that have been integrated into Russian and Kyrgyz language usage in Kyrgyzstan. These terms condensate the idea of the capitalist entrepreneur and democratic citizen that is modelled on the ideal of the active citizen and entrepreneur of Western liberal democracies.

Donors' focus on civil society and participatory mechanisms is not only a way to increase the efficiency of donor intervention, but also more or less implicitly aims to produce a new type of active citizen that realises his/her autonomy by contrasting the hegemony of the state and by taking over some of its functions (Earle 2005; Pétric 2005). Donors, thus, assume that democracy and entrepreneurship can be learned through practice and thereby ignore “the importance of institutional structures that determine the nature of local decision-making, resource allocation and inclusion or exclusion” (Babajanian 2015, 511). The promotion of community-based forms of management and of community empowerment through economic activities builds on the assumption “that all humans are rational actors with similar aims played out in a sphere defined as ‘economic’” (Féaux de la Croix 2017, 61); it assumes and produces the ideal of

<footnote n="11">¹¹ I use this expression here to reproduce the way in which coherence, intentionality and linearity are often ascribed to the process of transformation after socialism.</footnote>
an entrepreneurial subject, or the idea that “the poor are resilient, creative, entrepreneurial, and consuming, and as such are fully capable and willing participants in the free market economy” (Kim et al. 2018, 242). As a consequence, subjects who do not correspond to this profile are stigmatised “as inherently deficient and ‘unempowerable’” (id. 231). In short, the reform and development programmes discussed in this chapter have led to the emergence of “an unprecedented form of personhood: the ‘peasant farmer’ becomes the basic social unit of rural livelihood production, engagement in the market economy, preservation of natural resources and the environment, and realisation of local self-governance” (Bichsel et al. 2010, 259).

Nonetheless, it would be simplistic, if not arrogant, to think that Kyrgyzstani citizens can just be crafted
at will by international donors into biznesmans and demokrats. Indeed, Pétric's use of Russian/Kyrgyz
transliterations is also a way to indicate that the concepts and ideals, like the terms, are reinterpreted in
their encounter with the specificities and contingencies of the local context. For instance, some
beneficiaries of the women empowerment programme analysed by Kim et al. (2018, 239) refused to
participate in saving-and-loan activities because these were incompatible with their religion-based values.
Herders, overwhelmed by the organisational burden generated by the new system of pasture tickets,
negotiate informal agreements with animal owners, thereby bypassing the formal system (Dörre 2015).
The Kyrgyz development workers interviewed by Féaux de la Croix (2013) adapt the content and form of
training according to their own values and perceive their own educational mission to be a way to promote
moral values and to provide social cohesion and national unit. These observations suggest, in line with
what observed worldwide by ethnographers of aid (e.g. Mosse 2005; Olivier de Sardan 2005) and of
postsocialism (see Hörschelmann and Stenning 2008), that local actors reinterpret and adapt the framings
and conceptualisations advanced through reform or development programmes, thereby reconfiguring the
form and practices of these programmes.
Part I – Conclusion

The review in Section 2.1 revealed that most scholarly approaches to cooperatives rely on normative
ideals of what cooperatives should be and on teleological visions about what kind of society cooperatives
should contribute to build. The section concluded with a call for abandoning these ideals and visions and
for instead adopting a non-normative stance to engage with cooperatives as cooperation processes.
Section 2.2 critically discussed institutionalist approaches to cooperation and questioned in particular
their conceptualisation of economic rationality, identity and power and their assumption that institutions
can be crafted to steer the behaviour of individuals in a specific direction. As an alternative to these
approaches, the section reviewed recent work within the commoning scholarship, which conceptualises
instead identities, rationalities, practices, institutions as well as power as co-emerging within more-than-
human assemblages.

Chapter 3 illustrated how both governmental reforms and international development programmes in post-
independence Kyrgyzstan have pursued similar goals towards economic liberalisation, state withdrawal
from economic production and welfare provision and the establishment of democratic mechanisms within
a nation-state. The chapter also showed that both reform and development programmes can be intended as
governance devices aimed to “craft” not only new types of economic or political institutions but also new
types of subjects: the “peasant farmer”, the *demokrat* or the *biznesman*. The concluding section of the
chapter provided, however, some glimpses from existing ethnographic studies of how individual actors
not only adapt their practices to the changed institutional settings but also how they reinterpret and
reconfigure the institutions promoted by governmental or development actors.

I therefore argue that, if we seek to understand the process of the promotion of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan and its consequences for the everyday of villagers, we should look at how governmental and development programmes frame and conceptualise cooperatives (but also subjects and institutions) as well as how individual actors reinterpret these framings and conceptualisations in their specific and contingent local context and situated practices. In order to do this, we should abandon normative and teleological ideals of cooperatives and instead interrogate how these ideals are reproduced or reinterpreted and how the promotion of cooperatives based on these ideals reconfigures social relations in the everyday. In the following two chapters I develop a conceptual and methodological approach that will allow to engage in such an endeavour.
**Part II – Conceptual and methodological approach**

In Part II I outline the conceptual and methodological approach that allows me, in the following two parts
of this manuscript, to engage with the promotion of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan and with the particular
case of the Ak-Bulut cooperative in Pjak by avoiding evaluating these processes against normative
teleological ideals of cooperatives and cooperation and to inscribe them within “grand narratives” of
postsocialist transition or modern development. Chapter 3 builds on Gibson-Graham’s project of
rethinking the economy to develop a weak theory for postsocialism and a postfantasmatic, postcapitalist
approach to cooperatives. In Chapter 4, again drawing on Gibson-Graham’s epistemological approach, I
outline my feminist ethnographic methodological approach.
# 4 WEAK THEORY TO RETHINK COOPERATIVES

In this chapter, I outline the conceptual framework that will guide my analysis. I first present J.K. Gibson-Graham's weak theory approach and its application for her project to rethink the economy (§4.1). I then discuss how Gibson-Graham's weak theory can be applied for the study of postsocialism (§4.2) and in particular for the study of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan (§4.3).

## 4.1 Gibson-Graham's weak theory

Over the last three decades, Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham, under the pen name of J.K. Gibson-Graham,<fnref n="1" /> have engaged in an epistemological and political project of rethinking the economy – especially capitalism – in order to open up space for imagining other possibilities for living together ethically. They radically resist “the gravitational pull toward strong theories of economic behavior and unidirectional change”, i.e. the temptation “to align small facts with [...] large issues of economic import” as determined processes (Gibson-Graham 2014, 148). “Strong theory”, as “powerful discourses that organize events into understandable and seemingly predictable trajectories” (ibid.), permits us to discover only what we already know and is nourished by our paranoid need to understand and control a complex reality that we will never be able to fully grasp (Gibson-Graham 2006a, 4). We tend thus to trace what we observe to familiar processes – for instance modernisation, neoliberalisation, or postsocialist transition.

As an alternative approach, Gibson-Graham (2014) draws on Eve Sedgwick's weak theory. In contrast to strong theory, “weak theory does not elaborate and confirm what we already know; it observes, interprets, and yields to emerging knowledge”; it “powerfully attends to nuance, diversity, and overdetermined interaction” and thus it “widens the field of economic ‘realities’” (id. 149). Weak theory requires us to be open to the unknown, to consider different possibilities of causation and motivation without falling into the determinism of known processes. It allows us, for instance, to see that the monetisation of labour in the rural Philippines does not necessarily ascribe to a process of proletarianisation consequent to land expropriation; monetisation can also be a way to reinforce reciprocal relations of labour exchange between villagers (Gibson, Cahill, and McKay 2010, 239–40). Or, in a postsocialist context, it allows us to see that the precarisation of labour conditions in Bratislava is made possible and “more tolerable” by kinship and neighbourhood ties that support a collective system of domestic food production and care work exchange (Smith and Rochovská 2007).

Weak theory is forcibly anti-essentialist: it denies processes and social categories of an essence that would make them determined and predictable. Gibson-Graham (2006b, 15–17, 25–29; 2006a, xxx–i) draws here on Althusser's idea of “overdetermination”. With the concept of overdetermination, “every identity is reconceived as uncentered, as in process and transition, as having no essence to which it will

<footnote n="1">¹ As Gibson and Graham do, I refer to Gibson-Graham in the singular form.</footnote>
tend or revert. Every event is constituted by all the conditions existing in that moment” (Gibson-Graham 2006b, 28). All social objects, including social processes and categories, are thus understood as “continually and differentially constituted rather than as pre-existing their contexts or as having an invariant core” (id. 16, n33). Overdetermination refuses thus to reduce complex processes to the effect of one or two determinants, such as economic profit maximisation or neoliberal policies:

> The practice of overdetermination [...] encourages us to deny these forces a fundamental, structural, or universal reality and to instead identify them as contingent outcomes of ethical decisions, political processes, and sedimented localized practices, continually pushed and pulled by other determinations. (Gibson-Graham 2006a, xxxi)

If everything is overdetermined and without an essence, the way in which we ascribe essences and determinations – or the way in which we do not ascribe them – becomes the centre of the problem, or of the possibilities. Gibson-Graham (2008), drawing on post-structuralist and in particular feminist reflections, points to the performativity of knowledge and discourse: the way we speak about, represent, theorise and include social phenomena in broader structures of meaning contributes to fixing such phenomena in specific – but, after all, aleatory – determinations and essences. In other words, in an overdetermined world, how we represent social objects also determines and defines (together with innumerable other factors) these same social objects. As Gibson-Graham (id. 149) summarises, “by accepting that how we represent the world contributes to enacting that world, we collapse the distinction between epistemology and ontology”, so that “the epistemological and the performative ontological become one”.

As researchers, thus, we bear a profound responsibility about how we choose to describe and make sense of the world. Gibson-Graham (2006a, 619) emphasises that, in her project, “the choice to create weak theory about diverse economies is a political/ethical decision that influences what kind of worlds we can imagine and create, ones in which we enact and construct rather than resist (or succumb to) economic realities”. In this sense, her project calls for “a reframed ontology of becoming and an orientation to seeing difference and possibility rather than dominance and predictability” (id. 626). Her work invites researching subjects to transform ourselves, since the frustration and powerlessness we might feel when describing a world of “dominance and predictability” are produced (also) by our own way of describing that world. Instead, Gibson-Graham calls for a radical turn to hope and possibility as generative of alternative ways of living.

### 4.1.1 Weak theory to rethink the economy

Gibson-Graham has applied the principles of weak theory, anti-essentialism and overdetermination to rethink the economy. Instead of thinking the economy “as a central organizing cultural frame within contemporary society”, her aim is to reveal the “complexly overdetermined field of a diverse economy” and thus to rethink economy “as a site of ethical interdependence”, abandoning “the structural imperatives and market machinations of capitalocentric discourses of economy” (Gibson-Graham 2014, 147, 152). For Gibson-Graham (id. 152) this is “the enactment of revolution in a performative sense” – a
revolution aimed at opening up spaces for imagining other possibilities for ethical engagements with the
economy and the world. This is both a political and ethical project: it concerns politics – intended as “a
process of transformation instituted by taking decisions in an undecideable terrain” – and ethics –
understood as “the continual exercising, in the face of the need to decide, of a choice to be/act/think a
certain way” (Gibson-Graham 2006a, xxviii).

The first step in Gibson-Graham’s project is the *deconstruction* of the hegemonic capitalocentric
discourse of the economy (see in particular Gibson-Graham 2006b, 1–23; Cameron and Gibson-Graham
2003). Gibson-Graham argues that this hegemonic discourse assumes capitalism as the master signifier of
the economy and is in this sense capitalocentric: *the* economy, as a unitary entity, *is* capitalism. At the
same time, “other forms of economy (not to mention noneconomic aspects of social life) are [...]  
understood primarily with reference to capitalism” (2006b, 6): the innumerable other practices that people  
carry out in the pursuit of their livelihoods are usually defined *in relation to* capitalism, as capitalism’s  
Other. For Gibson-Graham (id. 59), even Marxism, with its evolutionary vision of history as a sequence  
of “stages” from capitalism to the utopia of socialism, reproduces the capitalocentric discourse. From a  
capitalocentric perspective, capitalism is fullness and the rest is lack, *non-capitalism* (like “informal  
economy” or the “black market”), or just *non-economy* (like care work in the household). Gibson-  
Graham seeks to take away capitalism’s essence through two strategies. On the one hand, she fills and  
gives an own autonomy to capitalism’s Other by describing the myriad of non-capitalist economic  
practices that make up an economic system. On the other, she reveals capitalism’s own heterogeneity and  
instability: there is no Capitalism, but rather capitalisms – always partial realisations of local and  
contingent negotiations and choices.

The deconstruction of the binary between capitalism and its Other opens up spaces for “reading for
difference” (see in particular Gibson-Graham 2006a, xxxi–ii). As discussed above, instead of aligning her
observations with the habitual framings, Gibson-Graham’s analysis remains open to diversity and
difference. Building on a sort of “thick description” (Gibson-Graham 2014), she aims to re-populate our
understanding of the economy with the multitude of diverse economic practices that make up “diverse
economies”. In this vision, wage labour, unpaid care work, barter, market exchange, and all the rest, are
all equally legitimate and important components of the economy. Acknowledging them means also to
become aware of the existence of *actual* and *concrete* practices beyond capitalism – practices that exist
already in the *here and now*.

The last observation represents the basis for the “postcapitalist politics” advanced by Gibson-Graham (2006a). If we recognise that alternatives to capitalism are already here, we can finally give up the “fantasy” (see §4.3.1) of having to smash the system (capitalism) before being able to build an alternative, as assumed and pursued by most leftist radical politics. Instead, Gibson-Graham and the numerous scholars and activists of the Community Economies Collective<fnref n="2" /> engage in a postcapitalist politics *here and now*. This entails the exploration and experimentation of “community economies” – of

<footnote n="2">² See http://www.communityeconomies.org (accessed 16.08.2019).</footnote>
possibilities of living together that are ethical because they recognise and respect the interdependences of
our economic practices and the implications of our decisions for others. Such a politics is postcapitalist,
and not anticapitalist, because it overcomes the centrality and the definition power of Capitalism;
therefore, a postcapitalist politics can also include capitalist practices. What is crucial, however, is that all
these practices should be based on a principle of “ethical action” intended as “reflecting on our
interconnections with others, approaching the new with an inquiring mind and an appreciative stance,
trusting others as we jointly encounter a future of unknowns and uncertainties, and learning to allay our
fears and conjure creativity” (Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy 2013, xviii).

4.1.2 Cultivating subjects

Gibson-Graham's postcapitalist politics is also a *politics of the subject* (see Gibson-Graham 2006a, xxxv-
i); it is about “cultivating subjects [...] who can desire and inhabit noncapitalist economic spaces”
(Gibson-Graham 2006b, x). Within the capitalocentric hegemony, capitalism is the master signifier of
identities as well (id. 46–71). The correspondence of subjects’ identities with their role in the capitalist
economy hides or at best undervalues the multiple other possible signifiers constituted by diverse
economic practices. This creates a fixation with defined subject positions – a fixation that produces a lack
and a frustration whenever the conditions for the fulfilment of such positions are not given. This is the
case in the context of the de-industrialised Australian mining valley studied by Gibson-Graham (2006a,
23–51), where the loss of stable employment creates a void among ex-coal workers, who are unable to
identify with anything else than wage labour. Gibson-Graham (id. 23) tracks “the institution, stabilization,
and naturalization of a regional *economy*, the production of its economic *subjects*, and the obduracy of
both in the face of change”. She shows how these subjects are products of *subjection* processes, or of
specific “governmental practices and technologies that had constituted the Economy as the central anchor
of identity in the region, naturalizing it as singular and definitely ‘non-diverse’”* (id. 25).

Gibson-Graham’s project of rethinking the economy “has the potential to offer new subject positions and
prompt novel identifications, multiplying economic energies and desires” (id. xxxv). Importantly,
Gibson-Graham (id. 24, also xxix) overcomes an understanding of the subject as located only in the
symbolic realm, but acknowledges also its “visceral” nature, something pre-representational that is related
to feelings and embodied affects. For her, transforming subjects means to shift their “libidinal
investment” on different objects (id. xxxv): away from the capitalocentric identifications that nourish a
sense of lack and abandonment and towards more positive and productive “affective orientations of
openness/freedom, interest/curiosity, and joy/excitement” (id. xxix). If subjects can be transformed
“through self-awareness and transforming practices of the self that gradually becomes modes of
subjectivation” (id. xxviii, drawing on Foucault 1985: 28), a postcapitalist political engagement means,
first of all, a commitment to self-transformation. Such an engagement means “refusing a long-standing
sense of self and mode of being in the world, while simultaneously cultivating new forms of sociability,
visions of happiness, and economic capacities” (id. xxxv).
Such an approach could, however, bear the risk of overlooking the existing repressive and oppressive forces that constrain the capacities and possibilities of subjects to transform themselves and the world. This is also one of the main criticism raised against Gibson-Graham's project (e.g. Glassman 2003). Yet, she emphasises that her ontological reframing should not be “mistaken for a simplistic assertion that we can think ourselves out of the materiality of capitalism or repressive state practices” and that her “orientation toward possibility does not deny the forces that militate against it – forces that may work to undermine, constrain, destroy, or sideline our attempts to reshape economic futures” (id. xxxi). Gibson-Graham thus insists on the importance to analyse the conditions that produce “reluctant subjects”, i.e. subjects that are stuck in their fixed identities and are unable to transform (id. 23–52).

## 4.2 Weak theory for postsocialism

Gibson-Graham's reflections presented in the previous paragraphs have emerged primarily from her experience in the de-industrialising Global North; the community economies project is mainly experimented in that context. These reflections draw only secondarily on postdevelopment scholarship and observations from the Global South (Gibson-Graham 2005; McGregor 2009; Gibson, Cahill, and McKay 2010). Experiences from ex-socialist countries in CEE and the FSU, both as source of inspiration for community economies theorisations or as ground for experimentation with its tools, remain very much absent (see, however, the exceptions of Pavlovskaya 2004; Smith and Stenning 2006; Stenning et al. 2010). I suggest that Gibson-Graham's ontological project is relevant for and can find inspiration in the context of contemporary CEE and FSU as well.

### 4.2.1 Ethnography against grand narratives of transition

As Gibson-Graham (2014) herself acknowledges, ethnography is a powerful methodology to avoid the temptations of strong theory. Ethnography-based research has indeed been first in line in both the Global South and ex-socialist countries in CEE and the FSU in countering the “grand narratives” of, respectively, development and postsocialist transition. By providing detailed empirically grounded knowledge, scholars have contributed to understand and conceptualise how transformation projects (only apparently coherent) such as “development” or “transition” are rearticulated and transformed when they enter local life-worlds. In the Global South, ethnographers have shown that local actors and structures always mediate and reinterpret external development intervention (Long 1990; see also Long and Long 1992; Mosse 2005; Olivier de Sardan 2005). Projects’ goals and methods are never applied in a void but are always performed, renegotiated and reframed in the everyday micro-politics of local arenas: projects’ outcomes are therefore always unpredictable beforehand. “Development” is not a structural force or a coherent ideological project with a defined and defining teleology (modernisation or sustainable livelihoods), but becomes an object of study conceptualised as an undetermined, incomplete and contingent social process involving multiple actors in multiple places.
Similarly, ethnographic accounts of postsocialism have rejected a teleological understanding of transformation after socialism as a determined transition from a defined economic and political system – socialism – to another – capitalism (e.g. Pickles and Smith 1998; Burawoy and Verdery 1999a; Hann 2002; Humphrey 2002). These scholars have called instead for “a radical openness to uncertainty and surprise” by understanding postsocialism as an object of study and not as a determined trajectory (Müller 2019, 538). This approach has emerged in neat opposition to the assumptions of mainstream approaches to transition by political scientists and economists – an approach also known under the name of “transitology” (e.g. Burawoy and Verdery 1999a; Müller 2019). Transitology scholars have sought to identify the policy strategies best suited to “shuttle” entire societies from one system to the other and have thereby informed the design of structural reforms after the fall of socialist regimes. In this regard, transitology is close to the institutional approaches discussed in Section 2.2.1: both assume that policies and institutions can be designed to shape individual behaviour at will.

Ethnographies of postsocialism have countered this assumption by disentangling the complex, undetermined and always partial process of transformation of everyday practices after the end of socialist regimes in CEE and the FSU. Anthropologists and geographers have shown that neither what came before (“socialism”) nor what was supposed to come next (“capitalism”) are uniform and coherent entities (see Verdery 1996), but that, on the contrary, both had to be “domesticated” through everyday practices to make them more tolerable (Creed 1998; Smith and Rochovská 2007; Stenning et al. 2010). Capitalist modes of production or exchange were part of the everyday already under socialist regimes, especially in the grey or black economy, and neoliberal reforms have often opened spaces for the proliferation of solidarity economies (see Pavlovskaya 2004). Authors have thus focused on the discontinuities *and* continuities between the two systems as lived and practiced in the everyday and on the complex ways in which individuals have enacted, transformed and rearticulated structural reforms and policy changes (e.g. Humphrey 1998; Verdery 2003).

### 4.2.2 The end of postsocialism (as we knew it)?<fnref n="3" />

Müller (2019) has recently called for the abandonment of the concept of “postsocialism”. He has convincingly argued that postsocialism has lost its object in a double sense: first, “socialism is no longer a unifying experience and [...] other experiences increasingly overwrite it”; second, “postsocialism’s emphasis on plurality and openness seems increasingly moot” since transitology as “postsocialism’s constitutive Other” has lost foot (id. 540). What remains in the term “postsocialism” is thus a fixation with the past, a backward-looking stance that risks “buttress[ing] a continued exoticisation of the East as Other and backward, ‘defining the present in terms of its past’” (id. 539, quoting Sakwa 1999: 3). Despite the efforts to reveal the complexities of transformation after socialism by anthropologists and geographers, postsocialism as a concept “risks reifying socialism into a uniform experience that it never

<footnote n="3">³ The title is a reference to Gibson-Graham’s first book *The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It)* (Gibson-Graham 2006b [1996]).</footnote>