on the one hand, girls helped out with household tasks; on the other, it was common for women to take
their children to the fields to help them fulfil more quickly the tasks assigned by the brigadier. This kind
of support was not restricted to children, but could involve several members of the family.

**8.3.5 Discussion: mapping diverse economies of Soviet agriculture**

It has become clear in this section that, indeed, the categories proposed by Pavlovskaya and used in my
analysis of the diverse economies of Soviet agriculture in Pjak are far from rigid dichotomies, as is too
often assumed in economic and social analyses. Instead, we have seen that villagers' economic practices
crossed different categories, whose boundaries are thus blurred and fluid, constituting a continuum rather
than a dichotomy. For instance, formal monetised labour in the Soviet farm was supported by the
informal nonmonetised mobilisation of children in the fields. Production on household plots was
officially regulated and supported through formal, nonmonetised transfers from the State farm; at the
same time, however, this production often exceeded the formal limits and was dependent on the resources
villagers were able to take illegally from the Soviet farm. Informal systems of reciprocal exchanges and
favours within networks of specialists and local elites, in the village and beyond it, were crucial for
formal production within the Soviet farm. My analysis shows thus that, as suggested by Pavlovksaya
(2004) for the case of urban economies of Soviet Moscow (but see also, for rural contexts, e.g. Creed
1998; Humphrey 1998; Verdery 2003), agriculture in Soviet times was performed within a complex
system of interdependent diverse economic practices. Certainly, because of the specific structural policies
of the socialist regime, these practices were constituted mainly by formal and informal state activities and
informal private activities, whereas formal private activities remained limited (see Fig. 11).

Many of the described activities were in a symbiotic relationship: they could not exist without the others
and depended heavily on their relations with the others. This does not mean, however, that all activities
linearly and coherently tended towards one direction. In fact, one activity could be necessary for the
survival of another one but at the same time weaken the basis of the other activity, a point developed in
detail by Verdery (2003). For instance, although the informal exchanges between specialists were crucial
for the maintenance of the formal farm economy, these exchanges also took away important resources
from the farm and diverted them for the private use and consumption by specialists, thus aggravating the
shortage of resources within the farm. At the same time, formal employment in the Soviet farm with
limited remuneration could be maintained also because it was compensated for by other activities outside
the farm: not only the official household production but also the illegal appropriation of farm resources.
Regarding this point, Verdery (id. 65–9) suggests that what was considered “theft” by socialist law (i.e.
the illegal private appropriation of socialist collective property) was not considered as such by villagers,
who considered instead that resources in collective property were also their own resources and felt thus
entitled to take some of them also as way to compensate for the small remuneration received for their
formal work on the farm.
The public spaces of the Soviet farm and the private spaces of the household and household plot were thus simultaneously in a relationship of co-dependency and competition. At the same time, the two spaces were also fragmented internally. The production process within the Soviet farm was performed in separate work domains and work units. Former simple workers recall that “we were just given tasks. We were just doing what was said by the brigadier” (Nazgul, 30.04.2016). Ex-brigadiers insist that “I was giving the orders to the members of the brigade, telling them the tasks they had to do. I received these orders from the *kolkhoz*’ leaders: every evening we had a meeting to discuss what to do next day” (Mirislam, 03.05.2016). Even chief specialists explain that “I didn’t have to decide, I just followed the plan that was given to us. The plan was made by the government” (Jumabek, 05.06.2016). The responsibility over the production process was thus fragmented: single workers felt responsible for one little task in the wheel but did not have the overview of the whole production process. In these accounts, we recognise again the sense of fatalism I discussed in Part III; by projecting agency onto others, onto “big men”, villagers evade both their own responsibility and agency (see especially the Discussion of Part III, also Féaux de la Croix 2017, 154–67).

The fragmentation within spaces of production and reproduction also concerned the inclusion or exclusion of some social groups in specific activities. For instance, reproduction tasks in the household were performed primarily by women with the support of children. Also, brigades were usually separated by gender and within the Soviet farm, some activities were mainly covered by brigades of women (for instance milking or opium harvesting). Villagers still maintain strong relationships with former colleagues of the Soviet farm, especially with the ones of the same brigade or section, who often correspond with relatives and/or neighbours in the village (see below). Thus, on the one hand, the formal employment on the farm created or reinforced linkages between workers at all levels. Several villagers insist that these linkages consisted also of relations of solidarity and mutual help: for instance, workers supported each other to finish daily tasks in due time or covered each other when taking resources from the farm. On the other hand, these groups and linkages were also exclusive in some regards and were shaped by the farm hierarchy. We have seen in particular the case of the networks of specialists and the privileges they generated: the inclusion in such networks was limited to persons that were filling a specific position within the farm hierarchy. A certain permeability concerning the resources circulating within these groups was allowed by the relationships between the specialists and their relatives outside the networks: specialists in fact also channelled some of the resources to villagers on lower levels of the farm hierarchy. Relatives of the specialists could turn to them when in need, for example for an illness, a specific celebration or a trouble with the law.

The Soviet regime aimed, at least in principle, to disrupt former social hierarchies and inequalities: the repression of *kulaki* throughout the Soviet Union was officially motivated by this goal. However, the analysis in this section has revealed that the way Soviet agriculture was organised also created new, or
strengthened old,<fnref n="9" /> social stratifications within the local community. Aziza explains how she got her position within the *sovkhoz*:

> I was a simple accountant, not the chief accountant. When people graduated, they were given positions according to their degree. [...] I didn't study further to continue my career because I had children. [...] If you studied, you could work in higher positions and earn more money. I had an education as accountant and I was working as an accountant, because I didn't have education for other things or for higher positions. You worked according to your education. (Aziza, 28.06.2016)

Aziza underlines that one's positions depended on his/her educational background. From her account it is clear, however, that not everybody had access to the same educational possibilities – especially women. The accounts of villagers who had good positions in the Soviet farm suggest that their achievements were a mix of hard work, capacity, education, but also of their and their fathers' good connections. Furthermore, it must be noted that the privileged position of specialists was certainly not to be taken for granted: specialists constantly run the risk of losing their position and being hardly sanctioned if they did not comply with the production plan or if they were caught in the illegal or semi-legal activities described.<fnref n="10" />

## 8.4 Diverse economies after independence

As discussed above, reforms after the end of the Soviet Union and of other socialist regimes in CEE aimed at a shift from formal state economy to formal private economy. Pavlovskaya's (2004) analysis of “diverse transitions” in Moscow shows, however, that, whereas reforms consistently reduced formal state activities, they mostly led to the proliferation of informal economic activities and not to the strengthening of the private formal sector. Stenning et al. (2010) came to the same conclusion after studying transformation after socialism in Krakow and Bratislava.

In this section I discuss how post-independence reforms transformed the diverse economies of agriculture in Pjak. During my stay in the village, especially in 2016, I conducted numerous sessions of oral history, interviews and informal chats on this topic: every new conversation, however, led to new unsolved questions and additional confusion. The reconstruction of this transformation on the basis of villagers' narratives is a difficult task: the categories and terminology villagers use to refer to institutional arrangements of that period are multiple and often used in contradictory ways, even by the same person. I suggest that the confusion in villagers' accounts is revealing of the confusion, uncertainty and volatility of the institutional context at the time of reforms (the “time of chaos”, see above), which resulted from the institutional void left by the collapse of the previous system. Trying to define the complex period of

<footnote n="9">⁹ An analysis of the continuities and discontinuities of pre-Soviet and Soviet hierarchies would need a much broader and deeper historical research.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Kumbat, for instance, spent more than six years in prison in the 1980s, during which his family suffered a shortage of food and consumption goods. This information is certainly in contradiction with Kumbat's and Dinara's statement that “life was good” in Soviet time. I will come back to this later.</footnote>
reforms through institutional and formal frameworks counters the perceptions and categorisations of
villagers. Because of this confusion and institutional uncertainty, it is even more arduous today – as it was
probably at that time – to determine whether an activity pertained to the formal or informal sector. For
this reason, I subdivide this section only according to Pavlovskaya’s second dualism (state and private),
abandoning the subdivision in formal and informal practices. Nevertheless, the discussion of the other
dualities proposed by Pavlovskaya (formal and informal, monetised and nonmonetised, public and private
sphere) will be part of the analysis.

8.4.1 State economies: dismantling the Soviet farm

Post-independence reforms consistently reduced the weight of state formal economies in Kyrgyzstan (see Chapter 3). Reforms cut state employment opportunities drastically but also the monetised and nonmonetised transfers to citizens discussed in the previous section. The availability of state services and assistance became so rare that the access to such services became increasingly regulated through bribing and personal favours – shifting thus part of the state formal activities to the expanding informal (and illegal) sector. These cuts impacted heavily on the livelihoods of families in Pjak: a whole range of state services and benefits that were previously given for granted were suddenly not available anymore, or were accessible only through the payment of bribes for which villagers rarely had the resources.

First phase of land reforms: first steps towards the dismantlement of the Soviet farm

The most dramatic change after independence for villagers was agricultural decollectivisation (for the
Issyk-Kul region see Benfield 1998, 133–54). With the first phase of land reforms, started in 1991, shares
of land and other assets of the Soviet farm were distributed to villagers on paper. Most agricultural
activities remained, however, within the structure of the ex-State farm, now transformed into a joint-stock
company whose management remained unchanged. Villagers remained employed at the ex-Soviet farm,
but their working conditions deteriorated in parallel to the deteriorating finances of the farm, which
suffered from the reduced state support and the collapse of the international socialist trade system. As in
the rest of the country, the farm in Pjak started selling out its assets (especially the animals) to curb its
exploding debts; this further reduced the resources available to the farm to continue production and
worsened its financial situation.

The Law on Peasant Farms opened the space for first forms of private farming outside the Soviet farm (see Benfield 1998, 135–39; Sabates-Wheeler and Childress 2004). Few specialists of the ex-Soviet farm in Pjak, while maintaining their employment on the farm, requested and received land plots between 25 and 100 hectares and started cultivating them individually or within groups of three to four families. Villagers today mainly refer to these first attempts of individual farming with the Russian term kristjanskie khozjastva (peasant farms).<fnref n="11" /> On the one hand, these early peasant farms received the worst

<footnote n="11">¹¹ I will refer to these farms as the “early peasant farms”.</footnote>
land of the ex-Soviet farm, since the farm kept the best land to continue its activities. On the other hand, however, the early peasant farms had access to a range of privileges, thanks to their symbiotic relationship with the ex-Soviet farm. In particular, they had “access to farm inputs from state sources, subsidised loans and tax exemption” as well as to collective machines (Sabates-Wheeler and Childress 2004, 4). The availability of such resources was, however, also diminishing for the ex-Soviet farm, so that production conditions and productivity deteriorated for both the ex-Soviet farm and the early peasant farms. Nevertheless, the involvement in these early peasant farms allowed their leaders to acquire (for free or against payment) some of the resources of the ex-Soviet farm – resources that were thus not included in the wider distribution process later. Moreover, peasant farm leaders could also acquire first experience with individual farming on a medium scale, which would give them an advantage later.

## Second phase of land reforms: distribution of the ex-Soviet farm assets

Villagers recall that in the early 1990s, there was a lot of uncertainty about what would happen next. There were rumours that land might be distributed to all villagers, but nobody, not even the specialists of the ex-Soviet farm and the ones with a high position in its hierarchy, could foresee whether, when and how this distribution would happen concretely. Also, the few who were already active in the early peasant farms could not know whether one day they would have to give back the land they were cultivating. The second phase of land reforms, started officially in 1994, confirmed the decision to distribute land and other assets of ex-Soviet farms to the rural population. Like collectivisation 70 years before, decollectivisation also “arrived from the West”: in the Issyk-Kul province it started with some delay in comparison with the Chuy region (see Benfield 1998, 139). In Pjak, actual distribution did not start before 1996. Between 1994 and 1996, speculations multiplied about the details of the implementation of the new reforms, contributing to increase the general uncertainty and confusion. In the meantime, the activities of the ex-Soviet farm continued to decline, and the food and production crisis in the village – as in the rest of the country – increased. Those who had the means tried to increasingly accumulate assets from the ex-Soviet farm, legally and illegally, before they were put in the pool for distribution.

The central government ordered the institution of land commissions in each village for the implementation of land distribution. I spend a long time trying to clarify the distribution process in Pjak with villagers and especially with Mamat (born in 1952), who is passionate about history and spends his free time doing historical research on the region.<fnref n="12" /> Despite his precious help, the actual implementation process remains difficult to reconstruct. Mamat explains that the central government's order to distribute the assets of ex-Soviet farms was not accompanied by clear guidelines about the actual composition and formation of land commissions or about how precisely land should be distributed. As a consequence, each

<footnote n="12">¹² My former interpreter conducted a further interview with Mamat in Bishkek in October 2019 to clarify the questions that had emerged during the analysis of the material we collected in the village the previous years. My questions, transmitted to Mamat by the interpreter, tackled very specific issues. Even after this last, very focused interview, several questions remain open about the concrete implementation of land distribution in Pjak. Further research, especially in local archives, might in the future help answer some of these questions – not necessarily though, given the volatile institutional context (and thus probably also the incomplete archiving) of that time.</footnote>
local commission was formed and composed in a different way. Often, the commission members were the local *aksakals*, i.e. the clan representatives: in this case, the relations within the commission mirrored the relations between local clans (this seems to be the case for instance in Beyer’s field site in Talas province, see Judith Beyer 2016, 52–56). Mamat, however, notes that, in other cases, the commission included also some younger men who were particularly “active” in the village (Mamat calls them *aktivists*) and who entered the commission on their own initiative. In these cases, the younger members did not necessarily represent their clan in the commissions, and their loyalties were not primarily based on kinship but also on the networks emerged through their former employment at the Soviet farm. I could not collect clear evidence of the composition of the land commission in Pjak (and Mamat remains vague on this issue); my data, however, suggest that members included both *aksakals* and *aktivists*, in particular those specialists, like Kumbat, who had gained a certain reputation in the village.

In principle, land distribution was organised as follows. First, the territory of the ex-Soviet farm was divided into the five villages corresponding to the pre-Soviet *aiyls* or settlements. The total arable<fnref n="13" /> land was calculated for each village and divided in two categories: the irrigated and non-irrigated land. 25% of the total arable land was kept out of the distribution process and flowed into the Land Redistribution Fund (LRF).<fnref n="14" /> The remaining land in the two categories was divided by the total number of villagers. This resulted, in Pjak, in a share of 0.61 hectares per person, 70% of which on irrigated plots and 30% on non-irrigated plots. The total surface of irrigated and non-irrigated arable land was divided into zones and families participated in a kind of raffle system to determine the exact location of their land plot: they picked a number from a box containing the codes of the different land zones in the village. Villagers who already cultivated land on the early peasant farms had to give the difference between the surface of land of their farm and the total land to which they were entitled back for distribution: they could decide whether to keep the land plot they were already cultivating or to go through the raffle procedure and receive a plot in another location.

Certainly, this system for land distribution entailed several ambiguities that left margins for negotiations and that gave rise to conflicts, some of which are still ongoing. First, the five villages had different sizes of arable land on their territories and different population sizes: the total land share per person varied between villages. The demarcation of the borders between villages was controversial, since it was based on the Soviet maps produced between 1935 and 1965 and on older divisions in *aiyls*. Second, also the calculation of the total surface of arable land within each village was based on these old maps, which, as mentioned above, had left some areas unmapped that continued to be used privately during the Soviet period. This land did not enter the process of distribution and continued to be used by the same families afterwards, producing an unevenness in land endowment even before the distribution started.

Third, land plots within the two zones (irrigated and non-irrigated) presented differences concerning especially the closeness to the village, the accessibility through roads and paths, the connection to the

<footnote n="13">¹³ Remember that pasture land was not distributed and has remained state property until today, see §3.1.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ This fund is used until today to comply with later claims of land shares by villagers who could not claim them at the moment of land distribution; see §3.1.</footnote>
irrigation infrastructure and soil quality. Through the raffle system, some families received better or worse land plots. Most of the villagers, however, because of the fragmentation of the production process in the Soviet farm discussed above, were not even aware of these differences. The ones who were aware were the ex-specialists of the Soviet farm, who were able to negotiate with the land commission to receive plots in the best locations.

Fourth, the total number of villagers by which the total distributable land was to be divided was a vague notion. Each household had to provide the official identity documents of each of its members to include them in the distribution process. The villagers who, through their position in the ex-Soviet farm administration or through their networks, were aware in advance of this procedure had the time to collect the necessary documents of all household members, including the ones who were not living in the village at that moment. In this way, these families could receive more land shares. On the other hand, the ones who were less informed about the procedure often were not able to collect all documents and received thus a smaller amount of land than they were entitled to. Some villagers did not register at all because, at that moment, they could not imagine how to use a plot of land, since they did not have access to any means of production, including knowledge about the cultivation process.

Lastly, land plots were not registered individually for each villager. It was the head of the household (usually an older man) who registered for all the members of his household. This created problems later for the recognition of land rights of other family members, especially of women.<fnref n="15" /> The advantage was, however, that in this way household members received bordering land plots in the same location. Beyer (2016, 52–56) notes that in her field site in Talas province, land plots were distributed following descendent lines: clans of the same lineage received large land plots that were then subdivided internally among the single families. I have no evidence that this was the rule also in Pjak; it was, however, common there that groups of households, either of the same clan or linked through relations of neighbourhood (which often overlapped with kinship) or friendship, registered at the same time and picked up a code in the raffle procedure together in order to receive bordering land plots.

The shares of other assets of the ex-Soviet farm (like agricultural machines, buildings or animals) were distributed later. However, because of the crisis of production that started in 1991 and the deteriorating finances of the ex-Soviet farm, by the time of distribution, several of these assets had “disappeared”. They had been used to pay out the farm debt or were sold for a cheap price to the few who had the resources to buy them. As seen above, many of these assets had also been appropriated, legally or illegally, by the early peasant farms or by other local elites. Moreover, the conditions of buildings and machines were deteriorating because of scarce maintenance and looting (especially of scrap metal). Non-

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ Land access for women is a complex problem in Kyrgyzstan today. When they marry, women are considered to leave their family of origin to join the family (and kin) of their husband. It is thus common that, when “leaving” their family, women also renounce to their land shares. This becomes a problem especially in case of divorce, when access to land is negated to women both by their ex-husband’s family and by their family of origin. See e.g. Kuehnast (1998), Giovarelli et al. (2001), Giovarelli (2004), Younas (2017), see also Beyer (2007).</footnote>
divisible assets like buildings and machines were distributed to groups of households;<fnref n="16" /> these groups,
however, were often not able to manage the use and maintenance of these assets, which led to their
further degradation and looting.

8.4.2 Private economies: establishing private farming

*Finding resources for individual agriculture through informal networks*

When villagers received land plots with the second phase of land reforms, their access to other means of agricultural production was very limited. By that time in the village, few seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, fuel, functioning agricultural machines or functional buildings remained. The few that were still available or were brought to the village by emerging traders were difficult to access for most villagers, also because their financial capital was almost inexistent: many had bartered their last private animals. For the ex-specialists of the Soviet farm, like Kumbat, it was easier (although not easy) to access such resources: they could mobilise the networks discussed in the previous section to get some of the last assets of ex-Soviet farms in the village and in the region. Also, they had usually more assets which they could barter.

Kumbat and Dinara, however, underline that Kumbat, like the other specialists, did not keep these
resources for himself. Dinara explains:

At that moment people started understanding that there was nothing left from the sovkhoz
and started running around to find the fuel, the seeds. [...] Villagers were sending Kumbat
to Bishkek to find oil, seeds, et cetera. They sent Kumbat because he had connections in
Bishkek to purchase the things or to have them as a credit. (Dinara, 10.08.2016)

Dinara here suggests that Kumbat was entrusted by his fellow villagers with the task to bring the needed
resources in the village. Dinara further explains how this worked with the example of Mamakaev, an
influential doctor in Bishkek:

Kumbat was giving things to the important persons [in order to purchase the things villagers
were asking him]. It was a kind of corruption of course. He was bringing stuff to
Mamakaev, therefore they had good relations. Mamakaev in his turn was using his own
connections to get the things and give them to Kumbat. [...] Mamakaev was famous, an
authority. He could have access to many things and was distributing the things among his
acquaintances. (Dinara, 10.08.2016)

Dinara likes to share similar stories over tea, depicting Kumbat as a kind of “hero” who helped villagers access the resources they needed to start individual farming. Both Kumbat and Dinara remain vague on how the distribution of these resources happened in the village, for instance on whether Kumbat distributed the resources for free or against some sort of present or future return, or whether, like Mamakaev, he also accepted bribes from villagers.

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ Also in this case, Beyer (2016, 52–56) notes that, in her field site, non-divisible assets were given to clan leaders and that the further distribution within the clans was organised internally. Again, I have no evidence that this was systematically the case in Pjak.</footnote>
Furthermore, because of the fragmentation in the Soviet farm discussed above, few villagers had usable knowledge about the entire agricultural production process: when, what and how to sow, when and how to plough, irrigate and harvest, how to use or repair machines, etc. Dinara and Kumbat emphasise that their house was always visited by villagers who asked Kumbat for advice on and help with the cultivation process. Similarly, Ermek and Aibek, both ex-mechanics in the Soviet farm, recall that villagers came to their houses regularly to ask how to use the machines or how to repair them. Since spare parts were hardly available, Ermek and Aibek, like Kumbat, used their networks to find these parts and usually did the repairs themselves. Ermek observes that the few villagers who knew how to use the machines had to "run from one field to the other without rest, working day and night" (Ermek, 17.08.2016). Ermek further explains that, because of the chronic lack of fuel and cash, he was often working for free or for delayed payment (usually in kind) and used his own fuel if the landowner could not find some.

## Groupings of farmers

The early peasant farms were usually managed by the family of a specialist of the ex-Soviet farm who joined with other households, mainly close relatives. These groups were registered at the local administration as peasant farms, with an own name and juridical status as enterprise. Later, when groups of households combined their land shares, they were also registered as peasant farms<fnref n="17" /> and had an own name and juridical status as an enterprise. Kumbat was the leader of one of such groups, which was officially registered with the name of Ak-Bulut.

Kumbat summarises the trajectories of these peasant farms: “People [...] just decided to work together because they were not used to working separately. Then after some time they separated. The conflicts started. That was the reason to go alone” (Kumbat, 22.07.2016). Villagers explain that, at that time, they thought it would be easier to join with other families to cultivate their newly acquired land plot, hoping in this way to have better possibilities to access the required resources and the knowledge to start cultivation. These groups, however, did not last long: households left the groups and started cultivating their own land shares individually, usually after one or two years of group experience. The recurring explanation for the dissolution of such groups, as anticipated in Chapter 7, is that conflicts emerged about labour contribution and sharing the harvest. Kumbat explains this in detail:

> With my brother's family and two other families we united forces to handle the land. We were doing the activities together. [...] My brother was sending only his young child, who was five years old, to do the fieldwork in the common plot. I was providing seeds, fuel, machines, in addition to my work and the work of my wife and my children. Dinara also organised all the meals for the people who worked in the field. It was a lot of work. [...] At the time of harvest, we brought the wheat and barley to the warehouse to clean it and share it among the four families. Each got 3.5 tonnes of wheat and barley. [...] The division of the harvest was done in equal parts, but everybody was complaining because my brother only

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ Whereas sometimes villagers refer to the early peasant farms with the Russian term kristjanskie khozjastva (peasant farms), they sometimes refer to the peasant farms that emerged with the second phase of land reforms with the Kyrgyz term dyikan charba. Other times, they refer more generally to these groupings as farmer groups.</footnote>
contributed the work of his small child, if you can call it work. [...] The same happened with the harvest of potatoes. The other families were really angry. [...] Therefore the next spring we started cultivating the individually. (Kumbat, 28.08.2017)

Conflicts about the division of harvest concerned the variable that should be used to calculate the share of harvest for each household: whether the harvest should be divided in equal parts among the households, or according to the size of the land plot of each household or according to the work contribution of each household. As seen in Chapter 7, when villagers tell today about these conflicts, they usually frame the behaviour of the households who did not contributed to fieldwork as “lazy”.

### 8.4.3 Discussion: mapping diverse transitions

The process of decollectivisation produced new forms of individual agricultural practices. In the volatile and uncertain institutional framework of the 1990s, these practices were only partially formalised – and, if they were, their formalisation was often unclear and ambiguous. In this section, I have only presented the main forms of private agriculture that emerged in that period. In fact, during the 1990s, different and complex forms of farmer grouping emerged, overlapped, stopped or continued. It is difficult to reconstruct today the organisational details of such groupings, the exact moment in which a type of grouping emerged or stopped, who initiated them and under which institutional conditions. In principle, the early and later peasant farms that emerged in those years did receive formalised rights in the form of land shares and shares of the other assets distributed, registered either as private property of the farm or of its individual members. These farms were usually registered as private associations or enterprises with an own name and stamp. These names and stamps have remained in the registers of the local administration, even if the composition of most of these farms and the distribution of concrete land plots within them changed in the following years. For instance, the peasant farm of Kumbat and his brother was registered under the name of Ak-Bulut: Kumbat continues today to use the stamp of this farm for some transactions. This of course increases my own but also villagers’ confusion about the differentiation between the cooperative Ak-Bulut and Kumbat’s own private agricultural activities.

My analysis of Pjak’s diverse transitions has shown, on the one hand, that post-independence reforms have achieved a shift away from formal state economies by dramatically reducing the role of the state in local and national economic activities. On the other hand, as Pavlovskaya (2004) has noted for her field site in Moscow, this shift did not necessarily follow the direction wished by reforms, namely a linear shift from formal state economy to formal private economy. Instead, this shift produced an expansion of informal activities, both in the private and state sector (Fig. 8.4), including in Pjak. In the state sector, the access to what had become rare state services and resources remained dependent on (and in some cases became increasingly depending on) personal connections and bribery. In the private sector, a range of new agricultural activities emerged, many of which can be hardly categorised as formal or informal. Villagers tried to make do with the resources that were available to them, without caring too much about the formalisation of their activities – a formalisation that, in any case, would have been volatile. Private agricultural activities were strongly dependent on informal networks for the access to the necessary
production means, including knowledge, which had become dramatically scarce. Local elites played an
increasingly important role as intermediaries between villagers and elites at the regional and national
levels. The ex-specialists of the Soviet farm acquired even more importance and authority in the village in
their role as reference persons to which villagers had to turn to access scarcer agricultural production
means.

In this regard, post-independence reforms, at least during the first years of production crisis, in part
reinforced the relations of patronage between villagers and local elites. The confused and deteriorating
economic and political situation after independence exacerbated villagers' dependency on local elites for
their livelihoods and in particular for agricultural activities on the plots received through the process of
land distribution. On the other hand, however, the position of local elites remained precarious: my
empirical material suggests that local elites faced an increasing pressure – or even a burden – to fulfil
villagers' demands for resources, advice and support. For instance, in order to bring increasingly scarce
resources in the village, local elites had to invest more of their own resources to maintain their networks
outside the village through “presents” and bribes. Also, their position as intermediaries between villagers
and regional elites was linked with a certain risk. One example is again Kumbat’s relation with
Mamakaev, the doctor mentioned above by Dinara. In the mid-1990s, Kumbat could obtain through him a
lorry full of wheat seeds to bring to Pjak. Villagers were supposed to sow these seeds and give back in
autumn the same amount they had received. However, in spring villagers had so little to eat that they ate
part of the seeds; in autumn, harvest was limited (also for the reasons seen above) and a big part of it
served to pay other debts. Thus, few villagers could pay back the debt to Mamakaev. Kumbat got into
troubles and even had to appear in a tribunal for this issue, since he was the villagers’ warrant towards
Mamakaev. Although Kumbat was able to escape the tribunal’s verdict through a bureaucratic cavil, this
episode cost him a lot. Not only did he have to face the expenses and the administrative and the emotional
burden of the time-consuming tribunal, but he also lost his connection to Mamakaev – one of Kumbat’s
most precious resources at that time.

Certainly, not all villagers had access to the ex-specialists' networks to the same extent. Peasant farms in
the first and second phase of reforms were created mainly with close relatives, but also with neighbours
(who often overlapped with kin) and friends (whose friendship had often originated through the working
experience in the Soviet farm). The farms whose members included an ex-specialist started of course with
an advantage over the others. The members of the other farms, and villagers in general, were usually
included in the networks of the ex-specialists according to similar linkages: in Kumbat's case, for
instance, it is clear that he had – and still has – closer relations (and thus more frequent exchanges) with
his close relatives, neighbours and friends.

The hierarchy of the ex-Soviet farm also shaped the material outcomes of decollectivisation and in
particular of asset distribution. Some ex-specialists of the Soviet farm could start private agricultural
production on early peasant farms, through which they could not only start accumulating assets (thereby
removing these assets from what became later the pool for distribution) but also acquire experience in the
management of medium-scale private farming. Later, ex-specialists had better access to information about
the details of the distribution procedure, for instance about the administrative steps but also about the
quality of the land of the ex-Soviet farm. The vague directives from the central government for the
concrete actuation of distribution left local elites large room for manoeuvre to shape this process in their
favour. In this regard, post-independence reforms exacerbated already existing power relations and
privileges in the village. I am not suggesting, however, that this exacerbation was systematic and always
linear. On the one hand, some ex-specialists were able to determine the outcomes of reforms in their
favour and, in the following years, to build on this advantage and expand their economic activities, wealth
and authority. On the other hand, some early peasant farms went quickly bankrupt because they could not
generate enough revenues from land plots with bad soil quality that they received from the ex-Soviet
farm. Many ex-specialists were also victims of their own patronage relations and lost an important part of
their assets in the attempt to cultivate and maintain their networks with regional and national elites.
Sometimes, both processes concerned the same person, who could quickly accumulate assets one day and
equally quickly lose them with an unlucky deal another day. For instance, Kumbat could profit from his
position and knowledge to derive more benefits from the distribution process: Dinara likes to recall that in
the 1990s their yard was one of the few full of chickens and that their house was one of the few where
guests could always find a table full of food. However, Kumbat lost part of his power when he lost the
connection to Mamakaev and, also because of other factors (a serious and prolonged illness in the family
and some bad investments or business decisions), today his family is not among the wealthiest in the
village and struggles to make ends meet like most families there.

The transformation of economic practices engendered by post-independence reforms profoundly changed the everyday lives of villagers. As in the case of the diverse economies of Soviet agriculture, also the diverse economies of the time of reforms consisted of a complex set of interdependent practices. As suggested by Pavlovskaya (2004), villagers could bear the drastic reduction in state services and transfers because the latter were substituted by informal activities and by patronage relations. Nevertheless, villagers' livelihoods dramatically suffered from this transformation and, as in the rest of the country and in many other ex-socialist countries of CEE and the FSU, the scarcity of basic goods and services for most villagers characterised the post-independence period.

In this section I have focused on the main activities related to agricultural production. Of course, the
diverse economies of Pjak in the decade after independence included a range of other practices on which I
do not have the space to expand here. These practices included widespread barter and exchange between
relatives, neighbours and friends of agricultural means of production but also of food and other basic
goods and services. Since the care services previously provided by the Soviet state were drastically
reduced, the burden of reproduction and care activities within the household sphere increased and
continued to be carried mainly by women and children. In this regard, it must be noted that the loss of
formal employment in the Soviet farm also implied a reduction of socialisation spaces, especially for
women, whose everyday was withdrawn from the public sphere and increasingly limited to the private
sphere of the household.
8.5 New actors in the local arena

My accounts of the diverse economies in post-independence Pjak above have not included, until now, the
role of an important group of actors that appeared in Kyrgyzstan in the first half of the 1990s:
international organisations and development workers. In Pjak, the first development workers arrived in
the mid-1990s, when decollectivisation was ongoing and the first forms of individual agriculture were
emerging. In this section I discuss how these actors entered the local arena of Pjak and how their presence
and activities transformed economic practices and social relations in the village.

**8.5.1 Mobilising local elites**

Development projects started appearing in Pjak when villagers’ access to every kind of resources,
especially agricultural production means but also food and other basic goods, was rapidly deteriorating.
The projects offered access to some of these resources; it became thus crucial for villagers to relate to
development actors. Dinara explains the establishment of one of the first projects in the village. It is
worth quoting a long excerpt of her story not only because Dinara is a wonderful narrator but also
because from it emerge several themes that are central for the analysis in this section:

The story began around 1993 or 1994. The local council of the village had the idea of
organising a union of farmers who would work together. One guy of the local council
gathered with some foreigners, some people from GTZ and Peter Schmidt. On a snowy day
they did the transect<fnref n="18" /> of the village, to identify the need for seeds in spring and the current
yields. They visited the five villages of our *aiyl okmotuu*. There were people from Helvetas,
Peter Schmidt, a lady from Helvetas and someone from the local council. They discussed
about the results of the transect, the volume of the seeds, the field activities. They said that
in the answers of people in the five villages, there was always the name of Kumbat *baike*.<fnref n="19" />
Therefore, they wanted to discuss the idea of the project with him. They asked us if we were
ready to start the project with Helvetas. Peter Schmidt asked Kumbat to support the project
by actively gathering farmers to work in a group. In all five villages, people referred to
Kumbat to know when to start irrigating, planting or doing fieldwork. They didn’t know
about the time, the volume, the seeds, the irrigation, et cetera. They were following Kumbat
because he is an agronomist. People were not experts, but Kumbat was an expert agronomist
of the five villages and therefore they [the development workers] proposed a collaboration
for the project. (Dinara, 30.08.2015)

First of all, it is important to note that, as it is often the case in villagers’ accounts, Dinara mixes up dates, persons and institutions. As I have explained in Chapter 7, Peter Schmidt was a real person, but Dinara and Kumbat often use his name to refer to other German-speaking development workers whose names they do not remember. Dinara also confuses the German GTZ and the Swiss NGO Helvetas: it is not clear to which project she refers. She also probably anticipates the timing of her story of a couple of years,

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ I am not sure that Dinara uses this technical term or whether Elzada, who has experience in interpretation for development projects, summarises with this term another expression in the original narration.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ The Kyrgyz word *baike* in its narrow sense refers to one’s own older brother. It is, however, used in a larger sense as a respectful form to address men that are older than the speaker. If the man is elderly, *ata* (lit. father) is used. The equivalent feminine forms are *eje* (older sister) and *apa* (mother).</footnote>
since in 1993–4, villagers were not conducting individual agriculture yet (with the exception of production on their household plot and of early peasant farms); certainly Helvetas did not start projects in rural Kyrgyzstan before 1995 (see Schmidt 2012).

The exact time, persons and institutions are, however, secondary in Dinara's story.<fnref n="20" /> What is more interesting is Dinara's description of how Kumbat was selected to be an active part of a project. Remember that Dinara likes to depict her husband as a hero and to emphasise his importance as an agronomist with vast experience and knowledge.<fnref n="21" /> Also in this story, she highlights Kumbat's position as an expert in the village, a referent person to whom other villagers asked advice and support and whose name everyone mentioned and praised. Although Dinara probably exaggerates Kumbat's heroic virtues, it is very plausible that Kumbat – an experienced ex-specialist of the Soviet farm with a good knowledge of agronomic techniques and a wide network in the village and beyond it – represented a perfect profile as a partner in a new project. As Dinara explains, “Peter Schmidt” asked Kumbat to help the project by gathering villagers, by mobilising them for the project’s activities. This is a typical procedure of development projects, which try to build on local leaders and existing networks to mobilise and motivate villagers for their activities (§3.2.2). In the following years Kumbat became thus a reference person not only for villagers but also for development workers. Project activities consisted mainly of providing farmers with agricultural inputs and training sessions on cultivation techniques, entrepreneurship and management. Often, the projects created the link between input suppliers (especially of seeds, fuel, fertilizers) and villagers. Kumbat explains that the projects usually bought these inputs from outside the village and stored them in his house, from where they were distributed to villagers.

### 8.5.2 Privileges and burdens for local elites

On the one hand, Kumbat's privileged position in relation to development projects provided him several advantages. His role, discussed in the previous sections, as the reference person for the provision of important resources to villagers through his personal networks outside the village was confirmed and strengthened through the access to project resources. Kumbat could also directly profit from the resources made available by projects: for instance, when they organised training sessions in his garden, Kumbat could keep the material used during the training sessions. He also received from a project the material to build a glasshouse on his household plot and to conduct a trial with potato seeds: the glasshouse still stands in his garden and allows Kumbat's family to produce far more vegetables than average in the village. As I have argued in Part III, villagers today usually identify Western actors as the ones “who know”, who own the right knowledge. In addition to the mentioned privileges, the recognition of Kumbat's authority and expertise by Western actors and his collaboration with them certainly further legitimised his authority and reinforced his reputation in the local community.

<footnote n="20">²⁰ As I have suggested already in other villagers’ accounts, I interpret her confusion not only as a sign of fading memories but also as revealing of the confusion dominating the moment in which the events took place.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹ This does not mean, however, that Dinara only praises her husband: her praises are usually paralleled by teasing comments as well as complaints – in a mix that is probably typical of a couple who has spent 50 years together.</footnote>
On the other hand, however, this new engagement also implied a further burden for Kumbat, especially in terms of responsibility. Once Kumbat agreed to participate in the project, “Peter Schmidt” explained him that his organisation planned to bring new seeds to be distributed for free to villagers. Kumbat transmitted the information to his fellow villagers; however, Dinara comments:

> People were refusing the seeds because they thought that Peter Schmidt was cheating and that in autumn he would ask them to pay back the seeds. We said that our family would count as the warrant of Peter Schmidt, the warrant that the seeds were really for free. [...] We said that we would be the persons to blame, the persons guilty if Helvetas wanted the payment back. We tried to convince the others [villagers] that it wasn't a threat but that they [the project] were trying to work together [with villagers]. (Dinara, 30.08.2015)

Kumbat and his family thus assumed the villagers' responsibility to the development agency. This responsibility was linked to a certain risk, in the case the deal with the agency would not evolve as planned. Remember that Kumbat had to assume a similar risk when mobilising his networks to bring resources in the village, and that he also faced legal troubles when the villagers were not able to pay back Mamakaev's wheat.

When I ask Dinara why, contrarily to the other villagers, she and Kumbat trusted the development workers, she replies:

> We could trust them not only based on their own words, we also had the representatives of the local administration and of the local council who ensured us that the foreigners were not the kind of people who would cheat you. [...] Also, we compared them with the local administration, who was promising a lot of things but didn't give us anything concrete. They promised to provide fuel, seeds, whatever, but these just remained promises that never became true. By that time the group of foreigners came here with real proposals. These people didn't just promise, they said 'Let's do it!' and they came with concrete things. Why not believe them? (Dinara, 03.09.2015)

Also in her first quotation in this section, Dinara mentions the role of representatives of the local council as intermediaries between development workers and villagers, in particular Kumbat. In this last quotation, she confirms their role in providing a first bridge between Kumbat and the development workers, but also in convincing Kumbat to trust the latter and to collaborate with them. The resources available to governmental actors at all levels to implement concrete measures and fulfil the expectations of villagers dramatically decreased after independence (see Chapter 6). We see here, nevertheless, that governmental actors still played a role in the realisation of development projects in the village – this role remained, however, mostly invisible and therefore widely unacknowledged by villagers, who could see in the realised projects only the engagement of foreigners and individual villagers like Kumbat. This, once more, reduced the legitimacy of governmental actors, as Dinara expresses clearly. She decided to trust development workers because they came with “full hands”. On the contrary, her trust for governmental actors had already deteriorated since, because of the drastic cuts in state budget and tasks, these actors could not fulfil their promises nor the expectations of villagers. We see here clearly how development agencies and local leaders gradually substituted the state, not only in the implementation of development programmes but also in villagers’ representations.
Aziza, Kumbat's friend whose husband was head accountant in the Soviet farm, explains how the distribution of agricultural inputs through Kumbat worked at that time:

Aziza: Whenever we met Kumbat, he was informing us about new sorts of seeds. If we were interested in these new sorts, we then told him. We got potato seeds for free for our family. Also the fertilisers. Whenever we met Kumbat, he was informing us. He gave us the fertilisers. And if we needed fertilisers we went to him and paid him.

Ottavia: So you got the seeds for free from Kumbat, right?

Aziza: At the beginning there was a project supporting with the seeds. Kumbat was responsible for these seeds towards the project. He had to report to them. But when he then grew the seeds of the new sorts on his own land, then he gave them to us for free, as a traditional friendship support as we have here in Kyrgyzstan. My husband used to work with Kumbat [in the *sovkhoz*], so they are friends. And therefore Kumbat gave us the seeds out from his own yard. The first year he was supported by the cooperative [intended here as the project]. Everybody was asking him for the seeds, but he explained very well that the seeds were not his own property, they were a support for the cooperative. In that moment he could not give the seeds because they were not his property. But he promised that later, when he would have his own production, he would support us [by giving the seeds for free]. (Aziza, 15.08.2015)

Aziza's narration confirms Kumbat's ambiguous position as intermediary between the villagers and development agencies. Kumbat had also obligations towards his networks of friends and relatives, a continuation from the practices of exchange of Soviet time. However, as a representative of the project, Kumbat had to pay attention to what he shared with other villagers and promised them to share his own seeds later. Kumbat was thus caught in his intermediary position, which included both the responsibility towards development agencies but also his obligations towards his networks. In this sense, he did not only profit from the privileges generated by his close connection with the projects, but he also faced an increased burden to fulfil his obligations towards villagers. Failing to fulfil these obligations can have consequences on one's reputation and status in the local community. For instance, a few villagers lament in our conversations what they see as the greediness of Kumbat's family, which used to share seeds and other resources with other villagers but now does not share anything anymore. Since it was difficult for villagers to differentiate exactly between the specific roles and resources of the projects and Kumbat's own role, it was easy for them to identify Kumbat's family as greedy once the projects stopped channelling resources in the village and Kumbat stopped distributing these resources to villagers,

Another important point emerges from the quotations in this section. It was difficult for villagers to understand when resources were given them for free and when they had to pay them back later. Villagers who were part of Kumbat's exchange networks (in Soviet times and later) used to receive resources "for free" – or, rather, in return for some favours later. It was thus difficult for them to understand why, suddenly, sometimes they had to pay and sometimes not. This point does not concern solely the exchanges with Kumbat, but is an ambiguous issue within development projects until today. Sometimes projects distribute resources to villagers for free. Other times projects serve as intermediary between traders and villagers: they buy products in bulk from traders and resell them to villagers for a profit. This
ambiguity concerns also financial resources flowing in the village through development projects: it is often unclear whether these are loans that should be paid back, or grants or subsidies that are offered without expecting a return payment. This was the case for instance for the money the cooperative Ak-Bulut received for the renovation of its warehouse from a development agency through CUK. Kumbat maintains that this was a grant that should not be paid back. However, until today, CUK is asking him to pay back the money, which its director considers was a credit. To the Swiss reader – like for myself – this ambiguity might seem odd: how is it possible that villagers accept big amounts of money without knowing whether they will have to pay them back and thus without being able to draft a financial plan for the repayment of the debt? We will see later with the case of Aisha that this ambiguity is normal in the village and still widespread today.

### 8.5.3 A new generation of projects

The presence of development projects in Pjak reached its peak in the 2000s. Towards the end of the decade, several of these projects stopped, also because their aim had been to support farmers in the transition to market economy. Kumbat's access to project resources – and villagers' access to them through Kumbat – decreased thus in parallel with the retreat of development agencies from the village. Nevertheless, development intervention in rural Issyk-Kul did not completely stop, although today it usually does not directly provide agricultural inputs to farmers for free or for cheaper prices and focuses instead on the provision of training sessions and opportunities to diversify production with the processing of raw products. The new generation of farmers, who only marginally experienced Soviet agriculture, developed some new strategies to secure its livelihoods through agriculture and other activities (see Chapter 9).

I have already introduced to the reader Batma, the chairwoman of the cooperative Kara-Jer, and Aisha, its only member from Pjak (see Chapter 7). Batma's personal trajectory is an example of the possibilities a career in the development sector can offer to Kyrgyzstani women today (see §3.2.2, also Féaux de la Croix 2013). As a development worker, Batma has travelled in the region and in the country giving training sessions and mobilising communities on different topics. Through such activities, Batma has built a broad network of contacts in the region. She has also collaborated with Sezim, the CUK director, with whom she has become a close friend. It is thanks to this connection that Batma and Sezim decided to establish a new cooperative based on Batma's network in the Issyk-Kul region: the cooperative Kara-Jer.

Through her contact with Batma and her involvement in the activities of development projects and of Kara-Jer, Aisha has acquired several skills and resources that are useful for her beyond Kara-Jer's specific activities. In early 2016, in one of the gatherings held for the establishment of Kara-Jer, Aisha hears about the Issyk-Kul Development Fund. The fund was established by the Canadian mining company Kumtor, which exploits a big gold mine in the Issyk-Kul province. The fund, nourished with 1% of the company's yearly revenues, supports "social and economic development" in the province and is managed by a board composed also of regional governmental actors from the province and the
districts.<fnref n="22" /> Aisha always bursts with business ideas and, when she hears of the fund, she starts dreaming of establishing a processing factory for fruit and wool in Pjak.

From that moment, an odyssey begins: every time I visit Aisha between 2016 and 2017, she tells me the further developments, and several complications, of her project. Initially, Aisha struggles to obtain support for her project from the village administration. She complains that its representatives (all men) do not take her seriously and even laugh at her when she explains her project. Aisha tries to put pressure on the local administration from below and from above. From below, she collects the signatures of villagers who support her project because they see the advantages of having a processing factory in the village. From above, she achieves an audience from the *akim* (head of the district) and the *gubernator* (head of the province) thanks to some friends of her husband. Sezim contacts a national deputy friend of her and convinces him to make pressure on the *akim* and the *gubernator* to support Aisha's project. Finally, in June 2016, Aisha receives the confirmation from the *akim* that the fund has granted her 450,000 soms (6,500 USD) for the purchase of the processing machines. When I ask her whether this is a grant or a loan, Aisha vaguely replies that she does not know or that it is not clear from the *akim*'s letter. We see here the same ambiguity discussed above about the repayment of such funds.

In the meantime, Aisha and her husband already started constructing a small building in their yard, where they plan to install the machines. The local administration, however, informs Aisha at this point that she cannot install the machines on her private land: since the machines are paid by the fund, they have to remain on public land. A new chapter of the odyssey starts: Aisha spends the following months trying to find an agreement with the local administration about the public building that should host her new factory. When I come back to Pjak in August 2017, Aisha explains that finally the local administration agreed to install the machines in the old *klub*, an abandoned building in the centre of the village that has been falling into ruin for several years. The building needs substantial renovation, and a special electrical installation is required for the machines. Aisha, with the help of Batma, Sezim and her husband, put together a dossier detailing the current conditions of the building and the necessary renovation works; the dossier includes a budget plan. The renovation will cost 1 million soms (14,600 USD), more than the double of the money she received from the fund for the machines. When I leave the village in September 2017, Aisha is still struggling to negotiate that the local administration and/or the fund pay for the renovation of the old *klub*.

Between my visits in 2016 and 2017, Aisha and her husband conduct research on the internet to find the machines to buy with the money of the fund. The purchase of the machines is managed by the accountant of the fund, in order to avoid irregularities with the bills. When I visit them in August 2017, only the fruit dryer has been delivered to their house. Apparently, the accountant did a mistake and ordered a smaller juice maker than planned. The small juice maker is now in Bishkek and Aisha is reflecting whether to complain and send back the machine (with the risk of having to wait a long time for the new one) or to accept the smaller one. The wool cleaner has been ordered but has not arrived yet.

<footnote n="22">²² See http://www.transparency.kg/ti_k-i-fond-razvitija-issyk_kulskojj-oblasti.html (accessed 30.08.2016)</footnote>
8.5.4 Discussion: new actors, new relations

If we come back to Pavlovskaya's matrix, we can conclude that the arrival of foreign development actors in Pjak contributed to reducing the visibility and legitimacy of state formal economic activities, which were already declining as a consequence of post-independence reforms. In the moment when local governments found themselves without resources to support villagers in the deteriorating food and production crisis of the 1990s, development agencies entered the local arena with "full hands", providing concrete material resources, as Dinara underlines. Since their room for manoeuvre and budget were dramatically limited, local governmental actors turned to development agencies and supported (or at least did not thwart) their establishment in rural villages. At the same time, however, as already noted in Chapter 6, this move often produced a further deterioration of villagers' trust and appreciation of the local government – and an even more reduced legitimacy of the state in the eyes of villagers.

On the other hand, the activities of development agencies contributed to reinforce and expand private economic activities in Pjak, in line with the aims of post-independence reforms and privatisation policies; this concerned informal practices at least as much as formal ones. The presence of development projects as a source of resources reshaped exchange networks and the relations of patronage that already existed around the Soviet farm. Similarly to post-independence reforms, development projects provided both privileges and burdens for local elites, the burdens being particularly the risk they had to take on as intermediaries and the warrants between external agencies and villagers. At the same time, projects themselves relied on existing groups and networks to realise their activities. I am not criticising this strategy: on the contrary, in Chapter 6 I suggested that the promotion of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan has tended to neglect existing informal cooperation practices while proposing an abstract model that is not always easily adaptable to local realities. In this regard, the fact that projects consider and include in their activities existing social relations is positive. However, I am highlighting here once again that, also in the case of development projects, formal economic activities are dependent on informal ones and that both constitute a complex system of interdependent diverse economies. This interdependence is often neglected by both scholars and practitioners who, as noted also by Pavlovskaya (2004), present postsocialist policies or development intervention as promoting the shift from formal state economy to formal private economy, neglecting thus the role of informal economic practices.

Certainly, development projects did not just overlap with existing relations and practices, but also contributed to their transformation. In particular, whereas the villagers relied on existing patronage relations with local elites during the first decade of the presence of development agencies, new actors have more recently emerged and transformed these relations. In Aisha's case, her involvement in development initiatives allows her to overcome, albeit sometimes with a lot of struggle, existing hierarchies and privileges. Through this involvement, she is not only learning cultivation techniques and entrepreneurial skills such as drafting a budget plan, but she is also developing an important network of contacts that allow her to further her business ideas.
Aisha's case seems to confirm that the intervention of development agencies is creating the conditions for people like Aisha to overcome the rigid local networks and structures and to further their private business activities – in short, the conditions for the emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs. Indeed, Aisha embodies the ideal entrepreneur to whose emergence development agencies aspire (see my discussion in §3.3). Aisha and her husband do not come from a particularly privileged family: through the right connections with the right people and the right investments at the right moment, both Aisha and her husband were able, in the 1990s, to start some successful businesses almost from nothing. At least according to Aisha, her husband was one of the first persons to start selling *jarma* at the corners of Bishkek's streets in the 1990s, before this business became widespread and was later taken over by the large companies Shoro and Enesay, which now control almost all stands in Bishkek and in the country. Today, Aisha and her husband engage in several small businesses beyond agricultural production, for instance: they process manually some products they then resell in Karakol; they keep beehives in their garden and sell the honey in the village; and they grow medical plants they can sell through Batma's networks. Aisha is also a woman, and thus a favourite target of gender-sensitive development projects. It is indeed astonishing how she is able to fight for her project and defend it in front of the men of the local administration and other men in higher positions (the *akim* and the *gubernator*). It is also rare in Kyrgyzstan to see a woman standing for her business ideas in front of her husband and especially her mother-in-law, who were reticent to join Kara-Jer.

It is important to note that the conditions for the emergence of entrepreneurs like Aisha also include reliance on informal networks and the lobbying, through these networks, of persons highly placed in the state hierarchy. Indeed, as we will see more in detail in Chapter 9, the emergence of this new kind of entrepreneur does not go without its own ambiguities and contradictions.

## 8.6 Conclusion: transformations of economic practices and social relations in Pjak

### *Transformations of diverse economies of agriculture*

The analysis of the transformations of agricultural practices in Pjak through the lenses of diverse economies has confirmed what scholars in Gibson-Graham's tradition have observed in other contexts. Neither the Soviet economy of the Kyrgyz SSR nor the neoliberal market economy promoted by post-independence reforms are unitary and coherent economic systems. Rather, both are constituted through diverse economic practices that are strongly interdependent and symbiotic but that can also be contradictory and mutually detrimental. Neither of the two systems mirrors its common representation as centred on, dominated and determined by, respectively, formal state economy and formal private economy. Instead, Section 8.3 revealed that the formal economic activities controlled by the Soviet state were supported by informal – and often illegal – exchanges between Soviet enterprises but also by private economic activities that extended largely beyond what was formally and legally allowed. These informal
activities, however, simultaneously eroded the sustainability of the formal state economy. Section 8.4
revealed that, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, villagers could bear (albeit with extreme
sacrifices) the consequences of the dramatic reduction of state tasks and budget commanded by post-
independence reforms only through the expansion of private activities, especially in the informal sector.
The high volatility and confusion of institutional arrangements at that time, in turn, often prevented the
establishment of a solid private formal sector. Section 8.5 revealed that the intervention of development
agencies in the village contributed to reinforce these processes.

In general, it has become clear that post-independence reforms drastically reduce the role of the state and
the extent of formal state economies and that the activities of development agencies reinforced this
reduction by substituting the state in some of its former tasks. However, the analysis in this chapter has
confirmed that it would be simplistic to read post-independence transformation as the "penetration" of the
neoliberal market or capitalism in a society and in sectors previously organised according to different
economic and social principles. It is true, on the one hand, that some economic domains that were
previously outside the influence of market relations have been newly re-organised according to market
principles. However, on the other hand, several activities have remained (or have newly become)
organised according to other principles – in particular according to reciprocity or patronage relations
within networks of relatives, colleagues and friends.

Reconfiguration of social relations and hierarchies

Throughout the chapter I have often emphasised the importance of reciprocity and patronage relations within local networks for villagers' livelihoods but also their role in the stratification of the local community. Such networks were important in Soviet times and continued to be so after independence: it is indeed through these networks that villagers could access important resources for private agricultural activities on their household plot during Soviet times and later also on their newly acquired fields. Personal networks were indispensable for the establishment of private agriculture during decollectivisation. The general uncertain and volatile context of the 1990s offered new possibilities to local elites to accumulate crucial assets and wealth, but also authority and power. In particular, the outcomes of the confused process of land distribution favoured the villagers who had already a privileged position in the hierarchy of the ex-Soviet farm. The increasing scarcity of agricultural inputs (and of other resources in general) engendered by post-independence reforms confirmed villagers' dependence on patronage relations and thus also on local elites.

Personal networks were crucial also for the implementation of development projects. Aid agencies relied
on local elites for the realisation of their projects and thus provided these elites with material and
symbolic privileges (in particular the direct access to project resources but also the legitimation of their
authority as “specialists”). The presence of development projects in the village thus reproduced the role of
local elites as intermediaries between external actors and villagers and thereby confirmed the authority of
these elites as well as villagers’ dependence on them. On the other hand, however, I have underlined that
the collaboration with development projects did not only provided benefits for local elites: their obligations towards villagers but also towards development agencies placed them in a delicate position that implied a series of risks and additional burdens.

Both post-independence reforms and development projects thus reshaped the position of local elites as well as the relations of patronage and reciprocity within local social networks. One could be tempted to read my account as suggesting that rigid Soviet hierarchies determined the outcomes of reforms in favour of the old well-known local elites and that these elites were systematically strengthened by the activities of development agencies. It is important to underline once more that this is not the case. Processes I have discussed are all but linear and determined: the position within Soviet hierarchies was already precarious, as were the privileges that elites were able to acquire from the decollectivisation process. Starting individual agriculture in the second phase of land reforms was also difficult and risky for local elites (although less so than for other villagers). An unlucky investment, an illness in the family or the rupture of an important relationship with a particularly influential person could suddenly reverse the fortune of a privileged family. On the other hand, a particularly lucky investment or a new beneficial connection could mean the unexpected opportunity to rapidly improve the position of another family. Burawoy et al. (2000) have noted a similar uncertainty in social position and mobility in northern Russia in the 1990s.

The generation of local Soviet elites to whom I refer is gradually getting old or dying. Certainly, the sons (and to a lesser extent the daughters) of those elites start from a privileged position in terms of the assets and networks that are already available to them. At the same time, we have seen that, more recently, a new generation of villagers is able to gain wealth and authority in the local community. This is the case for instance of Aisha, who is able today to strengthen and expand her economic activities and, sometimes, to bypass local hierarchies. This is possible also thanks to the resources (including personal connections) provided through the presence of development projects in the village and in the region. Nevertheless, these possibilities are again not accessible to everybody in Pjak: Aisha represents in this sense a specific subject – the peasant entrepreneur – that development projects particularly support and look for.

## Reconfiguration of economic spaces

The transformations of economic practices after independence reconfigured the spatial dimension of economic activities in Pjak. During Soviet times, villagers' livelihoods were centred in, but not limited to, the relation to the Soviet farm. Both the public space of the Soviet farm and the private space of the household were fragmented. Villagers' relation to cultivation processes was highly fragmented within the Soviet farm: workers were responsible for, and often aware of, only a small cog of the big wheel of agricultural production and marketing. At the same time, this wheel stretched well beyond the farm and the village: the activities of the Soviet farm were tightly linked to other farms and enterprises in the Kyrgyz SSR and were inserted in the larger international socialist economic system. The networks of specialists also stretched beyond the village and the country and linked local specialists with other specialists in the international socialist space. Villagers experienced their linkages to this broader space
both indirectly through consumption goods imported from other socialist countries but also directly
through the travels awarded to farm workers.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, villagers' space suddenly shrank as the linkages to the larger
international socialist space vanished at least in part (see Smith and Stenning 2006; Reeves 2014). Some
elites were able to maintain their connections and networks outside the village, but with increasing
difficulties. Later, villagers' space gradually expanded again through the presence of international aid
agencies in the village but also through villagers' connections with emerging regional and international
traders as well as with increasing labour migration of household members. On the other hand, the
decollectivisation of agriculture reconfigured villagers' relation to the process of cultivation as well as to
land, soil and natural resources more generally. Over the course of a few seasons, ex-Soviet farm workers
became responsible for the whole production process, which also constituted a new awareness about
specific agro-ecological needs and limitations. Therefore, whereas agriculture in the village became
fragmented (in the sense that agricultural production was not anymore centralised in the Soviet farm but
was decentralised in single households), the process of agricultural production gained simultaneously a
new form of unity within the single household.

These spatial changes affected male and female villagers differently. Women performed reproduction and care activities within the private sphere of the household both during Soviet times and after independence (and continue to perform them today, see Chapter 9). However, in Soviet times most women were also active in the public sphere outside the household through their formal employment in the Soviet farm or the local school: this employment provided them with occasions for socialisation and exchange outside the family and the household. With the dismantlement of the Soviet farm, women's everyday experience retreated increasingly in the private sphere and in the household (and household plot) space. Their opportunities for socialisation and exchange became increasingly limited to household members and the guests visiting their house.

***Understanding Ak-Bulut in its historical context***

The analysis in this chapter has also offered new elements to better understand the meanings villagers
ascribe to the cooperative Ak-Bulut – and their confusion. We learned that the peasant farm Kumbat
established with his brother and two other families during decollectivisation was registered with the name
Ak-Bulut in the local register. A formalised group of farmers surrounding Kumbat thus already existed
and carried the name Ak-Bulut long before the cooperative was registered in 2005. Beyond this small
formalised peasant farm, patronage and reciprocity relations informally linked many other villagers to
Kumbat already during Soviet times and later during post-independence reforms: these villagers used to
receive agricultural inputs and advice from Kumbat. Kumbat was the reference person as development
projects appeared in Pjak, and he was a representative of these projects for villagers. In collaboration with
development agencies, Kumbat kept distributing (for free or against payment) agricultural inputs and
advice to villagers: it was not always easy for villagers to distinguish between when Kumbat was
distributing something for free on his own, when he was reselling what he had bought outside the village,
or when he was distributing something in the name of some development project.

At this point, we can make better sense of the confusion I experienced at the beginning of my fieldwork
while trying to define Ak-Bulut as a formalised object with clear boundaries (the reader might have
experienced a similar confusion while reading Chapter 7). For villagers, Ak-Bulut is not only (or not
necessarily) the cooperative that was officially formalised in 2005 in the framework of a specific
development project. Ak-Bulut is rather a group of villagers who have been linked in some way to
Kumbat since land distribution occurred, and even before. Furthermore, given the volatile institutional
context that has persisted until today, it is understandable that whether a group is formalised and how (as
a cooperative or whatever else) is secondary for villagers' perceptions of that group. It is difficult, or
irrelevant, for villagers to distinguish which of Kumbat's activities were related to the formal cooperative,
which were linked to development projects and which were simply informal exchanges and
collaborations Kumbat had within his network. This difficulty persists today. Indeed, several of the
villagers Kumbat indicates as members of the cooperative Ak-Bulut are his close relatives, neighbours
and friends with whom he has had regular exchanges since Soviet times. In the next chapter I will dig
deeper into these relations and show, among other things, how Kumbat's and other villagers' economic
activities rely on close cooperation with other villagers today, regardless of the formalisation of such
cooperation.
# 9 DIVERSE ECONOMIES OF AGRICULTURE IN PJAK TODAY

After the analysis of the historical transformations of diverse economies of agriculture in Pjak, we are now ready to engage in the analysis of diverse economies of agriculture in contemporary Pjak. Following the same strategy applied in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, I first present villagers’ representations of their agricultural practices (§9.1). In a second step, I present (§9.2, §9.3) and then discuss (§9.4) the agricultural practices I could observe during my fieldwork. In the concluding section (§9.5) I come back to the representations presented in the first section and discuss them in the light of the analysis provided in the central sections of the chapter.

Like in Chapter 8, I do not have here the ambition to provide a comprehensive and exhaustive list of all economic and social practices related to agriculture in the village. My aim is rather to present some examples of different forms of economic practices in the agricultural sector from which we can extract a repertoire of social relations and affects, but also of problems and conflicts, that can emerge from such practices. Because of the seasonality of my own fieldwork (I have never been in Pjak in wintertime, see Table 5.2), my account especially considers agricultural activities that take place in spring, summer and early autumn, while it does not include winter activities like the cultivation of winter vegetables on household plots or the (rarer) cultivation of winter crops in fields. My account focuses on practices related to the cultivation of arable land, while practices related to animal husbandry and the use of pasture land enter my analysis only marginally; the reader should, however, keep in mind that the latter practices are symbiotically intertwined with the cultivation of arable land.

## 9.1 “We do all by ourselves now”: individualisation of agriculture and of social relations

When I ask villagers in general about their agricultural activities, they usually state that “we do all by ourselves now”,<fnref n="1" /> that they work individually. Indeed, we have seen in the previous chapter that the peasant farms composed of several families that had emerged with land distribution lasted usually for one or maximum two agricultural seasons. After these collective experiments, these groups of farmers divided the land they had pooled in a collective plot. Alone, single households started managing the plots corresponding to the land shares they had received through the process of land distribution. The results of the quantitative survey my interpreter conducted in the village in 2017 confirm the narrative of an individualised agriculture in contemporary Pjak.

<footnote n="1">¹ The sentences in quotation marks in this section are very common statements that recur repeatedly and regularly in my conversations with villagers – old ones but also younger ones who have a shorter direct experience (or no direct experience at all) of the Soviet time.</footnote>
9.1.1 The establishment of agricultural markets

When Aziza explains how her family used to receive agricultural inputs from Kumbat (see §8.5.2), I notice that she speaks in the past tense. I therefore ask her whether the practices she describes have stopped today:

Aziza: Yes. Recently we had new sorts of barley from Kumbat, but we paid for them. Concerning the seeds of potatoes, we already have them, so we don't need more. Now we have a good basis and we work individually. If we hear that there are new sorts, we can go to Kumbat and ask him. If there are new sorts and we need them, we get in touch with Kumbat. But for the moment our sorts are ok.

Ottavia: And what about the fertilisers today?

Aziza: Kumbat doesn't have fertilisers anymore. Otherwise he would certainly tell us and share them. To buy the fertilisers now we go to Karakol: we buy other products and also the fertilisers. (Aziza, 15.08.2015)

Aziza testifies to the emergence of monetised markets for agricultural inputs and the parallel reduction of informal exchanges between her family and Kumbat. Although Kumbat remains a reference point for information about the market for these inputs, he is not the one who systematically brings resources to the village and distributes them among his personal networks anymore. Kumbat himself comments that he is retired now. He defines himself as a *pensionier*, intending that he no longer takes care of bringing and distributing resources in the village to the same extent as he did before and that he does not engage in development projects anymore. All<fnref n="2" /> survey respondents state that when they do not use as seeds their own crops from the former years, they buy seeds individually from private retailers. They state the same for agrochemical products (fertilisers and pesticides). This suggests that markets for agricultural inputs have emerged and stabilised in the region: several private companies in Karakol sell seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, and villagers can now access these goods through the market without having to rely on intermediaries like Kumbat.

Kumbat's role as a reference person to whom villagers could (or had to) turn for their questions about cultivation has also reduced. Also thanks to Kumbat's advices and the training sessions offered by development projects, villagers have learned the basic cultivation techniques and can manage the whole process of agricultural production without needing to ask advice to Kumbat or others. Retailer companies of agricultural inputs often provide simple advice or more complex extension services to their customers: villagers can turn to them for their questions about how to handle the seeds or how to use the agrochemicals products they have bought from the company.<fnref n="3" />

It seems that each household individually manages also the rest of agricultural production and marketing: market relations regulate exchanges along the agricultural value chain. Most survey respondents cultivate

<footnote n="2">² Throughout the chapter, when I refer to “all respondents”, I intend all the respondents who gave an answer to the specific question discussed. This does not always correspond to all the people who responded to the survey, since some of them left some of the questions unanswered.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ A large Swiss-funded programme between 1995 and 2010 attempted to establish a system of Rural Advisory Services (RAS) in the country. Whereas today some regional or local RAS offices still exists, often their activities are very limited. One of the main problems faced by these offices is farmers’ scarce willingness to pay for extension advice. See Schmidt (2012) and Vögtli (2008).</footnote>
their private land plots; one fourth rents some additional land from other villagers or from the public fund (LRF) and only few rent out land to other villagers. According to the answers to the survey, all land rents are paid in cash.

The fleet of agricultural machines in the village and its surroundings has increased and, although still limited, can roughly cover the local demand. Attempts to own and manage agricultural machines collectively, like in the case of Ak-Bulut's tractor, have mostly failed. Instead, individual villagers have been able to acquire private machines, usually from the second-hand market and therefore likely to require frequent repair (Fig. 13). Owners of agricultural machines in the village sell the services of their machines to other farmers, driving the tractor on others' plots themselves or hiring a driver whom they pay an hourly wage. When asked whether they coordinate the use of machines with other villagers (especially with plot neighbours) all survey respondents answer negatively. According to the survey, labour in the fields is performed by members of the household without direct compensation in 70% of the households. 30% of the households rely on hired workforce, which they pay in cash. Only one respondent states that he relies on the help of friends without direct compensation.

Villagers store their produce in their yards or gardens – underground, in underground rooms or in small storage buildings (Fig. 14). Few villagers use Ak-Bulut's warehouse to store their potatoes. The only two survey respondents who use the warehouse state that they pay for the storage in cash. According to the survey, the large majority (72%) of respondents sells its products to middlemen in the village: these are usually traders from the region who buy products in the village and resell them in Karakol, in Bishkek or abroad. The rest of respondents, especially the ones who own a suitable means of transport, sell their products directly at the market in Karakol. None of the respondents organises in some ways with other farmers to sell their produce together. When asked why, respondents mainly advance one of the following reasons:<fnref n="4" /> we don't sell our produce / we only sell a small amount (27.4%); I don't want problems/headaches (19%); everyone sells individually, when s/he wants and at different times (19%); the problems of others are not my business (18.4%); what for? (7.5%).

### 9.1.2 “We have all become specialists”: sense of pride for the establishment of private farming

When speaking about the establishment of private farming in Pjak, villagers mostly express a sense of pride. They emphasise the hardship of the 1990s and the difficulties they faced when they lost their formal employment in the ex-Soviet farm and received instead a piece of land for whose cultivation they had neither the necessary material means nor adequate knowledge. Villagers commonly narrate that, despite these difficulties, they were able to overcome the crisis and improve their livelihoods thanks to their hard work, resistance to hardship and persistence. They often comment that “hunger has told us how

<footnote n="4">⁴ The question was open; answers were not pre-given. I grouped myself respondents' answers in the categories presented here.</footnote>
to handle the land": because of the hardship, the material needs, they heroically pulled out all their forces and resources to overcome the crisis.

We saw in Chapter 8 how decollectivisation forcibly created a new kind of relationship between villagers and the agricultural production process in general, but also between land, soil, seeds, plants, pests, water, canals, tractors and many other non-human entities. Villagers are particularly proud to underline that “the land taught us” how to cultivate it. They refer to the process of trial and error they went through when starting cultivation outside the Soviet farm: they learned to observe the land, its reactions to their practices, the kind of harvest they could obtain depending on how they took care of their fields. Villagers also often refer to this new relation to the agricultural process, commenting that “we have all become specialists”: whereas in the Soviet farm only few specialists knew the technicalities of the cultivation process, now many in the village have learned them. Today, villagers proudly show me the results of these efforts: the crops growing in their fields, their harvest or the food women prepare with the products from their fields and household plots.

In this narrative, villagers usually omit their dependence, at the time of land distribution, on the knowledge and information provided to them by specialists like Kumbat, Ermek or Aibek (§8.4.2) and by development projects through their numerous training programmes (§8.5.2). Certainly, one can suspect that Kumbat and Dinara, in their accounts reported in Chapter 8, exaggerate Kumbat’s role as a “mentor” for villagers or the importance of training sessions provided by development agencies. It is probable that both representations are exaggerated: villagers learned the process of agricultural production in part alone (or, as recurrently expressed by villagers, “from the land” or “from hunger”) through trial and error experiences, and they relied in part on the advice of specialists and on the information provided by training sessions.

### 9.1.3 “Now you have to pay for everything”: monetisation of exchanges

In parallel to this sense of pride, villagers’ narratives about the individualisation of agriculture express also a sense of loss for the stronger cooperation – intended as a habit of solidarity, mutual help and collaboration – that, at least according to their memories, characterised their lives in the past (see also §7.3.4). Villagers compare what they perceive as an individualised present with a past when they were used to work together, either as employees of the Soviet farm but also during the crisis of the 1990s when they were supporting each other by sharing the few resources they had. Many nostalgically recall that, during the hardship of the 1990s, “we were sharing our bread even if we did not have enough for ourselves”, a recurrent expression in my discussions with villagers. In opposition to this, villagers complain that “now you have to pay for everything” and “now nobody gives you anything for free”, or that “now there is the rule of money” and “money has become the new God” – other recurrent expressions in my interactions in Pjak. The perceived individualisation thus often refers to the monetisation of activities that were previously performed without recurring to money. However, even if an activity is not monetised, it is not necessarily free or a pure gift, as it can also be inscribed in
reciprocity relations based on other forms of compensation other than money – as was the case within the networks of specialists during Soviet times (§8.3.4). Also, sociological theory on gift economies recognises that gifts are usually expected to be reciprocated: what distinguishes gifts from market or barter relations is, however, that the amount and moment of reciprocation is not pre-agreed nor fixed (Mauss 1966; see also G. Botoeva 2015; Verdery 2003, 62–63). Whereas the exchange of food, other goods and labour in Pjak is still common now as it was in Soviet times or shortly after independence, my observations in Section 9.1.1 seem to suggest that such exchanges are increasingly regulated through money rather than implying an expected in-kind reciprocation in the future.

One example of the increasing monetisation of social life in Kyrgyzstani villages is what some have called the “toi economy” (Rubinov 2010; A. Botoeva and Spector 2013; see also Rubinov 2012; Reeves 2012; G. Botoeva 2015). The Kyrgyz word *toi* refers in general to different forms of social celebrations, which can include, among others, marriages, funerals, death commemorations, anniversaries, birthdays. Although the Soviet state legally limited the number and scope of such celebrations – especially ones with a strong religious component – these celebrations continued to be integral part of village life in Central Asia throughout the Soviet time (Kuehnast and Dudwick 2004; G. Botoeva 2015). With the weakened control over such celebrations after independence, their number and scope has constantly increased in the region (Fig. 15), leading some national governments to set new legal limits to the costs produced by increasingly lavish celebrations.<fnref n="5" />

As several scholars have noted, beyond their symbolic, religious and festive<fnref n="6" /> components, these gatherings are crucial occasions to share important information about personal lives, events happening in the village and agricultural activities (e.g. Kuehnast and Dudwick 2004; Turdalieva and Provis 2017). This information can include the evolution of agricultural prices, where to find the best inputs for the best price, which trader pays the best prices for agricultural products or how to deal with common pests and plant sicknesses. Furthermore, these ritualised gatherings also serve to maintain and strengthen personal networks with close and distant relatives, neighbours and friends in the village and beyond it. These networks, as we have seen in Chapter 8 and as we will see throughout this chapter, have been crucial for villagers’ access to resources (and credit) and information from at least Soviet times and until today (see also e.g. Kuehnast and Dudwick 2004; Sabates-Wheeler 2007; Rubinov 2012; G. Botoeva 2015).

In her ethnographic research in a village not far from Pjak, Botoeva (2015) has traced the evolution of such celebrations in terms of the resources invested by the families who organise the celebration and by invited guests. She points to the increasing monetisation of such celebrations in the last decade. On the one hand, families tend to increase the lavishness of such celebrations in a race to show prestige and status. The hosts thus face an increasing burden in order to maintain their status in front of others: often

<footnote n="5">⁵ This is the case in Uzbekistan (https://eurasianet.org/uzbekistan-wants-to-fine-people-for-partying-too-hard) and Tajikistan (https://www.rferl.org/a/1076782.html; both accessed 28.10.2019).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ The festive component is probably the most neglected in analyses, which usually look for the material and economic functions of a practice that often absorbs an important part of household budgets and time. Most analyses thus tend to undervalue the pleasure – beyond economic or political calculations – that emerges through spending time with relatives and friends, eating abundant food, drinking, chatting, singing and dancing (see Féaux de la Croix 2017, 251–89).</footnote>
families have to rely on very expensive credit to finance their celebrations, since renouncing a celebration
or keeping its costs low is considered a shame. On the other hand, guests' contributions cover part of the
costs of celebrations. Botoeva notes that, whereas this contribution traditionally consisted in animals,
food or labour, a contribution in cash is increasingly expected, which varies according to the kind of
celebration and to the guest's relation to the host family.

I have no quantitative evidence proving a similar evolution in Pjak, but villagers' narratives coincide with Botoeva's observations. When they lament that now they have to pay for everything, they often refer also to social celebrations. It is not uncommon that in our chats over tea villagers start listing all the *tois* to which they have to participate in the upcoming weeks and meticulously calculating the expenses they have to face. These expenses can include not only transfers in cash and in kind to the host family, but sometimes also the purchase of new clothes (or even new teeth<fnref n="7" />). Villagers complain that it is difficult for them to find the money to pay all expected contributions to *tois*. When organising such celebrations, it is tradition that the host family's close relatives contribute also by sending women (especially young women) to help with the preparation of food.<fnref n="8" /> Villagers complain that, whereas this help in the past was provided free of charge (although, indeed, a reciprocation in the same form was probably always expected), today often there is the expectation that this help be remunerated with a small amount of money. Villagers lament a similar process of monetisation of labour support by friends and relatives also beyond *tois*: they mention in particular the common practice of helping each other with *remont* in the house but also with work in the fields, especially when making hay. Villagers interpret this monetisation as a sign, and a consequence, of a broader process of individualisation in which people become increasingly attentive to their own interests and are less ready to support others out of generosity and solidarity.

Botoeva (2015) importantly underlines that the monetisation of social celebrations creates new exclusions
in the community of her field site. In particular, she notes that the poorest families, who cannot afford the
expected monetary contribution to the *tois* to which they are invited, prefer to avoid attending the
gatherings altogether. The other families, noting the recurrent non-attendance of the poor families, or
their too small contribution to the gatherings they attend, in turn start avoiding inviting them to their
celebrations. In this way, the poorest families are cut out of social networks that are vital for their
livelihoods. This has important repercussions on the agricultural activities of these families, who have
fewer chances to receive useful information, credit, or material support in case of need.

<footnote n="7">⁷ In 2016, Dinara's schoolmates organised a weekend of lavish celebrations in her native village for the fiftieth anniversary of their school leaving certificate. For the occasion, Dinara bought new clothes and dentures. I financed the latter as a contribution to the family's budget and a compensation for their hospitality (see below).</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ See Beyer (2016, 39–46, 56) for the way in which lineage and descent define the roles and expectations in these occasions.</footnote>
9.2 A weekend in the potato field

It is sowing time in Pjak. Kumbat's family has been discussing sowing potatoes in their fields for several days. On a Friday morning in early May, a car comes to the house. Meder has come from Bishkek with Sabyr, the son of Kumbat's oldest son Arstan, and three young men. Meder, a big, strong man in his forties whose family comes from a village not far from Pjak, is a good friend of Arstan: they have been working together in a distillery in the capital for ten years. Meder considers Kumbat's family a second family. He has rented land in Pjak for a couple of years, where he cultivates potatoes. His dream, however, is to buy some land in the outskirts of Bishkek and cultivate vegetables in greenhouses there. Sabyr, born in 1992, is Kumbat's oldest grandchild and, among those who do not live in Pjak, he is the one who has the strongest bond to the village. During the agricultural season, he comes to his grandparents' house on a regular basis to help out in the fields and in the house. He arrives with the night bus from Bishkek early on Saturday morning and leaves on Sunday evening. In the agricultural season peaks, when a lot of work is needed in the village, he comes every weekend. In Bishkek, he works with his father and Meder at the distillery, like the three men who arrive today at Kumbat's house. One of them, however, after a car accident that forced him to stop working at the distillery, went back to his family in the same village where Meder's family is from.

The five men have come to Pjak to sow potatoes on one of Kumbat's fields, half of which Meder rents. When they arrive, however, Kumbat gives them bad news: the only potato planter available in the village (a tractor tool that ploughs, sows potatoes, spreads the fertilisers and closes up the soil at the same time) is broken. Dinara and her granddaughter Leila prepare the table and we have tea together, exchanging news from Bishkek and from the village. Dinara, however, does not sit with us: she starts preparing the house and baking bread for the guests, who are planning to stay the whole weekend. Moreover, on Sunday Kumbat's relatives are organising a big gathering, and Dinara was assigned to cook borsoki and prepare salads to help with the preparation.

At one moment, the five men quickly leave the kitchen and go to Ak-Bulut's warehouse to take the potato seeds Meder and Kumbat stored there. A tractor comes to our house and, since I had asked Meder if I could join them in the field, Kumbat invites me to take a seat on it. The man on the tractor drives slowly to Kumbat's field: he does a large detour because the field is not accessible from the main street and he has to ride on small paths through other fields. I had been to the same field two weeks before with Osmon, Kumbat's son who lives in the village, when another tractor already ploughed the field. However, Osmon explains, too much time has passed and in the meantime the soil has dried; it is better to plough the soil once more before sowing the potatoes. Meder and the other men sit at the edge of the field. They have brought several sacks of potato seeds and they are now chatting and smoking. I sit with them for one hour while the tractor ploughs the field, then Meder leaves with his car. It is not clear what is happening: apparently Kumbat and Meder are trying to reach all their contacts in Pjak and in the nearby villages who could help them find a planter.
After one more hour, Meder comes back: there is no planter available. Instead, he has brought some buckets and rubber gloves: we will have to sow the potatoes by hand. Each of us grabs a bucket, fills it with the seeds and walks along the ploughed lines, dropping a potato at regular intervals (Fig. 16). The man who had the car accident helps a bit but mostly sits at the edge of the field, smoking, watching and enjoying the pleasant May sun. After a couple of hours, Meder leaves with the car and comes back with Dinara, Kumbat, some of their grandchildren and the lunch. Dinara and Leila have prepared everything: they lay out a blanket on which they dispose macaroni, boiled eggs, bread and tea from the steaming-hot samovar. After lunch, Dinara and Leila tidy up everything, while Kumbat chats with me and the grandsons play in the field trying to help the men who have already gone back to work. I join them when the others go back home.

We leave the field at sunset, not before a rewarding shot of vodka from Meder's car and a stop at the village shop to buy some beer. It is Meder who chooses the beers and pays for them: one “good beer” in a glass bottle for the foreign guest and several big plastic bottles for him and the others. At home, we all sit in the yard with Kumbat and Dinara, enjoying the beer and chatting about the day. After having heated up some water in the *kazan* (cauldron), the men start washing off the dust of the day. I take back my role as a *kelin*<fnref n="9" /> in the house and help Dinara prepare the table for dinner. When the men are done washing, I am ready to serve them tea and dinner in the kitchen. While I wash the dishes with Leila, the men sit outside chatting, drinking beer and smoking.

The next day, Dinara has to go to her relatives' house to help prepare for the celebration on Sunday. She asks me to stay at home and take care of the men's lunch with Leila. While Meder and the others are in the field and Kumbat and Osmon rest at home, Leila and I work in the kitchen. After serving lunch at home and washing the dishes, I join the men in the field. After finishing sowing the thirty-second line, we stop with the seeds and spread little grains of fertiliser (nitrogen) in the lines. Meanwhile, Meder has left and comes back with a man, his horse, two boys and the tool that closes up the soil after sowing. We sit at the edge of the field, waiting for the boys to finish closing up the lines with the horse. When they finish, it is already dark. Meder apologises to me: we cannot go home right away; it is tradition to toast with vodka to celebrate the end of the work in the fields and to express wishes for an abundant harvest in autumn. We end up staying quite long: the toasts, and the shots, are numerous. Then we leave, repeating the evening routine of the previous day.

On Sunday, I go with Dinara and Kumbat to the family gathering. We spend several hours there, chatting with relatives, drinking tea and enjoying the lavish food served on the festive tables. After the ritual distribution of *beshbarmak*, while the guests are still sipping tea and chatting, I join Meder and the others in the field. Kumbat found a planter in the morning. It is the planter of the Oktjabr cooperative in Cheken and, since Kumbat knows Oktjabr's director, he could convince him to send the planter to Pjak to work

<footnote n="9">⁹ As already discussed, my position in Kumbat's and Dinara's family is multiple and ambiguous. Among others, sometimes I am considered (and referred to) as Kumbat's and Dinara's adopted Swiss daughter, other times as their daughter-in-law (*kelin*), since Dinara often suggests that I should marry her youngest son. When, here and below, I refer to my role as a *kelin* in their family, I intend it broadly as implying a series of duties and responsibilities especially concerning household tasks (duties and responsibilities that, at least in this case, would be similar for an adult daughter).</footnote>
Kumbat's and other villagers' fields on the same day. The planter can quickly finish most of the lines that were left despite our hard work the two previous days, but Meder and the others are still sowing by hand the last lines with the seeds that were too big for the machine. For the last two lines, Meder has bought two new sorts of seeds. We sow them by hand and finish the work after sunset. The horse with the tool will come the next day to close up the last lines. This time we do not linger with vodka and toasts in the field, but drive directly home to quickly repeat the evening routine before the men leave for Bishkek, where they will have to be in the distillery on the morrow. My fieldnotes of the weekend end with the following observation: "I'm a bit sad that Meder and the others are leaving. Meder was very nice to me all weekend, and this evening, at the end of our work in the field, he thanked me, saying that without my hands they couldn't have finished the lines before sunset. I'm feeling proud!" (Fieldnotes, 07.05.2016).

I linger on the details of this weekend in early May not only because its narration revives memories of a particular pleasant and convivial moment of my life in Pjak, but also because it condenses several important characteristics of village life in general and of everyday agricultural practices in particular. This account seems to come from a different world than the one described in the first section of this chapter. The impression is not of agricultural practices that are completely individualised and regulated through market relations, but rather of practices that are based on, and embedded in, strong personal relations of kinship and friendship. It is puzzling, therefore, to compare the results of the quantitative survey and villagers' narrations about the individualisation of agriculture or about the individualism that dominates the village community today with my experience of accompanying Kumbat's family in the fields and with other observations of agricultural work in the village. In the rest of the chapter, I will discuss these experiences and observations and re-read agricultural practices in Pjak from a different perspective – a perspective that allows us to remain open to diversity and plurality.

## 9.3 Everyday practices of agriculture

Many of the activities occurring during the weekend described in the previous section are monetised. Meder pays a rent for Kumbat's field and a fee for storing his potatoes in Ak-Bulut's warehouse. For the sowing, he mostly uses seeds from his own harvest of the previous year, plus some that he bought from a private retailer in Bishkek. The services of the tractor that ploughs the field are paid the same evening, as are the services of the horse and the planter. It is possible also that the two men from Bishkek receive monetary compensation for the work provided during the weekend, although when I ask Sabyr whether the two men are paid a wage he replies: "No, we work as a collective. We are a group at the distillery and we help each other also outside the distillery" (Sabyr, 06.05.2016). It is probable also that the women helping with the preparation of the family gathering, including Dinara, receive monetary compensation for their help.

One could indeed interpret this monetisation as a sign of the commodification of agricultural activities, which, at least in part, is the case. However, the account of our weekend in the potato field reveals that these monetised relations are not simply regulated by the market as an external and overarching entity,
but are inserted in a complex system of social relations. I turn thus now to the detailed analysis of these relations with the help of some examples of specific activities related to agriculture.

### 9.3.1 Exchanges between and within multi-sited households

Until now, I have mainly taken the household as the unit of analysis. When speaking about Ak-Bulut’s “members” for instance, or about the members of the peasant farms emerged during decollectivisation, I have usually intended not only one single person but also the other members of his or her family who live in the same house. I have already mentioned the division of labour within households when discussing the reproductive and care work performed by women. It is important, at this point, to reflect more in detail about the composition of households, the relations between their members and their spatial organisation.

In typical Kyrgyz families, married couples live together with their children until these get married. When the first son marries, his wife moves into his parents' house. When the next son marries, the first son moves out with his wife and children, and the new wife moves in her parents-in-law's house. When daughters get married, they move out of their parents' house to join their in-laws. It is thus the youngest son who is expected to remain with his wife and children in his parents' house until their death. This is the general norm in Kyrgyzstani villages; however, as one can expect, the actual practices often deviate from this norm. I discuss here the case of Kumbat's family (Fig. 17), which seems representative of what I could observe in other households in Pjak.

Kumbat and Dinara have four sons and one daughter. The oldest son, Arstan (born in 1969) lives with his wife and five children in Bishkek and works with his oldest son, Sabyr, at the distillery. Kumbat's youngest son, Samat (born in 1989) lives with Arstan in Bishkek, where he works as a sport teacher and football trainer. When he gets married in 2018, it is clear for everybody that he will move with his new wife into their own apartment in Bishkek, where he will continue his professional career. Bermet, Kumbat's daughter, also lives in Bishkek with her husband and three children. Osmon, Kumbat's second-oldest son, lives not far from his parents in Pjak in the house of Bermet's husband, left empty when he moved to Bishkek with Bermet. Osmon's wife regularly migrates to Russia for work to earn money for the house they are building in the village. When she is in Russia, Osmon and his three children mostly live in Kumbat's and Dinara's house and leave their house to Bermet's husband's young cousin Joldosh, whose father died and whose mother lives in Bishkek with her new partner. Tuman, Kumbat's second-youngest son who studied agronomy, used to live with his wife and three small children in Kumbat's house. The three children live in their grandparents' house, but Tuman and his wife migrated to Russia to earn money to pay back the debt he contracted for a failed investment (see §7.3).

The youngest of Bermet's and Arstan's children spend most or part of their school holidays with their grandparents in Pjak. In Kumbat's and Dinara's house, there are sometimes more than ten grandchildren. Many are still very young, so they cannot help their grandparents much with everyday tasks in the house and in the garden and require considerable care work from Dinara and the older grandchildren. Leila (born in 2002), Osmon's oldest daughter, is the one who most helps out with these tasks, taking over the
role of the missing daughter-in-law (kelin) in the house. In 2017 she starts secondary school in Karakol. During the week she lives in Karakol at her maternal aunt's house and comes back to Pjak for weekends and school holidays. As explained above, Sabyr comes regularly to the village to help out not only in the fields but also in the house. The oldest among the grandchildren who live in Bishkek come in summer for shorter periods of time, especially when help is needed for instance for the traditional summer remont.<fnref n="10" /> In winter, Kumbat and/or Dinara use to spend some time in Arstan's house in Bishkek. The house is still under construction and Arstan, his sons and Samat invest their free time working on it. Sometimes they organise a week or two for larger works in the house, for which they hire additional workers who often come from Pjak. On these occasions, Kumbat and/or Dinara stay in Arstan's house, helping out with the work organisation or, respectively, supporting Arstan's wife in preparing food for the workers.

When Kumbat's sons or daughter visit their parents from Bishkek, they often bring presents from the city, like clothes, toys and spirits from Arstan's distillery. They spend their time in the village hanging around with old friends but also helping in the fields and in the house. Every time their children go back to Bishkek, Kumbat and Dinara fill the car with food: fruits, jams, eggs, vegetables and sometimes full sacks of flour or potatoes. They pack the same products, but in smaller quantities, on the night bus every time Sabyr travels back to Bishkek. Similar exchanges of non-food products from the city and food products from the village also take place when members of the extended family (including me as Kumbat's and Dinara's "Swiss daughter", Fig. 19) come to visit, however, with less regularity and in general with smaller amounts of goods exchanged.

In the case of Kumbat's family, I consider each family unit composed of a son or daughter with his or her spouse and their children as a separate household and Kumbat and Dinara with Tuman and his wife and children as another household (Fig. 17). We see, however, that the division between households is blurred. Spatially, the division does not correspond to the norm presented above: sons and daughters move outside the village or outside the country following job opportunities or professional aspirations; the family units merge and separate spatially following the rhythm of agricultural seasons and school holidays. Economically, the households are intertwined in multiple and diverse exchanges of goods, labour and resources that make them interdependent. As we will see more in detail below, whereas some of these exchanges are regulated by specific expectations of reciprocation, most of them are inscribed within a broader system of family reciprocities where no account is kept of the single exchanges and the exchanges are not calculated monetarily. This does not mean, however, that there are no strong expectations of support from other households or household members – expectations that can often become a burden for the single members, especially for women. Dinara for instance often complains about the time and energy required by the care of her grandchildren when their mothers are not at home.

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Once a year, the house is emptied of the furniture, deeply cleaned and repainted. Carpets, mattresses, blankets and curtains are cleaned or washed. Other additional *remont* tasks are performed in alternation every two or three years. See Fig. 18.</footnote>
Leila, who usually performs household tasks without complaints, once cries<sup>11</sup> while doing laundry in the yard and confesses to me that this represents an enormous burden for her.

Moreover, it must be noted that I have only considered here the households composed of Kumbat and Dinara and their children. The spatial and economic intertwining, however, is not limited to these five households. First, each of them has further similar relationships with the in-law family. Second, each household is also linked to many other family units composed of close or distant relatives, friends, former schoolmates, neighbours or colleagues, like in the case of Arstan and Meder. The relationships to these other family units might be less cemented and regular than with parents, in-laws, sisters and brothers, but are equally crucial for the livelihoods of single households, as we will see more in detail in the next sections. Especially the relationships with the in-law families can provoke competing reciprocity expectations that produce resentments between the families and, less frequently, open conflicts. One example is the management of Osmon's wife's remittances when she is in Russia. Apparently, she used to send money to her own mother and sisters, which of course slows down the building of the house for Osmon's family. Dinara considers that Osmon's wife should think first of her children, her "true"<sup>12</sup> family and that she should not send so much money to her "other" family.

### 9.3.2 Land use

Several of the exchanges described above between members of Kumbat's family in the village and in the capital are also linked to the property and management of agricultural land. In principle, every household member who was already born in 1996 received 0.61 hectares of arable land in Pjak<sup>13</sup> (§8.4.1). Today, some family members do not live in the village, but they still own land shares there. In the case of Kumbat's family, the four<sup>14</sup> households pool their land together for collective cultivation by the family members who live in the village. In everyday conversations, I usually hear them referring generally to "our land", without distinguishing whether a particular plot formally belongs to one or the other person. The only time one of them expresses a separation in this sense is when, visiting some fields, Kumbat points at one plot and comments, teasing Osmon: "You see that barley? It doesn't look good. It's Osmon's barley!" (Kumbat, 07.06.2016). Dinara later explains that the family considers that 1.8 hectares are Osmon's land: these hectares, however, do not correspond to Osmon's official land property, but they are a share of the pooled family land that the family has decided to entrust to Osmon. This means in practice that Osmon decides himself what to plant and organises the field work on his own. For the rest of

<footnote n="11"><sup>11</sup> Whereas for children crying is normal, it is less accepted for teenagers and adults, except for some specific reasons and in some specific occasions. The burden of household tasks for women is surely not one of those reasons or occasions. I thank Paulina Simkin for a discussion on this subject.</footnote>

<footnote n="12"><sup>12</sup> Dinara here refers to the tradition that, when a woman marries and moves out from her own parents' house, she also symbolically exit her father's lineage to join the lineage of her husband's father (see Judith Beyer 2016, 47–48, see also above).</footnote>

<footnote n="13"><sup>13</sup> Remember that this was not the case for every household. However, since Kumbat was part of the land commission and well informed about its procedures, the documents to be presented and the room of manoeuvre left to the commission for decisions, all his sons, his daughter and their respective children, living in the village or outside, could receive a land share.</footnote>

<footnote n="14"><sup>14</sup> See previous section: 1) Kumbat and Dinara with Tuman, his wife and children; 2) Arstan, his wife and children and, until his marriage in 2018, Samat; 3) Bermet, her husband and children; 4) Osmon, his wife and children. To which was added, since 2018, 5) Samat and his wife. See Fig. 17.</footnote>
the land, the men of the four households usually take decisions by consulting with one another. Sabyr
notes that, since Anabrek has 50 years of experience as an agronomist, he usually has the last word in
these consultations. In the end, however, all the harvest is brought to Kumbat's yard and nobody
calculates how much was from "Osmon's fields" and how much from the rest of the land.

I discuss with Sabyr how he considers his contribution to the work in the fields: is he coming to “help” or
is he coming as a duty? Does he feel different when he is working on “Osmon’s field”, on what is
registered as his own plot, or on other plots of the family? He explains:

I have never thought about this. The point is that we are siblings<fnref n="15" /> and I feel the same when I cultivate the different parts of the land. [...] I don't feel obliged to cultivate and work here in the village. Osmon is of my same blood: it is neither “helping” nor a duty, I just do it. I come here instead of lying at home in Bishkek while Kumbat ata is taking the shovel and going to the fields or loading the hay... It is a terrible picture that I cannot bear to imagine! (Sabyr, 05.09.2017).

For Sabyr, there is thus no separation between the formal ownership of land plots among the four households: this corresponds to how the other family members talk about their land. Sabyr enjoys being in the village, seeing his school friends, playing football with them and taking care of the land; he dreams of coming back to live in the village one day. Whereas he states that he does not feel that coming to the village and working in the field is a *duty*, from his quotation emerges what can be read as a *moral* duty, i.e. the expectation that children support their parents especially when they are old and expend great physical effort. A bit earlier, Sabyr commented: “The Kyrgyz mentality<fnref n="16" /> is that the land is not mine, I don’t care which piece is really my land plot. The point is to not abandon the land and the family here” (05.09.2017). Again, he expresses a sense of moral duty towards the family in the village, which should not be “abandoned”.

The exchanges of goods between the town and the village discussed in the previous section are thus in part related to the ownership of land and the redistribution of the value generated through its cultivation. Sabyr further explains: “There is no fix agreement among the members of the family for the cultivation of the land. This is the Kyrgyz mentality: we share things” (05.09.2017). The family units in Bishkek receive from the units in the village an amount of potatoes and flour that allows to cover their yearly consumption. This, however, is not necessarily considered as a direct compensation for the use, by others, of their land plots, but rather as part of the broader exchanges described in the previous section.

Sabyr observes that for his relatives in Bishkek, it is profitable *per se* if someone cultivates their land in the village. First, land owners have to pay a land tax to the local government regardless of whether they are cultivating the land. The norm in the village is that, in the case a plot is rented out or lent to others, it is not the owner but the person who cultivates the plot who is responsible for paying the tax. An unused plot represents thus a negative asset that generates costs and no profits. Second, the cultivation process, if

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ In a strict sense, Sabyr is not Kumbat’s son. However, he explains, since he spent his early childhood with Kumbat and Dinara in Pjak while his own parents lived in Bishkek, he considers Kumbat’s sons and daughter as his own siblings.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ I will come back to the idea of “the Kyrgyz mentality” later.</footnote>
conducted in a specific way, helps maintain soil quality and avoid its deterioration. Third, if a plot is
abandoned, it can be “stolen” by the owners of neighbouring plots, who can move the demarcation signs
so to increase the size of their plots.

A multi-sited organisation of household groups as described in the previous section seems to be the norm
in Pjak – as in the rest of the country and region (e.g. Smith and Stenning 2006). These kinds of
arrangements between households of the same family for the common use of the land shares of those who
do not live in the village are therefore very widespread. Sabyr confirms what I have already noted in my
observations in Pjak:

There are siblings who handle the land in common. There are also siblings who handle the land separately, but they still work in common. They cultivate separately but then when it is the high time of harvest they help each other. First they do together the harvest of one, then the others, in turn. This is very common. There are also of course siblings who do it all separated, in this case they send their children to work when it's harvest time. (Sabyr, 05.09.2019).

What emerges here is that, if “individually” means “within the same household”, many households in the village do not perform agricultural activities individually, but rather in collaboration with close relatives of other households. This does not mean that there are no examples of harsh conflicts between siblings about land management and use. It also does not mean that this system of collective management never creates injustices or inequalities between and within the households. I have mentioned already that it is especially difficult for divorced women to gain back actual access to their own plots. Also, in a social system like the Kyrgyz one where gender and age determine one person's authority and possibilities to voice his/her concerns, it is clear that family-based agreements tend to be dominated by the decisions of household leaders – in our case by Kumbat. The younger generations and women have thus fewer opportunities to shape the agricultural activities of the family according to their ideas and aspirations. The general consequence – with due exceptions – is a tendency to conservatism in agricultural practices and little room for innovations and alternative ideas.

As observed more generally for exchanges between households at the end of Section 9.3.1, also agreements for the cultivation of land in Pjak are not limited to the households of sons, daughters and siblings, but include the in-law families as well as other households linked through other kinship or friendship ties. For instance, of “Osmon’s” 1.8 hectares, 1.2 hectares are owned by Bermet’s husband, who entrusted them to his in-law family when his family moved to Bishkek. We have also seen that Meder rents 1 hectare of the land of Kumbat’s family and collaborates with its members for cultivation. In this case, the rent is monetised and the separation of the physical plots, but also of the expenses and later of the harvest, is more rigorous. Nevertheless, fieldwork is organised collectively by Meder and Kumbat’s family, especially Sabyr.

My observations in the village (and Sabyr's explanations above) suggest thus that the use of land by villagers and by their relatives outside the village is more fluid than what has emerged from the quantitative survey. Agreements similar to the ones described in the previous paragraphs seem to be
common in Pjak. Depending on the kind of relations between families, some are based on collaboration and are mostly nonmonetised, whereas others are more strictly regulated through market relations and monetised. It seems that only the latter are acknowledged in the responses to my survey.

9.3.3 Labour

Labour for agricultural activities

Several people participated in fieldwork while sowing potatoes in Kumbat’s and Meder’s fields. Members of Kumbat’s family (including myself), Meder and the other men from the distillery contributed labour mostly without direct (monetised or nonmonetised) compensation. All these persons are linked by close kinship or by friendship. The weekend of potato sowing represented not only a necessary milestone in agricultural production, but also an occasion for strengthening these ties, spending some time in the company of relatives and friends and enjoying the spring sun and the fresh air of the village. In fact, Meder also included the injured men in the group, without expecting him to help with the fieldwork but rather offering him an occasion for socialisation and a distraction from his daily routine.

One could also wonder if I was myself an object of these functions during the weekend, i.e. if the weekend was organised in the way described also as way to provide Kumbat’s and Dinara’s Swiss guest with a specific experience of field work: the “genuineness” of manual work in the field, the conviviality of spending the weekend together, the enjoyment of fresh air and warm sun.17 Meder certainly cared to please and honour the foreign guest (for instance by buying a beer in a glass bottle only for me or by praising the lunch I prepared and my work in the field) during the weekend, but I presume that the manual sowing would have been organised similarly also if I would have not been there. Even when the planter machine sows the seeds, physical work is needed to bring the seeds and the fertiliser to the field and to load them on the planter. Also, some seeds were too big for the planter, and Meder had two new sorts of seeds in too small quantity for the planter. The risk that the planter would be available only when the men had gone back to Bishkek was thus too high: using the planter without the men from Bishkek would have meant the need to hire additional labour for the fieldwork and a car to bring the inputs to the field since Kumbat’s family does not own a car in the village.

A specific division of tasks within the group also emerged from my account of the weekend. Kumbat, too old to perform physical work, has the role of the director, giving advice on the organisation of the work and looking for tractors or horses. Dinara and Leila, as women respectively too old and too young to work in the field, are nevertheless crucial to the field work since they take care of preparing food for the workers and assuring their comfort in the house. Were there an adult but not an old woman in the family, she would probably perform tasks similar to the ones I performed. This means, as I have shown above when describing my role during the first day, that I could take over a double role – and the consequent

<footnote n="17">17 I thank Bruno Meeus for this observation.</footnote>
famous “double burden” (see §8.3.4) – both as a field worker during the day and as responsible for home tasks in the evening. Indeed, when we arrived at home from the field the first evening, I did not feel it legitimate to join the men in their washing ritual and later in their lingering in the yard with beers and cigarettes, so I automatically took back my role as an adult woman in the house by preparing the table, serving tea to the men and tidying up when the dinner was over.

The account of the weekend also shows that the obligations linked to *tois* can interfere and conflict with agricultural tasks. Although the peak of celebrations is in autumn after the harvest, they are also held during the rest of the year: families often have to juggle to find enough time to fulfil their obligations for the celebrations while keeping to their agricultural calendar. Once again, it is especially the labour of women that is mobilised for celebrations: Dinara is very anxious during the weekend because she has to help with the preparations in the house that will host the family gathering, while she is simultaneously responsible for the board and lodging of the men from Bishkek in her house. Certainly is she able to delegate part of the tasks to the other female members of her family (including myself), but she still has to maintain the overview and control to be sure that all tasks are performed correctly. Indeed, while Leila and I prepare lunch for the men the second day, Dinara repeatedly calls me to ask how everything is going.

As suggested by Sabyr above, it is common in the village to rely on the help of relatives but also of friends and neighbours in the moments when the labour is most needed in the fields – especially for harvesting and making hay. Often, as Sabyr explains, the help is reciprocated immediately for the same activities in the helpers’ fields. Joldosh (born in 1991), Bermet’s husband’s cousin who lives alone in Pjak, explains that he always performs fieldwork in his fields with the same group of four former schoolmates. Although each of them manages the expenses and the revenues of his land by his own, the group rotates to perform the most labour-intensive tasks in each other’s field. Although I could not directly observe this practice during my stays in Pjak, I know from villagers’ statements and from my survey that households sometimes also rely on hired labour for fieldwork. What I could observe, however, was the hiring of wage labourers in the domain of construction work – a domain that is therefore worth a short digression here.

## Labour for construction work

Academic publications sometimes mention the practice of *ashar* as an example of traditional (or re-traditionalised) community work in Kyrgyzstani villages (§3.2.2). During my stays in Pjak in 2015 and 2016, however, the concept never emerges in my discussions with villagers. In 2017, I ask some of my interlocutors explicitly about *ashar*. Some of my youngest interlocutors do not understand exactly what I am talking about. Older villagers, on the contrary, explain that *ashar* is a traditional practice of helping each other in construction work, in particular when a young family is building a house in the village (Fig. 20). The expectation of mutual support in the form of labour by a male household member concerns the households of the same lineage. As in the case of women helping in the preparation of celebrations, this
help can be monetarily remunerated, but it is not considered as wage work. Similar to the rituals
described above concerning agricultural fieldwork (e.g. the toast after the end of the day), the
construction of a house also includes small or medium-size celebrations marking specific achievements.
For instance, when the foundation of Osmon's house is finished, Dinara and Osmon's wife organise a
lavish lunch in the garden for the workers; this also represents a convivial moment when relatives can
enjoy time together.

It is very common, however, to also hire external workforce for the construction of a house. As far as I could observe, with the exception of the qualified specialists who are hired for specific technical tasks, usually the simple wage labourers are men who have visible alcoholism problems or whose households are considered poor – two things that can easily coincide. Often, these men are ethnic Russians from nearby villages or from the town. This observation resonates with the explanation of one of Féaux de la Croix's (2017, 239) interlocutors in another village in rural Kyrgyzstan, who states that "someone who is working for someone else in the village is by definition a poor person". Féaux de la Croix (ibid.) suggests that "helping out acquaintances for money amounts to admitting publicly that you cannot manage without selling your self-determination to others". The workforce hired for construction work in Pjak seems to confirm this argument. The ethnicisation of such activities is probably due to a weaker stigmatisation of wage labour among ethnic Russians in comparison with ethnic Kyrgyz (but also probably to the higher poverty rates among ethnic Russians in the region).

It is probable that similar practices of wage labour and its stigmatisations exists in the agricultural
domain. This would also explain why in my survey, respondents never indicate that agricultural tasks are
performed by friends and relatives against monetary remuneration, although sometimes it can be the case.
Even when the labour provided by friends or relatives is remunerated monetarily, it is not considered as
wage labour and the importance of the monetary remuneration is discursively downplayed. Indeed,
providing support in the form of labour to a friend or relative against a monetary remuneration is
symbolically different, and less stigmatised, than accepting to work as a wage labourer.

9.3.4 Agricultural inputs, information and knowledge

Markets for agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilisers, pesticides) have gradually emerged, with private retailers now covering the whole region. Problems in accessing these inputs are today mostly related to the scarce availability of financial resources for farmers. Villagers wish to increase land productivity through the use of new breeds of seeds and agrochemical products; however, these goods are expensive and farmers often rely on old seeds and limit the use of chemicals. This practice, in the absence of alternative techniques, provokes the degradation of seed material and soil quality year after year.

It is important to mention that this vision is based on a concept of modern agriculture that ties the increase
in land productivity to the use of agrochemical products and the advancement of biotechnology. Of
course, other models of agriculture exist that propose alternative agricultural techniques for maintaining
soil quality and productivity without recurring to expensive (and often environmentally damaging or
risky) technologies and products. In this regard, the discourse on organic farming is growing in Kyrgyzstan. The few development projects that still focus primarily on agricultural production mostly promote organic agriculture and its certification process. Farmers in the Issyk-Kul region like to underline that their products are per definition natural, ecological and clean. They relate with pride the “cleanness” of their products to the beautiful nature of the region and to what they present as the traditional respect Kyrgyz people have for this nature. Moreover, farmers often underline, not without some irony, that their products are forcibly organic, since they cannot afford the use of agrochemical products. Nevertheless, when they speak about the agricultural production process, the productivity of their land plots or the profitability of their agricultural activities more generally, the vision that emerges from the narrations of many farmers remains a vision of, and an aspiration to, modern agriculture as defined above (see also Chapter 7).

Coming back to the practices of accessing agricultural inputs in Pjak: I could observe that spontaneous exchanges with other villagers are common. For instance, for farmers it is a problem when their harvest of wheat or barley results in grains that are not suited to being used as seeds the following year. In these cases, a farmer can seek a farmer with a better harvest of the same crop and barter some sacks of his/her grains for the same amount of the better grains. The second farmer can then use the grains from the first farmer for flour for private consumption or animal feed.

In small Pjak, farmers follow the evolution of the cultivation by other farmers with interest: what seeds they have sown, how their harvest is, at what price they could sell their potatoes, etc. Farmers observe the fields of their neighbours to compare the crops with their own (Fig. 21). The comparison and discussion of the agricultural process, inputs, results and prices are common conversation topics when villagers meet spontaneously in the streets but also when they visit each other's houses and when they gather for celebrations. In this regard, the frequent *tois* discussed above do not only represent a financial and material burden for villagers but also an occasion to share crucial information and knowledge. It is also not uncommon, when seeing that someone has sown a new sort of seeds or crops, to ask about it and maybe, the following year, buy a sack of the new sort to try in one's own field. In her quotation at the beginning of the chapter, Aziza underlines that Kumbat remains a reference for her family for what concerns information about the market of agricultural inputs as well as about cultivation techniques.

Another example of informal information exchanges among villagers is when Aisha and her husband decide to buy some beehives from a beekeeping farm in the region and place them in their garden planning to later sell the honey in the village. Since they have neither experience with nor knowledge on beekeeping, they ask a friend from the nearby village for advice. He comes to install the hives and for the most delicate moments of their maintenance; Aisha and her husband call him when they have a doubt or a question. The next year, some villagers, having seen the beehives in Aisha's garden, become interested in beekeeping and ask her to sell them one or two beehives. Aisha and her husband are not simply selling the hives through a market relation, but will later share their knowledge and advice on beekeeping to these villagers.
9.3.5 Agricultural machines

It is part of the tasks of local governments to invite twice a year, in early spring and early autumn, all residents to a community meeting in each of the five villages of the ayil. One of the aims of these meetings is to fix the prices for using agricultural machines and for the services of herders who bring villagers' animals to the pastures. Attendants also discuss the calendar of agricultural activities, in particular in order to avoid that herders return to the village before farmers have finished harvesting their fields, which could lead animals to damage the harvest and thus cause conflicts between villagers. The negotiations usually start from the prices of the previous year with machine owners and herders claiming higher prices (by advancing the argument of the high costs of spare parts or the risk and hardship linked to spending over six months in the pastures) and other villagers insisting on keeping the prices low (by arguing that the margin of profit for their agricultural activities is constantly decreasing). Despite some small variations from year to year and from village to village, prices were mostly stable in the years of my fieldwork.

Not all villagers, however, attend these meetings. First, the information about upcoming meetings is
spread in the village unevenly, often by word of mouth, and reaches thus most easily villagers who are
closely related to members of the local administration. Second, the ones who are legitimised to attend are
usually men, whereas the attendance of women is considered strange, if not inappropriate. Third, many
villagers state that, even if they are aware of the upcoming meeting, they do not see why they should
attend it. They motivate their scarce interest by explaining that, since the negotiations are led by few
persons who have most authority in the village, they feel that their own opinion is not considered and that
they cannot influence the final decisions. Some comment that, in general, Kyrgyz people do not like to
fight openly, especially in Pjak, where most villagers are also close or distant relatives. Therefore, many
avoid entering in heated discussions in the public meetings and prefer to negotiate later the prices in
person with machine owners or herders. Furthermore, villagers underline that many of the decisions taken
at the meetings are not enforced in practice. Since there are few agricultural machines in the village, the
few who own them are in a position of power compared to farmers who need their services, so the former
can therefore often obtain prices higher than those fixed in the meetings. Farmers who are charged a
higher price rarely turn to the local administration with complaints: they do not believe a formal
complaint would change the situation. Indeed, representatives of the local administration admit that the
enforcement of the decisions taken in the meetings is difficult and that concrete sanctions are rarely
applied.

Farmers usually call machine owners by phone when they need the service of their machine. They often comment that, today, waiting times for obtaining the requested service (1-2 days) are much shorter than some years before. Nevertheless, the waiting time often does not allow farmers to accomplish the planned fieldwork in the optimal moment, especially when concerning weather conditions. Furthermore, as we have seen during the weekend in Kumbat's fields, it is not uncommon that machines (which are usually old and overexploited) break, and that several days are necessary to find the fitting spare parts and repair them. This, again, can delay fieldwork, but also generate conflicts between owners and farmers and
among farmers on the waiting list, who fight to anticipate their turn in order not to lose precious time in the cultivation process. The difficult coordination of different fieldwork tasks requiring machines or labour can lead to the repetition of tasks (remember that Kumbat's and Meder' fields were ploughed twice) – and thus to a loss of money and time.

Since Pjak is a small village and the number of machine owners is limited, farmers know each owner personally. They know how the owner works, what kind of machine and tools he<fnref n="18" /> has and what prices he normally charges. In this sense, although farmers are dependent on the few machine owners for the realisation of field work, owners also have an interest in maintaining their reputation as reliable and fair. The negotiation of prices happens thus on a personal level between the farmer and the machine owner: the machine owner brings arguments to *convince* the farmer that the fixed price is too low, but avoids imposing the price in a unidirectional way. Also, machine owners know the spatial distribution of villagers' plots. Some of them admit that sometimes they change the order of farmers on the waiting list to reduce the distance their machines have to travel, which allows to save a considerable amount of time and fuel. However, this practice might cause conflicts with farmers complaining about the delayed service. Although in my survey none of the respondents stated that s/he coordinates with farmers cultivating neighbouring plots to call the machine owner at the same time, I could collect evidence of the existence of such practice, even if it is infrequent.

### 9.3.6 Irrigation

**Irrigation management through the WUA**

In Kok-Bulak there is a Water User Association (WUA), which is responsible for water and irrigation management on the territory of the five villages of the *aiyl*. The WUA's executive board, composed of three hydro-technicians, one manager and one accountant, in principle responds to the general assembly of members that takes place every year. In each single village, a *mirab* (water manager) is responsible for the concrete organisation and control of irrigation activities. WUAs are formally independent of the local government and are responsible for the collection of water taxes, the repair and maintenance of the irrigation infrastructure and the distribution of water for irrigation in the fields (see §3.1.1).

When I ask them about the irrigation of their fields, most residents of Pjak answer rapidly that it is easy: they call the *mirab*, he<fnref n="19" /> puts them on the waiting list and they can irrigate their fields when their turn comes. The same villagers state that there are no major conflicts around water and irrigation in the village. However, when asking the same questions to Aisha and Begimai – two women with whom I have built a close relation of trust – both point to the widespread problems and numerous shortcomings of the

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ As far as I could observe in Pjak, not only machine drivers, but also machine owners (or at least those who manage their use) are exclusively men.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ *Mirabs* are usually men.</footnote>
current water management system.<fnref n="20" /> First of all, when discussing this topic with Aisha, it turns out that she did not know that there was a WUA in Pjak. Her husband, who joins the discussion later, knew something about a WUA but he thought that it was an organ of the local government. Aisha and her husband are very engaged villagers who take care to remain informed about the happenings in the village and to influence them according to their aspirations and ideas (see §8.5.3). If even two active villagers like Aisha and her husband do not know the principles and status of the WUA, I suspect that most villagers are not aware of them, either. In fact, when I speak with other villagers, they refer in general terms to some responsible persons for water (sometimes using the term *mirab*) but do not mention the WUA. Aisha confirms that for her, like probably for many other villagers, the persons who are responsible for water and irrigation are part of the local administration. She perceives the WUA thus as just another state organ that collects taxes from her. I have the same impression when speaking with villagers about the Pasture User Committee (PUCs, see §3.1.2).

Only Begimai, who is a deputy in the local council, seems to be aware of the legal status and formal functions of the WUA. She notes, however, that since its establishment in 2010, problems and conflicts around water have even increased: these problems, according to her, are not caused by drought or the lack of water, but rather by poor management. The WUA is not able to fulfil its expected tasks, i.e. to perform the necessary maintenance of the irrigation infrastructure and to guarantee the control over the distribution of water to single farmers according to the waiting list. For Begimai, this poor management is mainly due to the lack of qualified and motivated staff in the WUA. For instance, she underlines that nobody wants to be the *mirab* in Pjak: the job is poorly paid, and potential candidates know that the position as an intermediary between farmers and the WUA's executive board would bring them a lot of problems, conflicts and “headaches”. Also, she continues, since the WUA collects a water fee for every time a farmer irrigates a plot, then if the season is particularly rainy, the WUA's income is dramatically cut, since farmers resort less often on artificial irrigation. Since the agricultural season in 2016 was particularly humid, in 2017 the WUA does not have the resources to execute the necessary maintenance of the irrigation infrastructure, leading to increased conflicts and complaints.

Aisha traces the cause of the poor performance of the WUA (or, as she perceives it, of the governmental organ for water management) to corruption practices. Aisha complains often about representatives of the local governments and civil servants who divert public resources into their own pockets or favour their relatives and friends. The WUA and its members are no exception: Aisha laments that the WUA collects taxes as forfeits in proportion to the number of hectares and the type of crop each farmer cultivates. Even if a farmer does not irrigate his/her fields during the whole season, s/he has to pay the full forfeit. This indication contradicts Begimai's statements above; I suspect that this contradiction reveals the unclear and confused institutional practices of the WUA, on the one had, but might also suggest some “personal adaptations” of the official procedures by *mirabs* and/or WUA board members.

<footnote n="20">²⁰ Also in this case, villagers' reticence to speak about conflicts and problems might be due to a wish to give a positive image of their village to a foreigner (see §7.2.5). Since many of the people with whom I speak are close to Kumbat and part of his network, it might also be an indication of the favouritisms denounced by Aisha below.</footnote>
When I discuss this topic with Aisha in late August 2017, she explains that, although she has already paid the whole forfeit of the water tax, she was not able to irrigate her fields during the whole season. As usual, the *mirab* put her on the waiting list; however, when her turn came, he told her that she had to wait a bit longer because there was no water available. After ten days, finally, the *mirab* called her saying that she could irrigate her fields, but when her husband went to the canal to divert water in their fields, the canal was dry. When I ask her whether there is anything they could do to receive their water, or at least to have their money reimbursed; she replies:

> No. We were calling the *mirab* but I guess he recognised our phone number and he stopped answering. We cannot do anything! I wanted to do something but my husband didn't want to; he didn't want to fight with people for this. So in the end we lost 700 soms [10 USD] and we didn't water our fields. (Aisha, 31.08.2017)

Aisha is sure that the *mirab* privileged his own friends or relatives by allowing them to use more water than formally agreed – water that then was lacking for Aisha’s field. From her quotation, we see that in these cases, although WUA regulations in principle guarantee formal procedures for complaints and sanctions, such procedures are rarely implemented. On the one hand, Aisha has limited confidence in, and limited expectations from, formal procedures in general, which she thinks are anyway co-opted by personal favours and corruption.<fnref n="21" /> On the other hand, she points also to her husband’s reticence to enter in open conflict with other villagers. This mirrors what I observed above for the case of price negotiations in community meetings.

Whatever the cause of these problems, the consequence is that the access to water for irrigation is often precarious, at least for some villagers. This problem is exacerbated in Pjak, whose geographical location is less favourable than other villages of the *ayil*.<fnref n="22" /> Water for irrigation is brought to the five villages through two large canals. Pjak receives water from the two canals, both of which, however, pass through one or two other villages before reaching Pjak. Because of this particular location, if water is not strictly controlled in the other villages, the canals in Pjak remain dry. The *mirabs* of the other villages can afford to be looser about water control: since water is often largely available there, these *mirabs* have larger margins and are more likely to close one (or two) eye(s) when someone diverts water that was targeted for Pjak. It is also in this sense that Begimai states that nobody wants to be the *mirab* in Pjak.

Aisha, Begimai, but also some other villagers in Pjak explain that, as an informal solution to these problems, farmers often organise in groups to assure the control over the water flow that the *mirab* fails to provide. These groups are usually composed by the farmers whose turn for irrigation falls on the same day: while one farmer is watering his/her field, each of the other farmers controls one main water diversion point in turn over the course of the whole day. The same system of control is used during the night to water household plots and gardens. In fact, the WUA is responsible only for the distribution of

<footnote n="21">²¹ Remember her odyssey in §8.5.3 to obtain the support of the local administration for her project to establish a processing factory for fruit and wool in Pjak. During that odyssey, she bypassed the local administration, which she considers as irremediably corrupt, to obtain what she wanted.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²² This is probably the main reason for the absence of early Slavic settlers in Pjak, since these settlers usually selected the locations with the best water access.</footnote>
water to irrigate the fields during the day. There is, however, also a water contingent that flows to the village in the night, but the use of this water is not regulated by the *mirab*. Aisha suggests that the self-managed watering at night works much better and with less conflicts than the watering of fields during the day managed by the WUA.

## Community work for canal maintenance

Begimai explains that the WUA is directly responsible for the maintenance only of the big canals on the mountains and between the villages. For the smaller canals, the WUA delegates maintenance (mainly cleaning in spring) to villagers through forms of community work: one representative of each household is invited to form a group with his<sup>23</sup> neighbours to clean up the small canals on the whole village territory. Begimai further explains that these community works are organised at the same community meetings I have discussed above. Most villagers (likely because many do not attend such meetings) state that they receive the information about the community work by word of mouth from other villagers. Certainly, the fact that these works are organised by or through the local government probably contributes to villagers' confusion about the independent status of the WUA.

Some villagers refer to this community work on canals as *subbotniki*, but most villagers do not use any specific term. Only Begimai mentions the concept of *ashar* in this context, but rather to explain that the maintenance of the canals is a community practice of mutual support similar to *ashar*. When I ask in general about *subbotniki*, villagers usually do not think firstly of the maintenance of canals but rather of the Soviet-inherited tradition of community work performed by schoolchildren on weekends (see §8.3.1). This tradition is still practiced in the village: few times a year, in spring and autumn, children are convened to clean the school garden and other public spaces in the village. Usually on these same days, their parents and other adult villagers spontaneously organise with their neighbours to clean the street in front of their houses.

Villagers maintain that usually the participation in these community works is fairly good, although of course there are households who do not send any members. This practice does not provide for formal sanctions in case of non-participation; villagers, however, explain that they feel a moral obligation to contribute to the community work and fear shame rather than material sanctions. As Begimai puts it, "how would you look at your neighbour the day after, if you skipped the community work?" (20.08.2017). Begimai further explains that the tradition of *subbotniki* is rooted in the community since generations and that, therefore, villagers just reproduce the tradition without discussions. She also adds that "if you don't clean your street, people will consider your street as an open-air dump" (Begimai, 20.08.2017), which is of course not only shameful for the habitants of the street but will also result in increased littering in the area. Concerning the canals, Begimai's husband explains that everybody has an interest in maintaining them clean in order to have better access to water and that, therefore, usually

<footnote n="23"><sup>23</sup> Usually, men perform this work.</footnote>
villagers contribute to the community work without complaints. It must be noted that all these forms of community work usually also represent an occasion of socialisation and a convivial moment with schoolmates or neighbours.

### 9.3.7 Marketing

Remember the disenchanted answers villagers gave in my survey to the question of whether they sometimes organise with other farmers for marketing their produce. Indeed, the selling of agricultural products from Pjak is very fragmented and individualised. Villagers' reticent attitude towards collective marketing is probably also in part the consequence of some negative experiences. Some tell about cases of businessmen who came to the village and promised to some groups of farmers to buy their products in autumn for a fixed price if the farmers were able to provide the requested quantity and quality; these businessmen then disappeared and never came back in autumn. Nevertheless, some villagers (for instance Tuman and Aisha) in some occasions were able to conclude agreements with traders who bought an agreed quantity of products at a fixed price for export. However, it happened that some of the farmers who participated in the agreement filled their sacks with bad quality potatoes or even with stones, and the agreement was cancelled the following year.

Finding good conditions for marketing their agricultural products is difficult for farmers, even if they join with others. Remember that even the new cooperative Kara-Jer, after only one year of existence, was already unable to find marketing opportunities for its members' products. In this sense, farmers are unable to exert control over marketing agreements and prices and are thus dependent on the fluctuations of highly volatile prices and market demand. Kyrgyzstan's inclusion in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2015 did not improve the situation: on the contrary, the increased competition, especially of Belarusian and Kazakhstani potatoes, and the costly certification procedure required for trade within the EAEU are challenging for farmers in the Issyk-Kul region.

Concretely, farmers have personal contacts with traders in the region: they contact them when they want to sell some of their products; sometimes they call several traders to compare the prices they offer. The process can also happen the way around: traders contact farmers in the village when they have planned a delivery. It is also crucial for villagers to share information about the current prices different traders offer: this information, as seen above, is shared when meeting other farmers in the streets, visiting them in their houses or gathering at a *toi*. Some villagers sell their produce directly in the market in Karakol, but this requires the availability of a means of transportation and implies additional expenses for the fuel. Kumbat's family organises the selling of potatoes from Ak-Bulut's warehouse. Traders know that in the warehouse, they can usually find big quantities of potatoes, so they contact Osmon when they need some. Whenever Osmon receives a request from a trader, he calls the farmers who have stored potatoes in the warehouse to ask whether they agree to sell them at the price proposed by the trader and in which amount. Another option for marketing is selling to or bartering with other villagers.
9.3.8 Cash and financial services

Cash is a scarce resource in Pjak, especially in spring when it is most needed for financing the start of the
agricultural season. Salaries from off-farm jobs, pensions and other (rare) state transfers, although often
amounting to a pittance<fnref n="24" /> that certainly does not provide a decent living, are a form of crucial, regular
cash income for households. Cash transfers and remittances from household members working in
Bishkek or abroad are also an important source of cash. In the case of Kumbat's family, an additional, yet
temporary, source of cash was their Swiss guest: I lived and ate in their house without paying a regular
rent, but our agreement was that they could ask me small amounts of money when they needed it for
exceptional expenses (for instance for Dinara's dentures, see above). Animals represent another important
means to access cash, so they are therefore considered to be a "bank account": they can be sold quickly
whenever cash is needed, but of course prices fluctuate. The same, but within a shorter time span, is valid
especially for potatoes but also for wheat and barley: the harvest is not sold all at the same moment, but a
part of it is kept longer and sold during the year when cash is needed.

Forms of savings and credit groups are also present in Pjak, usually known under the Russian term *chornaya kassa* (lit. black cashbox). These groups function according to the typical principles of rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs, see Kandiyoti 1998) and are usually composed of households linked through kinship, friendship or neighbourhood ties. Members meet regularly (for instance every one or two months) and each time contribute a fixed amount of money to the *kassa*; in turn, at each meeting, one of the households receives all the money contributed by the other members. In Pjak, single households can be members of several of such groups, which usually share small amounts of money (200–500 soms or 3–7 USD) per household per meeting. These groups are usually attended by women, who gather in the house of the household that will receive the money and share a lavish lunch. These are also convivial occasions when women can gather without their husbands, socialise and share information. In these small *kassas*, the maximum sum of cash a household receives amounts to few thousands soms, depending on the number of participants (usually less than a dozen). This money is in part used to cover the expenses of organising the gathering and for other small exceptional purchases, especially of house furniture and kitchenware. Some households are part of a bigger *kassa*, where the contribution per household can amount to a few thousands soms (up to 5,000 to my knowledge, or 73 USD). These *kassa* groups usually meet in restaurants in Karakol and are attended by both women and men – reproducing on a small scale the *tois* discussed above. In these cases, the amount of money received by the household at its turn is more significant and can be used for construction work on the house but also for investments in economic activities. However, this cash is available only *una tantum* and its timing does not necessarily correspond to the time of the agricultural calendar when it is most needed.

Because of these limitations in accessing cash, it is not uncommon that the payment of the expenses for
spring agricultural work is delayed until the time of harvest. This is especially likely when the payment is

<footnote n="24">²⁴ Average pensions are between 4,000 and 6,000 soms (58–88 USD) per month; the salary of a teacher in Pjak amounts to far less than 10,000 soms (145 USD) per month.</footnote>
due to another villager but less frequent with private retailers in the town. These debts are rarely
officialised through written documents but are agreed on by word of mouth, which villagers state they
trust more than any written paper. Villagers in Pjak rarely rely on credit from credit institutions, which,
with interest rates between 20 and 30% and the requirement of collateral, are too expensive for villagers.
Only villagers who already own a certain amount of capital can access these risky forms of credit. We
have seen the case of Tuman, who had to migrate to Russia to be able to pay back the debt he contracted
with the bank. Such debts, which explode the longer the payment is delayed, can devastate the budget of a
household for years and cause immense anxiety: Dinara once commented that when the date for the due
payment of the debt interests is approaching, she cannot sleep and has a stomachache. As an alternative,
villagers prefer to borrow money from relatives or friends in the village or through acquaintances on the
black market in Karakol, which offers similar if not higher interest rates but requires no or less collateral.
Certainly, also these forms of credit imply risks: the delayed payment of the interest from a credit from
the black market can cause an even bigger explosion of the debt than from credits taken from banks. A
delayed payment to relatives or friends can deteriorate personal relations that, as we have seen throughout
this chapter, are crucial for households' livelihoods.

Lastly, there are no formal insurance options for farmers. Variations in farming revenues due to the
fluctuations of prices and land productivity linked to weather conditions are usually absorbed by
augmenting or reducing, the next year, the surface cultivated with a specific crop. For instance, when
potato prices are low but meat prices are stable, farmers shift land use from potatoes to fodder crops. This
common practice, however, also contributes to the exacerbation of price fluctuations. Farmers have also
the possibility, each year, to increase or reduce the total amount of land they cultivate through the land
rental market, especially thanks to the availability of public land from the LRF that can be rented on
short-term contracts. Certainly, the networks of relatives and friends that have emerged throughout the
chapter represent a crucial “safety net” that can be mobilised for accessing (also financial) resources in
times of need (see Sabates-Wheeler 2007, §3.1.3).

9.4 Diverse economies of agriculture today: cooperation, networks and identities

In the previous section, I described in detail some of the everyday practices linked to agriculture that I
could observe in Pjak. It is worth going back to Pavlovskaya’s matrix (§8.2, Fig. 10) of diverse
economies to reflect on what kind of social relations and spaces are constituted through the described
practices, and how. In this section, I reflect on cooperation practices – intended as practices of
collaboration, sharing, exchange and mutual support – within local social networks, on the inclusions and
exclusions they generate and on how these networks constitute and are constituted by specific identities
and senses of belonging.
9.4.1 Spaces and networks of cooperation

Farmers today have access to formal markets for purchasing agricultural inputs and for marketing their produce. Several agricultural activities in the village are thus regulated through market relations and are monetised. Also, in this regard, farmers are less dependent on patronage relations for the access to resources than they were in the 1990s (see §8.4). The description of everyday agricultural practices in Pjak in the previous section, however, has revealed that these practices, even if formalised and/or monetised, often rely on exchanges within personal networks in the village and beyond it. Markets and personal networks are strongly interdependent and are both crucial for private agriculture in the village, while the role of the state remains limited in this context.

Household economic practices (not only agricultural ones) are multi-sited and stretch well beyond the borders of the village: they reach the town, the capital and the cities (usually in Russia or Kazakhstan) where household members migrate following employment opportunities. The economic activities of an individual household are also deeply intertwined with those of other households linked to them through kinship or friendship relations. Whereas with decollectivisation the agricultural production process has acquired a new unity within the private household, which is now responsible for the entire process (§8.4.3), agricultural production remains fragmented in another sense. Indeed, today, agricultural production is conducted mainly on a small scale by groups of few households (for instance the four households of Kumbat, Dinara and their sons and daughter). As a consequence, farmers can barely shape the conditions under which they purchase agricultural inputs in their favour or, even more evidently, under which they sell their produce; farmers have thus almost no power in market bargains and are exposed to the volatility of prices and market demand for agricultural goods. These bargains take place instead between other actors that have more weight than farmers on agricultural markets, such as agro-industrial groups, trading companies, international organisations and national governments. Particularly concerning the latter, Kyrgyzstan's entrance into the EAEU in 2015 has put local farmers under the increasing pressure of the competition of agricultural goods from Belarus and Kazakhstan, while their access to EAEU's common market is limited by its requirements for quality standards and certification.

It has emerged clearly from my account in Sections 9.2 and 9.3 that, whereas cooperation within formal institutions (such as cooperatives but also WUAs or PUCs) is limited and almost irrelevant for farmers, informal cooperation is crucial for agriculture in Pjak. Informal cooperation is carried out mostly within networks of close relatives, especially between parents and their children, brothers and sisters and the respective in-law relatives. At this level, cooperation is intense in several domains, from the common management of land and the sharing of the harvest from private fields, household plots and gardens to the mutual support with labour in peak moments. Such forms of close cooperation can be carried out also among some distant relatives as well as among some neighbours and friends, although usually with less frequency and intensity. Looser forms of cooperation are carried out frequently in broader networks of other relatives, neighbours, friends and acquaintances. All these forms of cooperation are inscribed in relations of reciprocity that are sometimes monetised but rarely systematically calculated: in general, reciprocation is expected, but its exact amount and time is not calculated nor negotiated in advance. As
we have seen in the case of Sabyr, moral obligations often motivate such cooperation practices: reciprocation expectations are thus inscribed in broader social and affective relations between individuals.

9.4.2 Inclusion, exclusion and authority in networks

The networks presented above are not formal institutions with clear, systematic and universal rules for the inclusion or exclusion of members, for the resolution of grievances and conflicts or for decision-making procedures. Inclusion in a network or a system of reciprocities often depends on the type and strength of the bonds linking individuals or households: these bonds are usually based on (close or extended, own or in-law) kinship but also on friendship deriving from shared experience with people at school (former schoolmates), at work (colleagues),<fnref n="25" /> at home (neighbours) or in local associations. The latter can include several forms of associations, like the ones we have come across throughout the manuscript: groups involved in development projects and training sessions, community-based organisations (from ADKs, see §7.2.3, to youth associations or sport associations concerned mainly with the maintenance of the football field in the village) or the group of practising Muslims that is growing around the recently built mosque in the centre of Pjak.

Certainly, not all villagers have the same access to all these networks – and this does not concern only kinship relations. For instance, the bonds that date back to the work experience in the Soviet farm depend on one’s former position within the farm hierarchy; this is still in part the case in the local administration. Development projects, although they often attempt to focus on marginalised or discriminated social groups, are usually able to mobilise mainly a particular typology of villagers – the ones who, like Kumbat, have already a certain authority in the village or, more recently, the ones who, like Aisha, correspond to the researched profile of the active peasant entrepreneur. In this regard, some villagers are advantaged as far as they already belong to an elite kin group; as they can access elite networks through their position in the local administration; or as they correspond to specific profiles targeted by development projects.

Since these networks are so crucial for economic (and social) activities in the village, being excluded from certain networks can make life difficult for villagers and strongly affect their livelihoods. We have seen, for instance, that Aisha does not have access to the favours controlled by the network of villagers who are related to the elites of the local administration. Nevertheless, Aisha can rely on other networks outside Pjak (especially the networks of the cooperative Kara-Jer and of CUK) to bypass the local administration and further her projects. Such a possibility is precluded instead to other villagers who have access neither to the local elite networks nor to the networks of development workers outside the village.

Remaining in these networks and maintaining the reciprocity relations within them can also represent a burden and a difficult task for individuals and households. We have seen, for instance, how it became

<footnote n="25">²⁵ The Soviet farm provided several spaces and occasions for socialisation especially within groups of peers, for instance within brigades or among specialists (§8.3). Today, in the village, similar socialisation spaces at work are mostly limited to the school, the kindergarten and the local administration.</footnote>
difficult for Kumbat to face the expectations of relatives and friends when development projects stopped delivering him resources to distribute to villagers (§8.5.2). Another example is the labour required from kin members for the organisation of *tois* – a requirement that can interfere with and take away resources from fieldwork activities at crucial moments of the agricultural calendar. More broadly, whereas attendance at the numerous celebrations taking place during the whole year is crucial for cementing and maintaining personal networks, it also creates a major expense for households, especially now that the cost (or investment) to maintain one’s position within a network is increasing and increasingly monetised. These expenses do not concern only the organisation of and attendance to lavish celebrations, however, but also new imperatives to show one’s status and reputation through consumption goods.

A story that is revealing of the competition between the necessity to increase consumption for performing a particular social status and other needs of household members is the story of Dinara's envisaged washing machine. Before I leave the village in 2016, Dinara's sons and daughter inform me that they plan to buy their mother a washing machine. This would considerably reduce the burden currently carried by Dinara (but also, and actually mostly, by Leila, and Sabyr when he is in the village) to do laundry, mostly manually. Dinara's sons and daughter ask me if I want to contribute to the present, which I am happy to do. When I come back to Dinara's house the next year, I thus expect that Leila's and Sabyr's unending laundry days in the yard have come to an end (or at least they have been reduced) thanks to the new washing machine. However, Dinara confesses to me, not without some shame for having diverted my money, that she decided to invest the money collected by her sons and daughters for the machine in a new yard gate. She explains that she was ashamed that visitors and guests were seeing the old rusty gate ("Who knows what they were thinking of us?", she asks) and comments that, anyways, "the girls can do the laundry", referring to Leila and her other two granddaughters (aged 9 and 5) who live in the house (Dinara, 14.07.2017).

Coming back to the maintenance of networks: failing to reciprocate within a network can lead to the exclusion from it. One example is Kumbat's loss of his connection with Mamakaev in Bishkek after he failed to pay back his debts (§8.4.2). In closer networks of relatives and friends, exclusion does not happen that quickly: there is a certain elasticity that allows individual members to postpone reciprocation while maintaining close relations to other members. However, major conflicts (for a missed reciprocation or other) in closer networks can be more difficult to solve and have even more severe consequences. For instance, when they fell into a very difficult financial situation, Dinara and Kumbat asked to borrow some money from some relatives whom, as Dinara underlines, she and Kumbat had often helped in the past. The relatives lent them some money, but with a very high interest rate and only on a very short term. Dinara and Kumbat were not able to pay back the money on time, provoking a conflict between the two households that extended to other families of the kin and provoked awkwardness and resentments during family celebrations. By reducing Dinara's and Kumbat's trustworthiness as debtors among their relatives, this event also made it more difficult for Dinara and Kumbat to receive further credit or financial support from these relatives later.
Since personal networks are so crucial for villagers' livelihoods, there is a tendency to avoid open conflicts in order not to damage relations within these networks. As we have seen, even if some individuals or households are not satisfied with the conditions of an exchange or a transaction, they usually prefer to negotiate these conditions privately than bringing the issue to a more public scrutiny; villagers therefore mostly avoid formal procedures for complaint even when these are available in principle. This means that the outcomes of these negotiations mostly depend on the two conflicting parts' authority and personal status and that little room of manoeuvre to shape the negotiations in their favour is left to those who have less power. Even Aisha, who, as we saw in Section 8.5.3, is often ready to challenge existing power structures to further her interests, finally gives up the idea to start a formal complaint procedure for her missed turn for irrigation, thereby placating her husband's fear of worsening their relationships with local authorities and with the persons responsible for irrigation and water management.

The centrality of these networks in village life also means that decision-making is mostly dominated by the households and individuals that have most authority and power within the networks and the households. Within a household are usually the older (yet not the oldest) male members who can most shape decisions regarding the responsibility to perform specific tasks or the redistribution of resources for consumption or agricultural needs. We have seen, for instance, how Sabyr underlines that in his family, it is Kumbat who has the last word concerning the cultivation of land and the organisation of agricultural activities. Also, Dinara's decision to buy a gate instead of a washing machine affects the amount and kind of labour that her granddaughters have to perform in the house, without the latter having a voice in the decision. In this regard, social relations within the village community are tendentially conservative: existing structures are difficult to question since questioning them would mean to risk losing the crucial support of one's networks of relatives, friends or acquaintances. This conservative organisation of the village society has repercussions in particular on the younger generations, who have little space for advancing new visions, aspirations and lifestyles, and on women, who have difficulty in escaping from their prescribed role as daughters, wives, daughters-in-law and mothers.

Concerning this latter point, the example of divorced women is particularly significant. We have seen that, when they marry, women symbolically and materially leave their family to join the family of their husbands (usually leaving behind also their land shares). Since divorce, despite increasing rates (see Karadag 2006), is still widely stigmatised in Kyrgyzstan, women who leave their in-law family often have difficulties in integrating back into their own family and are thus cut off from the networks of both families.

### 9.4.3 Networks, identities and structures

I ended my fieldnotes after the weekend in the potato field by noting the pride I felt when Meder praised my work and my sadness about his departure, with the group of young men, to Bishkek. These feelings emerged from my aspiration to feel included in the family and its networks – an aspiration to *belong*.
Indeed, during the weekend, while sharing the physical work in the field, the toasts after its completion and the beers in Kumbat’s yard, I felt an affective closeness to the group of men: I felt part of the group. Once, however, the men started their washing ritual and I remained with Dinara and Leila, who were preparing dinner, I automatically took back my role as a *kelin* by helping them, later serving the food and the tea to the men, tidying up the table and washing the dishes. In my fieldnotes of the weekend, I also noted how, similarly, while performing these household tasks in the evening but also, the second day, while preparing and serving the lunch to the workers, I felt proud of the skills I had meanwhile acquired – skills that allowed me in this occasion to perform what I came to consider my duties as a *kelin* in front of the guests. During the weekend, thus, my identification shifted from feeling like a worker integrated in a group of men performing physical work in the field to feeling like a *kelin* performing household tasks “correctly”, showing respect and honouring guests, but also to feeling the honoured foreign guest to whom Meder offered a special treatment in the form of a beer in a glass bottle – a foreign guest who is allowed to shift between these identities how I did during the weekend.<fnref n="26" />

When I first moved into her house, Dinara did not allow me to touch anything in the kitchen: I was considered the honoured guest who should sit at the *tör* (the most honoured place, opposite to the door) and be served tea and food. After a week or two, gradually, Dinara allowed me to take over some of the household tasks, especially in the kitchen: I started helping out preparing food, serving tea, washing dishes or collecting fruits and vegetables from the garden. I also started taking care of serving tea to guests visiting our house, while Dinara entertained them and checked that I did everything correctly. When Dinara hosted more guests or some particularly important visitor, she would ask me to help her with the hospitality rituals and catering. Looking later at some pictures of myself serving tea, I realised that I had not only integrated in terms of learning the rituals and procedures for serving tea, but also embodied the gestures that express respect to guests<fnref n="27" /> (Fig. 23). In several passages of my field diaries, I noted how being able to perform household tasks and especially to “correctly” honour guests was engendering a sense of pride emerging from my aspiration to be accepted as a member of the family – to belong to it – and to please people I love. My identity position in the family was constituted through the performance of ritualised practices and the reproduction of the structures and roles that determine one’s duties and responsibilities and one’s position within the household. This position could be acknowledged and valued by others because it corresponded to the traditional roles that commonly structure social life in the community. Therefore, through my performance of a specific role through repeated practices in the quest for acceptation and belonging, I contributed to reproduce these same structures and roles.

<footnote n="26">²⁶ This is not to say that identities of locals are static and do not shift, but rather to underline that certain “liberties” I took (in particular staying in the field after sunset drinking vodka with the men, sipping beer in the yard with them or deciding myself to leave the *toi* and join the men in the field) would have been less accessible to a real Kyrgyz *kelin*.</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷ I noticed this also on public buses in Bishkek, where there are strict unspoken rules about who should leave the sit to whom (especially: young to old, men to women). After having spent a while observing the rituals of seat-exchanges in Bishkek’s buses, my seated body would automatically stand up whenever an older passenger entered my bus, even before my mind could consciously calculate the variables determining the order of seat-priorities. This continued for a little while once back in Switzerland, where, however, it can be considered even offensive to leave one’s seat to a fit woman in her forties.</footnote>