What I have just described is a very soft and “watered” performance of, and identification with, the role
of a *kelin* in a Kyrgyz house. My position in the village community in general and in my host family in
particular far from corresponds to the position of a real Kyrgyz *kelin* since I had the freedom to shift from
my identity as a *kelin* to my identity as a foreign guest, as an academic researcher, as a European/Swiss,
among others. My specific multiple identities granted me a series of bonuses that are not conceded to
Kyrgyz *kelins*: for instance, I could plainly tell Dinara that I had to work on my fieldnotes and had no
time for helping her with household tasks, and, in general, Dinara had always a different kind of respect
for me than she has for her true daughter and daughters-in-law. When I went back to the village in March
2016, at the beginning of my stay Dinara forbid me to perform any household task and insisted that I
agree to be treated as an honoured guest. Since I was used to another position in the family from the
previous year, I insisted to take back my former role right away. However, she explained: “For one week,
you will be our honoured guest from Switzerland. After that, you can return to be our *kelin*” (Dinara,
26.03.2016). Her explanation makes explicit my particular position, and shifting identities, within the
family.

Certainly, the role of a true Kyrgyz *kelin* can be also more violently imposed on young women (see e.g. Childress 2018), who have usually much less room of manoeuvre to negotiate their duties within the family and are often much less respected than I was. Whereas I always had my “escape route” from my role as a *kelin* (due to the fact that I am economically independent and have another house and another family in Switzerland, as well as other networks in Karakol and Bishkek), young Kyrgyz women in rural villages<fnref n="28" /> rarely have access to economic and social resources outside the ones of their own and in-law family. As noted above, refusing to perform a specific role within the family can lead to the exclusion from vital networks and resources.

9.4.4 Identities, affects and power

The analysis of the role and relations of Kyrgyz *kelins* with their families and especially with their
mothers-in-law would require research in itself.<fnref n="29" /> It is worth, however, introducing two examples of how
women in Pjak negotiate these roles and relations. While reflecting with me about her role as a mother-in-
law, Dinara notes that it is normal for a mother-in-law to be strict with her daughters-in-law and point out
her mistakes. Doing otherwise would mean, in Dinara’s vision, that the daughters-in-law would acquire
too much power in the house. Dinara explains that this would create problems, especially in front of
visitors who would notice her lack of authority over the *kelins*. If *kelins* do not perform their duties and
their role in front of guests correctly, this would mean shame for Dinara, who, as *choziaika* (landlady or
hostess) carries the overall responsibility towards guests. In this sense, women who reach the status of

<footnote n="28">²⁸ There are of course exceptions in Pjak, as the case of Aisha in part shows. In the city and even more abroad, sometimes women can build independent networks and capitals. On how migration patterns affect the position of women in Kyrgyzstani villages see Ismailbekova (2014).</footnote>

<footnote n="29">²⁹ Little research has touched this specific topic (Reynolds 2012a; 2012b; Ismailbekova 2016).</footnote>
mothers-in-law reproduce the traditional structures and relations towards their daughters-in-law also as a
way to maintain their status in front of guests and to please them.

Aisha is very critical of these relations and roles. She often complains about the strictness of her mother-in-law (who lives in Karakol with her other son and his family) and recalls how she had to struggle to get her approval for the activities and projects she wanted to pursue. When Aisha announces to me that her son will get married soon, I comment jokingly that, at least, she will be a nicer mother-in-law then her own. However, to my surprise, Aisha replies: "No. Of course I will be hard with my *kelin*! A mother-in-law has to be hard with her *kelin*. The mother-in-law is the boss in the house and if she isn't hard from the beginning the *kelin* will take too much freedoms and neglect the works that need to be done" (Aisha, 14.08.2106). It seems thus that Aisha, like Dinara, is caught in a determined role for which she has only one reference model for how it should be performed. Although both recognise the difficult position of *kelins* in the house, it is difficult for them to question the structures that produce that position, probably also because they are not willing to renounce to the status and benefits (especially the possibility to outsource many of their own tasks) that they acquire from the moment they become mothers-in-law.

This brief excursus on the roles of *kelins* and mothers-in-law in Kyrgyz families contributes to better understanding of the way in which the structures of the social networks described in the previous sections are maintained and reproduced also through embodied rules, affective attachments and personal aspirations, in a process that recalls Bourdieu's theory of habitus (see T. Lovell 2000). The structures that regulate the distribution of tasks, reciprocities and decision-making within families and their networks and that, often, generate inequalities and discriminations are, indeed, constraining and limiting on the one hand, but also provide, on the other hand, a framework to which individuals can relate to define their identities and belonging and to make sense of their lives. These affects and identifications are an important glue for the networks discussed in this section but also confer them the rigidity and conservatism noted above. Maintaining good relations especially with relatives (also through numerous, burdening and expensive celebrations) is also a way to define and fix one's identity and belonging. Questioning these structures, for instance by renouncing a lavish marriage ceremony, does not only imply shame with respect to one's status, but also the loosens one's identity and belonging. In this context, pride and, even more, shame are two intertwined affects that reinforce the rigidity of the structures discussed. Shame can emerge, for instance, when you do not attend to a *toi* or your cash or in-kind contribution to it is judged too small; when nobody from your family shows up the day fixed for *subbotniki* in your street; when you do not serve guests correctly; or when your guests have to pass a too-rusty yard gate. In parallel, pride emerges when, instead, you fulfil the expectations of others, especially through the performance of ritualised hospitality practices and reciprocations.

Concerning agricultural activities, these reflections imply that questioning their current organisation and decision-making structures is relatively difficult, especially for the younger generations and for women. This does not mean, however, that innovation and change are impossible. For instance, Aisha was able to disrupt some of (but not all) the current power structures: she gained the approval of her mother-in-law and her husband for her activities with Kara-Jer and bypassed the local administration to obtain funds for
her project. Tuman was able to invest an important amount of money for a cultivation experiment that Kumbat did not approve (even if the investment turned out to be disastrous and forced him to move to Russia to pay back the debt he contracted). Samat was able to escape the norm that prescribes that the youngest son remains in his parent's house: he moved to and remained in Bishkek to pursue his professional career.

## 9.5 Discussion: moralities of work and senses of self and community

I started the present chapter by presenting the picture of an individualised agricultural sector in particular and of an individualised village community more generally (§9.1). The picture emerging from villagers' general statements about their agricultural practices and from their answers to my quantitative survey mirrors the idea transmitted by most accounts of scholars (especially economists), development workers and policy-makers in the region (see Chapter 2 and Chapter 3). However, the deeper examination of villagers' everyday practices – an examination that was possible thanks to a prolonged ethnographic engagement with one field site – has revealed a different picture, where agricultural activities are indeed monetised and partially individualised but, at the same time, they heavily rely on cooperation within personal networks of close and distant relatives, friends and acquaintances (§9.2, §9.3).

How should we understand these contradictions between villagers' representations and their actual practices? A simple explanation regarding the results of the survey lies in the fact that, as discussed in Chapter 5, most respondents preferred to give simple and straightforward answers because they did not want to share too much personal information to someone they suspected was collecting data for the electoral campaign or for the fiscal office. However, the statement that now agricultural activities are performed and managed individually also emerges repeatedly in my other interactions with villagers. Despite the importance, extension and frequency of exchanges within close and large personal networks, villagers mention only few of these exchanges when I ask them explicitly about such exchanges.

Another explanation that is certainly relevant is that villagers' perceptions of what it means to work together depends on what the object of sharing is.<fnref n="30" /> We have seen already in Chapter 7 that, for villagers, the idea of a cooperative implies collective *production*, whereas forms of collaboration in other agricultural activities outside production are usually not sufficient to define a cooperative. Villagers compare today's individualised agricultural practices with the collective agriculture of the Soviet farm but also with the attempts to cooperate within the diverse forms of peasant farms that emerged during land reforms (see §8.4.1). Both on the Soviet farm and on collective peasant farms, what was carried out collectively was the whole production process: this means not only that agricultural labour was performed in groups, but also that expenses and, especially, revenues were pooled together and then redistributed in the group (of course in very different ways on the Soviet farm than on the collective peasant farms). On the contrary, the cooperation practices described in this chapter mostly do not imply the pooling of

<footnote n="30">³⁰ I thank Lela Rekhviashvili for drawing my attention on this point.</footnote>
expenses and revenues, except within the closest networks of households of the same family (especially
between parents and siblings). Furthermore, most of these cooperation practices are not carried out within
formalised frameworks (for instance of a registered cooperative) and therefore are usually not visible for
external visitors, especially for development workers or scholars who limit themselves to quantitative
surveys or brief interviews. It is therefore, in the end, not surprising that such practices remain largely
unacknowledged and invisible, and that the development workers we met in Chapter 6 state that there is a
lack of cooperation in Kyrgyzstani villages.

Yet, I argue here for an additional explanation: that the observed gap between villagers’ representations
and practices of cooperation emerges, on the one hand, from the co-existence of multiple moralities, in
particular moralities of work, and, on the other, from specific local notions of community and senses of
self. In this section I thus turn to the analysis of these moralities and notions as a way to make sense of
the apparent contradictions emerged in the previous sections.

9.5.1 Private accumulation and moralities of work

Villagers often express nostalgia for the Soviet time when, in their memories, even if they did not have
much, they had enough and all were equals. The same villagers, however, often in the same narration,
lament for instance that back in Soviet times they were allowed to own only a limited number of animals
or that the access to cars or housing was strictly regulated by the state. Now, on the contrary, there is no
legal limitation to the number of animals, cars or houses they can own: villagers conclude that this is one
of the advantages of the current system. Villagers thus deplore that the past “equality”<fnref n="31" /> has been lost but
simultaneously they welcome the new system in which private consumption and accumulation are free
from legal limitations, even if they recognise that consumption and accumulation are not unlimited de
facto, since they depend on the availability of capital. The narrative about the lost equality and the
acquired unlimited potential for consumption and accumulation is recurrent in Pjak (and frequent also
outside the village); however, different social groups weigh the two sides of the narrative differently. On
the one hand, in general, villagers who are relatively well-off emphasise more the current freedom of
private consumption and accumulation, even if they recognise that other worse-off villagers can enjoy
this freedom only limitedly. On the other hand, villagers who are less economically fortunate usually
underline the loss of equality, even if they still welcome the new – at least potential – consumption
opportunities.

When commenting on this transformation, both well-off and worse-off villagers often mobilise a famous
Kyrgyz proverb that I hear frequently also outside the village: “who works, will eat”.<fnref n="32" /> An equally
widespread narrative that praises hard work and blames laziness parallels this proverb: we have
encountered some manifestations of this narrative (especially the blame of laziness) in the previous

<footnote n="31">³¹ The quotation marks are imperative since, as I have shown in detail in §8.3, Soviet society was far from being egalitarian.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³² The original Kyrgyz phrasing is “ishtegen tishteit”, sometimes also in the variant “köp ishtegen köp tishteit” (who works a lot, will eat a lot). See also Féaux de la Croix’s discussion of the same proverb (2017, 235–50).</footnote>
chapters, especially in Part III as referred to the failure of cooperatives. The proverb and the parallel
narrative can be interpreted in this context as conveying a meritocratic morality where personal effort
pays a proportional benefit and where a lack of such effort is the cause of hunger (or poverty more
generally). This morality emphasises one's own individual responsibility – for success, wealth and
poverty. Villagers often underline, with a mix of appreciation and concern, that this is the way
"capitalism" works, whereas in "socialism" people would still have something to eat at the end of the day
regardless of whether they were working hard or fooling around.

The proverb, however, can also be interpreted outside a meritocratic morality. For instance, sometimes
villagers use it to convey an almost opposite message: that, whatever will happen – whatever political
structure, economic ideology, or government shift – life is hard and you *always* have to work if you want
to eat. In fact, the verb *tish* literally means “to bite”, which, at least according to my interpreter, does not
primarily convey an idea of opulent and abundant eating but rather an image of eating for surviving. The
proverb, therefore, is not necessarily a “capitalist proverb” and, indeed, its diffusion very probably
predates Kyrgyzstan’s independence (and thus the diffusion of a capitalist, or rather neoliberal, morality
of individual responsibility and meritocracy). Féaux de la Croix (2017, 243–46) has suggested that
different discourses (including moralities) of work converge in the proverb. These discourses originate
from Kyrgyz kinship ideology, Soviet ideology, Islam and, more recently, neoliberal capitalism. All these
ideological traditions value work in general and hard work in particular and, therefore, the proverb can
endorse all of them. However, as Féaux de la Croix (*ibid*..) shows, the *meaning* and *purpose* of the work
that is valued is different in each tradition: neoliberal capitalism values work as entrepreneurship and, as
discussed, emphasises individual responsibility and meritocracy; Islam as self-disciplining and as service
to others and to God; Soviet ideology as uplifting, emancipatory and as the means towards Socialism;
Kyrgyz kinship ideology as service to the older generations and as a way of honouring them. Therefore,
although one of the work moralities conveyed by the proverb endorses private accumulation and
economic success as the legitimate reward of hard work, other parallel moralities promote instead various
alternative understandings of work as service to others and thereby disregard, reject or even violently
oppose private accumulation. Indeed, it is not uncommon that villagers interpret an excessive
accumulation of wealth as a sign of greed and selfishness, especially if this wealth is not shared at least in
part with others (in particular with relatives and friends within one’s personal networks). In addition, if a
person is particularly wealthy, villagers often insinuate that this wealth might originate in some dubious
practices, especially corruption (see also Féaux de la Croix 2017, 239–46; Gambold and Heady 2003).

I do not have the possibility to dig deeper into the variations and nuances of all the aforementioned
moralities (and many others); I argue, however, that some of these moralities converge into a morality of
cooperation and sharing that at least in part contrasts with the meritocratic morality that endorses private
accumulation. Three examples, among many others, confirm the importance of this alternative morality
for villagers. First, in Soviet times, it was despised when a specialist took too many resources for himself
(or more rarely herself) without sharing them with the other specialists: this despisal was due to the
deception of expectations of reciprocation based also on a specific morality of sharing with one's peers.
Second, recalling when her family, as one of the first who started private agricultural activities in one of the early peasant farms in the early 1990s, Keres commented that she felt ashamed in front of other villagers for exploiting the collective resources of the ex-Soviet farm for her own private benefit. In this case, her shame originated from the contrast between her activities and a morality (and ideological rhetoric) of cooperation and collective property. Third, remember that some villagers complained (and still complain) about Kumbat's greediness because he did not share the potato seeds he received from a project to start the seed breeding activities of Ak-Bulut with them. Here, the complaint is motivated by expectations linked to a specific morality of sharing within patronage networks.

### 9.5.2 Private business as support to others

I noted at the end of Chapter 7 (§7.4.6) how, in villager's accounts, the concepts of cooperative and private business sometimes overlap and how both concepts are somehow related to ideas of charity or mutual support. There, I concluded that, in villagers' representations, the concept of cooperative is thus fluid, unstable and dependent on the specific connections and associations my interlocutors trace to different moments and in different contexts. This fluidity does not only concern cooperatives specifically but also villagers' understandings of work and economic business more broadly. When Kumbat tells about how he used to give advice to other villagers, distribute agricultural inputs or manage the storing and selling of potatoes in Ak-Bulut's warehouse, he emphasises that, through these activities, he is *supporting* people. He does not necessarily differentiate between what pertains more strictly to the formal cooperative, his private activities of seed breeding, or his informal exchanges with relatives and friends. What counts for him is the fact that he is helping and serving others through these activities – regardless whether these activities are monetised or formalised. Adis reproduces a similar narrative when he states that Ak-Bulut supported farmers in the whole province and country, while intending that Kumbat was also privately selling seeds outside the village. Daniar, when intending to show me the “cooperatives” in the village, shows me instead what are rather private economic activities (e.g. the small brick factory, the fishing pond) and explains that these activities are supporting villagers. Sultanbek presents the cooperative Tokoi (which, as seen, is rather his own private enterprise) as an activity that helps villagers by offering them job opportunities and the possibility to process their wool. Villagers seem thus to present private business activities as activities that support the village and the community.

Similarly, when Aisha speaks of her processing factory project in Pjak, she never presents this as the establishment of a private enterprise, but rather as a collective activity she would like to initiate with the aspiration to help villagers by providing job opportunities and the possibility to process their wool and fruits in the village. She also underlines that her ambition is to help especially women and notes that, by providing female villagers an opportunity to make some money autonomously, these women will be able to emancipate themselves from their subordinated position in their families. Aisha never enters into details of how she plans to concretely manage the economic profits the factory should generate or how she imagines its governance structure. She does mention several times, however, that she would like to do some charity in the village with the revenues: for instance by distributing hens to the poorest households
so they can generate some additional income by selling the eggs. In this sense, Aisha seems to reproduce
what she criticises about the way Kumbat manages his business activities in general and Ak-Bulut in
particular. In fact, Aisha laments the lack of transparency about the cooperative's accounts (for instance,
she often underlines that nobody knows what happens with the revenues generated through the
warehouse) as well as the lack of democratic mechanisms for its governance, and she accuses Kumbat of
authoritarian, top-down management. At the same time, Kumbat, like Aisha, also insists that Ak-Bulut
exists for the well-being of villagers and underlines that he regularly does charity in the name of the
cooperative (for instance by offering potatoes and flour to the kindergarten).

Another example is Batyr, a man from Pjak in his early forties who established a profitable trading business based in the bazaar in Karakol, where he now lives. He comes regularly to Pjak, however, where he runs the biggest farm in the village with his brothers. Speaking about the agricultural machines of the farm, he explains that most of the revenues they generate go towards their repairs and spare parts. Despite the limited profitability of the machines and of the farming activities more generally, Batyr explains why he invests his money in them:

The first reason to invest in the machines was to help my relatives in the village. Because life in the village is difficult: they barely survive. Therefore I decided to invest more than 70,000 dollars [to buy two tractors]. Of course it wasn't so profitable. I could have invested the money in the town, even less: with 40,000 dollars here [in Karakol] you can open your own restaurant or shop. In comparison with the activities in the village the businesses in the town are more stable and they are cleaner. In the village it's more difficult. [...] It's variable, it depends from the weather, it's unstable. And it's seasonal too. Also the work of the tractor is seasonal: people need it for just one month and the rest of the year they don't care. In comparison, trade [in the bazaar] is stable, for the whole year! (Batyr, 08.08.2016)

Batyr underlines that it would have been clearly more profitable to invest the money in his trade activities
than on the farm. Nevertheless, he invested a considerable amount of money for the machines and
continues to invest money and time on the farm as a way to support his relatives in the village. Here,
Batyr, like Aisha and Kumbat above, emphasises that he is not a reckless businessman looking only at his
own profit, but prefers to invest some of the capital he accumulates to helping his relatives in the village.

Whereas presenting private business activities as support to others might seem odd in a first moment (it
indeed puzzled me during my early fieldwork), I argue that this strategy is understandable, if not obvious,
when considering the multiple moralities discussed in the previous section. Even when their success and
wealth are the result of their hard work (and therefore legitimate within the meritocratic morality), many
villagers still need to justify their success by underlining that they share their gains with others and that
their private business activities are, in fact, a way to support the community. In this way, these villagers
relate and, at least discursively, comply with the moralities of sharing and cooperation on which are
based, among others, the reciprocity relations within personal networks that are so crucial for their
livelihoods.
9.5.3 Identities of and through work

Many villagers in Pjak who are busy from dawn to bedtime working in their houses, household plots or fields, caring for their children and elders, or doing reparations and maintenance in their houses define themselves as unemployed. The few villagers who do not define themselves as unemployed are in general those who have fixed employment as wage labourers, for instance at the local school, the local administration or some enterprise in the region, those who manage an independent trade activity (e.g. Batyr and some shop<fnref n="33" /> owners) and a few farmers. Féaux de la Croix (2017, 221–22) has suggested that “‘unemployment’ is a new official category in the post-Soviet situation, referring to the absence of formal employment, a wage, pension and most other social entitlements linked to employment in the Soviet era”. This representation of work as wage labour in part explains why many villagers define themselves as unemployed; however, it remains open why not all farmers define themselves as unemployed.

Several villagers tell me that there are only three or four *fermeri* (Russian: farmers) in Pjak, although most households not only base a large part of their livelihoods on agricultural activities but also invest a considerable amount of labour in them (see also id. 229). I realise this once when I am chatting with some villagers, including Amirbek, in a shared taxi to Karakol. My interpreter is not with me and I thus speak Russian with the men. When they ask me what I am doing these days, I answer that I am interviewing *fermeri* in the village. They comment that there are only a few *fermeri* in Pjak and wonder whom I met. I am in turn surprised by their answer and comment that I thought that almost everybody was a *fermer* in the village: indeed, almost everybody cultivates a piece of land. Also, when speaking with villagers in Kyrgyz, my interpreter often used the English term “farmers” as a translation of the Kyrgyz term *dyikan*, which in Russian should translate as *fermer*. Amirbek explains that a *fermer* is someone who has “big land, big cattle and a big garage” (Amirbek, 02.07.2016): to enter the category of *fermer* you thus need to run a farm with a minimum amount of land and a minimum number of animals and own some agricultural machines. Amirbek comments that, for instance, Batyr (§9.5.2) is a *fermer*. My interlocutors in the taxi seem thus to recognise that *fermer* can be a profession or an employment (even if it is not wage labour), but only if the farm in question fulfils certain requirements of size and technology – in short, if it is a *modern* farm (see my discussion in Part III and Fig. 24). On the contrary, more villagers define themselves as *dyikans* – and the same farmers usually simultaneously categorise themselves as unemployed. Thanks to a fortuitous misunderstanding in translation, I thus realise that, although the literal meaning of the Russian and the Kyrgyz terms overlap, in everyday use the two terms diverge.<fnref n="34" /> Probably, the use of the Russian term also in Kyrgyz language (which borrows Russian words especially for concepts linked to technology or bureaucracy) reinforces the “modernity” of *fermeri*, who work in “modern” farms.

These reflections suggest a hierarchisation of work in villagers’ representations – a hierarchisation based
on a specific notion of modernity but also, more generally, on a specific understanding of economy. This

<footnote n="33">³³ There are four or five main shops in Pjak, which are indeed quite small; however, several houses have a tiny room in their yard that serves as a shop with irregular opening hours. The owners of these “yard shops” usually define themselves as unemployed.</footnote>

<footnote n="34">³⁴ I am thankful to Christine Bichsel for helping me making sense of this misunderstanding.</footnote>
hierarchisation values mainly wage labour<fnref n="35" /> and marketised<fnref n="36" /> activities while devaluing other activities such as care work or subsistence farming. This resonates indeed with Gibson-Graham's (2006b, 46–71) reflection that identities are mainly constituted through an idea of work based on a limited definition of economy as the realm of monetised and formal economic activities in the public sphere (see also §8.2). Typically, the plethora of activities that contribute to a household's or an individual's livelihoods but that are performed outside this limited realm are not fully recognised as work.<fnref n="37" /> The consequence of the hierarchisation of work is thus also a hierarchisation of identities: modern legitimate *fermeri* on the one hand and “unemployed” villagers (once more defined by their lack) on the other.

At the same time, however, the identity as a modern worker (be this a businessman/woman in general or a *fermer* in particular) is not unproblematic in the village and, as discussed, villagers who enjoy some wealth put in place strategies to legitimise this position and to avoid being identified as reckless businessmen/women. The identity as a modern businessman/woman needs to be legitimised through another identification as a person who honours and respects the moralities of sharing and reciprocity discussed above – a person who, through his/her work, supports and helps (or ‘serves’, Féaux de la Croix 2017, 229–35) others.

This is expressed best by Ermek (born in 1959), an ex-tractor driver in the Soviet farm and now owner of a tractor whose services he sells to villagers. In his narrations about his work in both the Soviet and the present time, he often repeats that he is helping people, that he works for them. When I ask him what he intends with this, he answers:

> Working for the people means that you are responsible for what you are doing and working hard till the last minute. You should not just give up on something in the middle and you should finish it. If you chose to be a tractor driver [...] you should work hard and be good in public opinion. People should be satisfied. You should love your job and love your tractor as if it was your own clothes. You should take care of the tractor by filling it with the oil.
> 
> (Ermek, 03.06.2016, emphasis added)

For Ermek, the work as a tractor driver is not only a form of employment (as it was in Soviet times) or a private economic activity (today) but also – and maybe *especially* – an activity that defines him as a “good” person in front of others (see also Féaux de la Croix 2017, 246–50). He profoundly identifies, also affectively with his “love” for his job and for his tractor, as a person whose work benefits a larger community before himself. Ermek hence makes sense of his life – and of his place in a larger cosmological system – through his deontology as a tractor driver that contributes to the well-being of the community to which he feels to belong.

<footnote n="35">³⁵ This does not mean that all forms of wage labour are valued. Remember that working against a wage for private persons, especially in the village, is stigmatised (§9.3.3).</footnote>

<footnote n="36">³⁶ I intend here activities that are regulated through market relations (such as trade or also agricultural production if it is not performed mainly for self-subsistence). Many of these activities are “formal” in the sense that who performs these activities declares the revenues they generate (and pays taxes on these revenues); it is not uncommon, however, that villagers do not declare at least a part of these revenues or activities. In principle, all farmers should declare the revenues they generate from selling their products; however, since these revenues, for most farmers in Pjak as in the whole province, are usually much lower than the minimum amount taxed, the local administration broadly accepts that farmers do not register and that their activities, in this sense, remain “informal”.</footnote>

<footnote n="37">³⁷ This is not to say that other activities are not considered work, but rather to point to the hierarchisation and valuation of different forms of work. For a discussion of the multiple meanings of work in rural Kyrgyzstan, see Féaux de la Croix (2017, 216–20).</footnote>
9.5.4 Senses of self and community

Ermek’s quotation above introduces a further dimension that is central to understand villagers’ representations of work and selves: if work is meant to support “others”, we should then ask who these others are and how they are framed. In her illuminating outline of the “recent history of work in Kyrgyzstan”, Féaux de la Croix (2017, 213–50) underlines that, whereas the idea of work as serving others has not fundamentally changed since Soviet times, what has changed is the collective which work serves. My empirical data confirm that, as she notes, now there is

an alternative collective to the one projected by socialism: the units of generalised reciprocity are today the family and neighbourhood, not the brigade, nation or humanity. What both kin expect and the Soviet state expected, namely service in the form of respect and work, may look similar, but the units these actions and attitudes are directed towards are certainly not: on the one hand, the state, nation and humanity; on the other, family and neighbourhood. (id. 232–33)

Indeed, the Soviet state emphasised the nobility of work as a contribution to the larger project of building socialism through the model of Stakhanovites (the followers of Aleksey Grigoryevich Stakhanov, the Soviet miner who became the personification of hard work in the 1930s) and through a well-established system of prizes and rewards for deserving workers, which in part continues today (§8.3.1, see also id. 225–26, 243–50). The identification with such rhetoric and work ethic emerges strongly in villagers’ narrations, not only when I ask them specifically about their work practices during Soviet times but also as a way to describe and define their person when I ask them to introduce themselves. Frequently, during our oral history sessions, my interlocutors show me the medals and certificates they collected in the course of their professional life as recognition of their achievements and effort. My observations in Pjak therefore confirm Féaux de la Croix’s (ibid.) reflection that, when villagers in her field site state that “everyone works for themselves now”, they do not only refer to the dismantlement of collective work within brigades but also to the reduction of the size and meaning of the “constituency” which work serves and benefits.

But why, still, in their statements as well as in their answers to my survey, do villagers in Pjak not
acknowledge that their activities are indeed performed within and *for* a community – even if a smaller
one than before? I suggest looking at the notion of individual and individuality, as opposed to the notion
of community, to answer this question. I made repeatedly clear throughout Part IV that reciprocity and
solidarity relations within personal networks have been central in villagers’ lives and livelihoods for
several decades and probably more. Belonging to these networks is also crucial for the definition of
villagers’ identities and for making sense of their lives and of themselves as individuals. The sense of
collectivity within these networks is so deep that it is often given for granted and perceived as natural: it
is obvious that nobody actually works *only* for him/herself as a single individual but that, instead, each
person is defined and intended as part of a collectivity of close relatives and friends. Therefore, I suggest,
often villagers do not even think that this is worth mentioning in their answers.
In some specific occasions, however, villagers make explicit this implicit element. Remember for instance when Sabyr notes that sharing and mutual help among relatives and friends is part of the “Kyrgyz mentality” (§9.3.2). He would not need to emphasise this when speaking with a Kyrgyz, but, while speaking with me in this occasion, he feels the need to explain this sense of collectivity. Remember also when Aziza explains that the seeds she received for free from Kumbat were part of “a traditional friendship support as we have here in Kyrgyzstan” (Aziza, 15.08.2015, §8.5.2). Such observations sometimes emerge in other conversations with Kyrgyz people both in Pjak and in the rest of the country. In these occasions, my interlocutors assume that in Europe mutual support among relatives and friends is weaker than in Kyrgyzstan and, therefore, make explicit to me what would be obvious for a Kyrgyz. While explaining this difference between Kyrgyzstan and Switzerland (or between Central Asia and the West more generally), my Kyrgyz interlocutors express pride for their strong sense of hospitality, sharing and mutual support. In this way, they strengthen their identification not only with a particular work morality, but also with a specific sense of self and community that they perceive as peculiar to Kyrgyz people and to “Kyrgyzness” and in opposition to the “cold” individualism of the West – or of “democracy”, “capitalism” or modernity *tout court* (see Baktigul’s quotation and my comment in §7.3.5).

## 9.6 Conclusion: making sense of diverging representations and practices of cooperation

It has become even clearer in this chapter that, when scholars and development actors observe a lack of collective activities and a resistance to cooperation in Kyrgyzstani villagers (see Chapter 6), they assume and apply a narrow definition of cooperation that renders invisible many of the numerous forms of cooperation that constitute everyday agricultural activities in Pjak and other Kyrgyzstani villages and towns, as confirmed by the little research available mentioned throughout the manuscript. Similarly, we have seen in this chapter that villagers’ representations of cooperation obscure several of the ways in which, in fact, they cooperate in agriculture and well beyond it. In the previous section I argued that the divergence of villagers’ representations and practices of cooperation emerges out of specific work moralities and identities and of specific notions of community and self. In particular, I have shown that what is defined as “working together” in the village is often limited to a particular kind of work performed for a particular kind of community.

Nevertheless, we cannot simply dismiss villagers’ representations of cooperation as being narrow and biased, but we should ask what they reveal. More specifically, we should ask what villagers’ narrative of the loss of cooperation in Pjak reveals about their current economic and affective situation and about their aspirations and desires. Although today certainly agricultural activities are not performed in the collectivity of brigades anymore, I have shown that they are performed, more often than not, together with relatives and friends. I argue therefore that the villagers’ narrative that now everyone works individually does not lament primarily the individualisation of the concrete performance of agricultural activities; here, “individually” is not to intend primarily in an instrumental sense. Instead, I argue that the
narrative refers primarily to the individualisation of responsibility for one's own economic success or
difficulties – an individualised responsibility that is part of the neoliberal/capitalist morality conveyed by
one of the possible interpretations of the proverb “who works, will eat”. Although, in principle, villagers
subscribe this reading of the proverb, the burden of this individualised responsibility is difficult to assume
in a context where economic success is precarious and, in fact, depends also (and probably especially) on
a series of structural conditions that are beyond individual influence. The story of Tuman and his
cultivation experiment is an example for this point. His failed experiment led his family almost to
bankruptcy, and the best strategy he could find to avoid it was to migrate to Russia with his wife, leaving
their three small children with the grandparents in the village. Tuman's economic difficulties (as well as
their material and affective consequences for his family) may be also caused by his too audacious
imprudence, but are certainly first of all the consequence of the combination of the chronic lack of
financial capital in Pjak, the exorbitant interest rates of credit, the absolute lack of any form of insurance
and the unpredictable climatic conditions (which, it must be noted, are likely to become even less
predictable in the next years in the context of global climate change). Like countless other cases, the case
of Tuman – a man other villagers usually depict as hard-working and upright – challenges the
meritocratic rule that “who works, will eat”. In this regard, I agree with Féaux de la Croix's (2017, 248)
argument that statements like the proverb are “also *normative* in the sense of willing the world to be just”:
although villagers are aware that in the everyday the meritocratic rule of the proverb does not always
apply, they still subscribe to it as a way to reiterate their wish that the rule be always true.

Villagers' lament about the individualisation that has taken place in the village is therefore also a
complaint about the precarisation of their livelihoods in a new context whose structural conditions (like,
indeed, those of the previous system) are beyond their control – and in part also beyond their grasp.
Again, the nostalgia for something that has been lost reveals more about what is missed in the present
than what was really in the past (see Discussion Part III). Remember that, in Soviet times, villagers'
livelihoods were also precarious: even if employment and minimal livelihoods were more secured then,
one's economic position and social status could quickly change if, for instance, s/he lost his/her
employment and was sent to jail for several years because caught in an illegal practice.

Furthermore, the lament about individualisation also concerns the social networks that are so crucial in
the everyday life of the village. In villagers' narratives, the precarisation of their livelihoods is also
paralleled by what they perceive as the precarisation of these networks and the weakening of reciprocity
and solidarity relations within them – relations that are the more important as safety-nets and as forms of
insurance the more the general context becomes uncertain and beyond control and grasp. Indeed,
reciprocities within personal networks tend today to be more frequently monetised; this makes the
maintenance of such networks probably more burdensome than before, thereby creating new forms of
exclusion. Furthermore, since the limits imposed by the Soviet regime on private consumption and
accumulation were lifted, economic stratification has become more visible in the village – for instance in
the form of a shiny yard gate. This does not mean that this stratification did not exist before: on the
contrary, we have seen clearly in Section 8.3 that specialists of the Soviet farm enjoyed a long list of
privileges (and this was probably a relatively limited stratification if compared with Soviet elites outside a
small Central Asian village). However, villagers probably read the increasingly visible stratification as a
sign that the redistribution of resources within personal networks through reciprocity and solidarity
practices has weakened – if not in absolute terms at least in relative ones.

The point here, again, is not to assess whether exchanges and reciprocities within social networks have
really weakened or whether local communities were really so equalitarian as villagers suggest; instead,
the point is to understand what claims and desires *for the present* villagers express through the narrative
of lost solidarity. I argue that, through this narrative, villagers denounce the lack of forms of social
security that could compensate for the economic difficulties and precarity emerged through the profound
transformations of the last decades. Here, we have seen that one possible form of social security are
solidarity relations within personal networks. Throughout the manuscript, however, we have seen that a
wish for a similar function of social security is also directed to the state through the widespread narrative
of its “abandonment” of villagers.

Finally, I argue – again in line with Féaux de la Croix (2017, 246–50) – that the individualisation
highlighted in the narrative that now everyday works individually refers also to the purpose of work, to
the community for which work is performed. The loss expressed in the narrative is thus a loss of a larger
collectivity (which in Soviet times included also the state) as well as a loss of a larger project in which
individual work efforts and personal trajectories were inserted and found a legitimation and a basis for
identification with a broader goal. What villagers miss today is also a recognition of the value of their
efforts, and of themselves as individuals; Nazira expresses this clearly when she states that Tuman left the
cooperative also because the government did not even send him a “gratitude letter” for his engagement
(§7.3.1).
Part IV – Discussion and conclusion

The two chapters composing Part IV have provided an analysis of the transformations of diverse economies of agriculture in Pjak. In line with most ethnographies of transformation after socialism (e.g. Verdery 1996) as well as with Gibson-Graham's (2006b) feminist economic geography, my analysis has confirmed that neither what was before the end of the Soviet Union nor what has come after Kyrgyzstan's independence corresponds to a unitary and coherent system (Socialism or Capitalism). Both, instead, are localised, contingent and unique assemblages of diverse economic practices shaped by diverse local interests, strategies and representations – or one specific expression of multiple possible socialisms/capitalisms. In particular, we have seen in Chapter 8 that liberalisation and privatisation reforms after independence have drastically reduced the role of the state in economic production and welfare provision, especially in terms of state employment in Soviet farms and of the social benefits and social security related to it. Although, according to the model underpinning neoliberal reforms, these reforms were expected to strengthen the formal private sector, we have seen instead that villagers remained dependent on patronage relations and informal exchanges within personal networks, also because formalisation became more difficult due to the reduced administrative and bureaucratic capacity of the state. This corresponds to what several scholars have noted in ex-socialist countries in CEE and the FSU (e.g. Pavlovskaya 2004; Stenning et al. 2010) as well as in other contexts worldwide where neoliberal reforms have been applied (in particular in the framework of structural adjustment programmes in the Global South, e.g. Stiglitz 2003, and more recently in the context of austerity programmes in the Global North, e.g. Farnsworth and Irving 2018).

Nevertheless, I have rejected the idea of path dependency (e.g. Stark et al. 1998) – an idea that induces to read this evolution as the predictable influence of persistent habits and power structures on the outcomes of reforms (and parallel development programmes the like) or, in other words, that posits that essentialised notions of local “culture” hamper the “normal” accomplishment of reforms. Instead, I have shown that this evolution is the result of “direct responses to the new market initiatives, produced by them, rather than remnants of an older mentality” (Burawoy and Verdery 1999a, 2). In Chapter 8, I discussed how these “responses” have sometimes constituted an opportunity for questioning existing power relations and privileges but also, and more often, how they have reproduced hierarchies and inequalities, especially by reconfirming villagers’ dependence on patronage relations with local elites. In Chapter 9, I then showed how these hierarchies continue to shape agricultural practices in Pjak today and how they are constituted through intimate relational practices, which include for instance the reproduction of rigid gender roles within households but also the performance of hospitality rituals by both the host and the guest, like the ones I experienced in Jamilya’s *banja* described at the very beginning of this manuscript.

Concerning more specifically the ways in which agriculture is practiced and experienced in the village, I showed in Chapter 8 that agrarian reforms have produced, simultaneously but at different scales, a fragmentation and a reintegration of agriculture. On the one hand, post-independence reforms have
disintegrated the system of Soviet collective agriculture – a system that not only integrated the whole production and marketing process in a single farm but that was also integrated in the broader international socialist economic system. In this sense, production and marketing processes are today fragmented since they are performed within small farming units often only partially connected to national and international markets. On the other hand, the new organisation of agriculture in small farms has reintegrated the responsibility, awareness and knowledge of individual farmers over the whole production and marketing process, in contrast to the fragmentation of tasks of individual workers in Soviet farms. At the same time, both Chapters 8 and 9 showed that the agricultural activities of single households in Pjak have both been integrated into emerging formal and informal markets and have continued to be strongly integrated in social networks stretching well beyond the village.

The empirical material and the analysis presented in Part IV have provided some answers to the questions that emerged from Part III and were formulated in the Introduction to Part IV. These questions concerned in particular how existing local representations, practices and social relations reconfigure the meanings and practices of external initiatives for the promotion of cooperatives as well as how, simultaneously, these initiatives reconfigure local lifeworlds. I summarise here the answers that have emerged from Chapters 8 and 9 and then conclude by reflecting on what they reveal about broader power mechanisms, in particular about subjection processes and individual agency within them.

## Re-reading cooperative experiences and agricultural practices in Pjak

The analysis of agricultural activities in Pjak from a diverse economies perspective (following Pavlovskaya 2004; Gibson-Graham 2006b; Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy 2013) has allowed to reveal and do justice to the diversity of economic practices that are performed in the village well beyond what is commonly considered as the economic sphere, intended as formalised and mainly monetised practices. We have seen how, in Soviet times, at the time of post-independence reforms as well as today, villagers' livelihoods depend on a plethora of diverse economic activities that can be formalised or informal, monetised or nonmonetised and that take place in the public sphere as well as in the private sphere. In this context, the existing structures of informal cooperation within social networks have shaped and, at least in part, absorbed the activities promoted by development projects in the village. The resources made available by development projects have been distributed along existing personal networks. The formal framework of the cooperative Ak-Bulut, rather than modifying farmers' practices by establishing and regulating specific collective activities, has represented an additional tool through which farmers have been able to access project resources and further ones. Therefore, although some project activities have been variably framed as part of Ak-Bulut, which activities are formally part of the cooperative and which are not is a less relevant question than who is involved in these activities and what resources can be accessed through them. In this context, the experience of Ak-Bulut (and of other cooperatives in the Issyk-Kul region) is hard to grasp if we base our analysis on an understanding of cooperatives as formalised collective enterprises with clear boundaries and functions, but it can be best understood through a less normative and more open approach that looks at cooperation as a relational
practice (see Byrne and Healy 2006; Gibson-Graham 2006a, 101–26; Emery, Forney, and Wynne-Jones 2017).

Acknowledging in the first place the plurality of diverse economies of agriculture in Pjak has allowed me to analyse the different relations that emerge out of their multiple practices and that in turn shape these practices as well as how these relations have transformed over the last decades. Among these relations, I have emphasised especially the persistent importance of personal networks of different kinds (with close and distant relatives, former and current work colleagues, former schoolmates, neighbours, friends or acquaintances) not only for the access to crucial resources and services but also for villagers’ identities and sense of belonging. Focusing on these relations and networks has allowed me to analyse the processes of inclusion and exclusion that contribute to determine an individual’s position in the community and has thereby revealed the hierarchies and inequalities constituted through these relations. Concerning the experience of Ak-Bulut and of other cooperatives, my analysis illuminates the blind spots that the institutionalist analyses discussed in Chapter 2 leave on power relations and inequalities. We have seen, for instance, how the framework of Ak-Bulut and of other development project has, on the one hand, benefitted a particular kind of person while excluding other villagers. Simultaneously, however, the redistribution of project resources within personal networks has also allowed to include villagers that were not formally targeted by projects. On the other hand, the involvement in the cooperative and in other activities promoted by development agencies has also implied an additional burden for local elites, especially in terms of responsibility and accountability towards external institutions as well as towards villagers.

My analysis has confirmed the importance, discussed in Chapter 4, of not assuming that communities are homogeneous but of instead understanding communities as inessential and as emerging through intimate everyday practices and relations (Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy 2016; Amin and Howell 2016; Karner and Weicht 2016). At the same time, it is also important not to assume that inessential communities emerging from cooperation are progressive and inclusive by definition (Amin and Howell 2016). I have shown repeatedly that the communities emerging from cooperation practices in Pjak are internally stratified, exclude parts of their members from decision-making and rarely distribute equitably the benefits and burdens they generate. Inclusion and exclusion patterns at different scales result from power relations within these communities and their intersectional overlaps.

Post-independence reforms and projects have surely reshaped the scope and composition of these
communities. In Soviet times these communities, at least discursively and symbolically, included a larger
community of Soviet citizens (and even humanity more generally) and, in any case, materially included a
collective work unit in the Soviet farm and all employees of the farm (and thus all households in the
village). Today, the communities constituted through cooperation practices in the village are much
smaller and include mainly close relatives and friends. Nevertheless, post-independence reforms and
projects have only partially transformed power relations within these communities and have not
significantly reduced – and in some regards have even increased – internal inequalities and exclusion
patterns. In particular, by not assuming households as homogeneous entities, my analysis has shed light
on their internal fragmentation and hierarchies, which usually continue to benefit male and older members over younger and female ones.

Representations and practices of agriculture and cooperation in Pjak

In Part III I had already shown how the narrative of the failure of cooperatives by some scholars, development actors, governmental actors and villagers produces negative affects of inadequacy and lack. I had also suggested that villagers’ narrative about the loss of cooperation can be seen as a way to contest the idea, suggested by development actors and some scholars, that Kyrgyzstan’s rural population as a whole (and, more broadly, postsocialist societies the like) is unfit for cooperation because of its historical and cultural legacies. On the one hand, villagers endorse this idea by mobilising the notion of a “Kyrgyz mentality” of passivity and laziness that limits their active cooperation within farmers’ groups such as cooperatives. On the other hand, villagers’ parallel narrative of loss suggests that cooperation has been there before – and that it is actually and indeed a central element of Kyrgyz culture or “Kyrgyzness”. Villagers seem thus to suggest that the cause for their incapacity to engage in cooperation might be more recent: it is rather the consequence of a process of individualisation and social and economic stratification fuelled by the decollectivisation process started after the independence of the country. Whatever the specific terms and causation models, however, the common denominator of these narrative is the firm belief that Kyrgyzstani villagers today are unfit for cooperatives and cooperation as well as, more generally, “normally functioning” market economies, development or modernity, and that this unfitness is caused by a series of fundamental lacks and/or losses. This strongly resonates with the assumptions and arguments of broader developmentalist discourses, not only in the context of ex-socialist societies but also in the wider Global South and, more recently, in the Global North (e.g. Pigg 1992; Escobar 1995).

In Part IV it became even clearer that these assumptions and arguments are based on narrow understandings of cooperation and rigid categorisations of economy. On the one hand, development workers and some scholars refer to a particular kind of cooperation within formal institutions based on Western models; on the other hand, villagers refer in part to these models (or better said, their own reinterpretation of these models) and in part to their representations of traditional solidarity relations within kinship and friendship groups. We have seen, however, especially in Chapter 9, that both these representations make hardly visible other forms of cooperation that are indeed widespread in the village and crucial for agricultural activities and for villagers’ livelihoods and that, in the process of post-independence transformation, have strongly shaped the emergence and organisation of new agricultural markets and of private farming. My analysis of diverse economies of agriculture in Pjak has instead made these processes visible and has, as highlighted above, shed light on the inequalities and power relations that shape them.

Whereas in Part III I especially discussed how the specific narratives and representations on cooperatives and cooperation emerge from a particular understanding of, full or bounded, economic rationality (mainly of individual profit maximisation), in Part IV I have shown how other economic and social rationalities
intertwine, how they underpin these narratives and their assumed categorisations and how they relate to
multiple identities and moralities. In particular, I argued at the end of Chapter 9 that some forms of work
(as wage labour or as activity within “modern” farms) are more valued than other ones (household tasks
or “traditional” exchanges within social networks) and that this hierarchisation produces negative
identities defined for their lack of the more valued forms of work. I have also argued, drawing on Féaux
de la Croix (2017, 213–50), that the work of a single individual benefits today a more reduced
“constituency” than in Soviet times (a closer circle of relatives and friends versus the large community of
Soviet farms and Soviet citizens or even humanity as a whole). This reduction implies a devaluation of
individual work with respect to its lost embedding in a larger project and produces an additional sense of
lack among villagers.

All these lacks (in particular of cooperation and work), once more, contrast with the observation of actual
practices in the village, where – as I have extensively illustrated throughout Part IV – agricultural
activities are often performed in collaboration with relatives and friends and where villagers are often
busy all day organising and performing field activities and household tasks. I have thus argued, in line
with Gibson-Graham (2006b, 46–71; see also Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy 2013, 1–48), that
dominant understandings of economy devalue and delegitimise a large range of economic practices that
are on the contrary crucial for people’s livelihoods and that these dominant discourses thereby produce
negative identifications with lack and inadequacy.

These negative identities are produced also through processes of othering at multiple scales, for instance
in villagers’ comparison between their precarious livelihoods and their image of a prosperous Switzerland
or Europe. Kay, Shubin and Thelen (2012) have argued that postsocialist ruralities are object of a “double
othering” as *postsocialist* (in contrast to Western) and as *ruralities* (in contrast to urbanities). Indeed, we
have seen for instance that Batyr compares the “clean” business activities in Karakol with the unstable
and difficult farming activities in Pjak. At the same time, however, the divide between rural and urban is
also framed in another way that ascribes to the rural term of the comparison positive values. In particular,
these values relate to a notion of “Kyrgyzness” that includes strong cultural traditions and genuine
relations with a clean natural environment. The village is perceived as a space where solid traditional
bonds of kinship determine relations of solidarity and mutual support, the air is clean and the food is
organic per default; this is in opposition to the perceived urban environment of the capital, where social
bonds are weaker, people are spoiled, the air is polluted and the food one can find at the bazaar is of bad
quality and comes from China. This comparison, again, happens at different scales, for instance between
the even cleaner and more genuine – but at the same time even more backward – space of *jailoos*
(summer pastures, see Féaux de la Croix 2017, 51–81) and the village space where individualism is
already widespread – but at the same time where modernity has at least partially arrived (see the
comparison of Fig. 24 and Fig. 25). This alternative othering suggests that the hegemonic discourse is not
granitic and other narratives and representations can emerge: in the next section I turn to discuss how this
happens.
*Multiple subjectivities and individual agency in the intervals of hegemonic discourses*

In the discussion at the end of Part III I had advanced that, within the hegemonic discourse on the promotion of cooperatives, intervals of discontinuities leave space for the emergence of alternative framings, strategies and subjectivities. The analysis in Part IV has allowed to identify better the existing plural subjectivities, to understand more comprehensively how these subjectivities emerge within or are constrained by the hegemonic discourse on the promotion of cooperatives and, more generally, the political and social context of contemporary Kyrgyzstan, and to reflect on the consequences of these processes for villagers’ everyday lives.

I have already noted above that villagers’ different and apparently contradictory mobilisations of the (near or distant) past constitutes also a way to contest the dominant narrative stating that their current state of inadequacy is a legacy of their culture and their Soviet past. At the end of Chapter 9 I argued, in addition, that villagers’ mobilisation of elements of their past experiences (better said, of their current reinterpretation of this experience) is also a strategy – even if often unconscious – to contest some specific conditions of their present economic, political and social condition and therefore to express their wish and hope for the changing of this condition. In particular, I argued that villagers’ narrative about the loss of cooperation within weakening social networks points to three perceived problems with their respective wished solutions. First, the discursive individualisation of the responsibility for a person’s economic and social success – a discourse that corresponds to the logic of neoliberal capitalism – clashes with a context in which this success is in fact precarious and depends on structural conditions beyond individual control. In this regard, villagers express the wish for a meritocratic but also equalitarian society, where individuals enjoy equal opportunities and their success truly depends on their personal effort. Second, the weakening of social security systems (either in the form of social networks or of state welfare) exacerbates the precarity of villagers’ livelihoods in a new socio-economic system that is already precarious *per se* and of which individuals cannot fully make sense<fnref n="1" />. In this regard, the narrative about the abandonment by the state parallels the narrative of lost solidarity: both express the wish for stronger social security that could compensate for the uncertainty of the socio-economic context. Third, in a discursive context that, as discussed above, produces mostly negative identities of lack, villagers miss the identification with a larger and higher goal that would confer sense and value to their lives. In this regard, they express the wish that their personal efforts and everyday struggles be acknowledged and valued.

In Chapter 9 we also saw that villagers are able to navigate between different moral frameworks to legitimise their activities and position within the local community. They do not straightforwardly adopt or reproduce a morality of meritocracy and individual responsibility but adapt it according to the other moral framings available in their local cultural context. In this way, they are able to reinterpret – and thereby legitimise – a capitalist logic of private accumulation by mobilising the repertoire of what is considered

<footnote n="1">¹ Needless to say, with this I am not arguing that villagers are unable to do this because of their postsocialist condition or whatever “lack” of understanding or knowledge. Who can indeed claim to be able to fully make sense of the structural features *and* the contingent randomness of capitalisms (and socialisms)? Surely not myself. Probably many orthodox economists and maybe some structural Marxists have claimed they can: the countless fundamental critiques and additions to their models confirm, however, the opposite.</footnote>
the local traditional morality of sharing and cooperation. The villagers who enjoy (even precarious)
economic success thus are proud to show this success for instance through visible signs of material
consumption and to conform thus to the valorisation of personal effort and hard work that is common and
valued in what is considered Kyrgyz tradition as well as Islamic, Soviet and neoliberal ideology. At the
same time, however, the same villagers frame their economic success as benefitting their community
before themselves, which allows them to comply with the morality of sharing. This double framing
allows villagers to legitimise economic success as the result of personal effort that at the same time
benefits the community. It also allows them to constitute one's identity as a good worker/person who
serves others and honours reciprocity obligations and cultural traditions – an identity that is socially
valued and rewarded within the village community. The post-Cold War context has thus provided a
discursive legitimisation for private accumulation – a framework that makes available and values the
subject position of the active private entrepreneurs. At the same time, this position can be fully
legitimised only through its embedding within other moral repertoires, in particular the one of sharing and
solidarity – the entrepreneur becomes thus a charitable entrepreneur. Both framings, or discursive
structures, are maintained and reproduced through villagers' aspirations to correspond to legitimate and
valued identities as a way to cultivate a sense of belonging to a community in which individuals can
inscribe the meanings of their personal lives, especially after the overarching socialist project has become
unavailable as an identification element.

Furthermore, both framings contribute to the legitimisation not only of this new subject position but also of new or reinforced inequalities and discriminations. I illustrated this through the example of my own compliance with and reproduction of gender-based roles and discriminations through everyday intimate practices as a way to be acknowledged as a “good person”, to please people I love as well as to feel a legitimate belonging to my host family and community. Although the new moral repertoires made available by marketisation have indeed allowed some villagers to at least in part challenge these inequalities and discriminations (like in the case of Aisha), I argue that these new repertoires have not fundamentally altered the power structures underpinning such inequalities and discriminations. In particular, the legitimisation of private accumulation through both the identity as hard-working businessman/woman and the identity of the generous patron who cares for his/her close ones and for the larger community in fact even reduces the accountability of wealthy villagers towards less fortunate ones. For instance, we have seen that Aisha, by mobilising the repertoire of the charitable entrepreneur can avoid engaging in more open negotiations with other villagers about how to redistribute the surplus that should be generated through her future processing factory. Similarly, by insisting that his private business is supporting the village community, Kumbat prevents other villagers the possibility to participate in decisions about the distribution and management of the resources mobilised through his cooperative.

*Making sense of the past and wishing for a better future*

The power structures highlighted in the previous section remain equally unchallenged by villagers' use of
the past as a way to contest the present. I argue that this is the case because most references to past
experiences are based on an idealisation of these experiences as positive and on the parallel obscuring (or
forgetting, see Brockmeier 2002) of negative experiences. Villagers recall past hardship only marginally
– and often as a source of pride or as a joke. Kumbat and Dinara usually state that life in Soviet times was
good, although Kumbat spent several years in jail in the 1980s and his family suffered profound hardship;
Kumbat mentions his jail experience to me only once or twice and he frames it mostly as a funny
anecdote. On the contrary, older villagers recall the hardship during the second World War and its
aftermath very frequently; this hardship, however, is also a source of pride, which is inscribed in the
Soviet rhetoric about the Great Patriotic War and its victory over fascism. Frequent are also references to
the hardship during the 1990s; in this case too, however, often villagers add with pride that they were able
to overcome that crisis by their own.

Throughout the manuscript we have rarely heard villagers pointing explicitly to inequalities and discriminations in the past. The material presented in Chapter 8 has, however, confirmed that “Kyrgyz society was highly stratified before the Russians arrived” (Judith Beyer 2016, 21) and that this stratification persisted during Soviet rule. Oral histories by villagers have shown that this stratification, in Soviet times, was based on a particular kind of technical expertise that was rewarded with broad privileges linked to specialist positions within the Soviet farm. Later, the activities of international development organisations in the village did not fundamentally alter this stratification: privileged positions in relation to projects have been usually based on one’s authority in the community but also on technical expertise – even if in different forms. Furthermore, villagers’ accounts of the past almost completely silence the well-known violent practices of repression and control by the Soviet regime towards its citizens. Although the oral histories and evaluations of the past presented in the two chapters originate mainly from the generations that had direct experience, at least in their childhood, of Soviet rule, younger generations seem not to deviate significantly from the patterns just discussed. Joldosh (born in 1991), for example, explains to me that for him the Soviet time (which he mainly reconstructs through his grandmother’s tales) is like a fairy tale: everything was nice; food and other goods where abundant and cheap; all were equal and society was based on solidarity and on a profound *drujba* (friendship) that united all citizens.

Villagers thus use memories as a way to contest the present and “as part of the process of imagining a
different future”; in this sense, “references to past ideologies and practices are [...] part of the negotiation
of contemporary realities that can be seen as a ‘rational’ response indeed from the perspective of the local
actor rather than as an unreflective nostalgia for outmoded models of thought” (Hörschelmann and
Stenning 2008, 346). Indeed, the past offers powerful moral repertoires to contest the present – and even
more, it provides symbolic resources and discursive repertoires to make sense of the present, where, in
fact, others are usually difficultly available (see *ibid*.). The problem, however, is that in this way the
power relations that shaped representations and discourses in the past not only remain unchallenged but
are even reproduced.

I argue that the idealisation of the past and the selective remembering of its positive elements,
furthermore, tend to evacuate responsibility and accountability from both past and present power
structures: this limits the possibility to engage with the roots of inequalities and injustice in the past and,
as a consequence, also of those in the present. In this way, the wishes and desires expressed by villagers
through their memories often remain desires (fantasies, indeed) for something that never was and that
never can be, unless the mechanisms of fantasy are disrupted. Only by traversing these fantasies and by
tackling the power structures they mask – in the past and in the present – it is possible to engage radically
with villagers’ legitimate wish for a better future. In the concluding chapter of this manuscript I propose a
framework for cooperatives and cooperation that could allow us, as scholars, to engage with this wish.
# 10 GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The analysis of agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan has represented the entry point for a broader discussion of how local communities reinterpret the formal institutions for cooperation promoted by international agencies. This discussion in turn is part of a broader reflection on how communities and individuals locally rearticulate global processes of neoliberalisation and marketisation – a reflection focused on, but not limited to, the experience of ex-socialist countries in CEE and the FSU. My reflection is inserted in the scholarly traditions of the ethnographies of postsocialism (e.g. Burawoy and Verdery 1999b; Hörschelmann and Stenning 2008) and the ethnographies of aid (e.g. Mosse 2005; Olivier de Sardan 2005). Both traditions have provided an empirically grounded alternative to models of social change that are based on unfounded assumptions and on teleological visions of development and modernity and that, therefore, neglect entire dimensions of social reality. Although scholars in both ethnographic traditions have convincingly argued for the importance of this alternative since the 1990s, it is unfortunately still relevant three decades later: we have seen throughout the manuscript the tenacious persistence and problematic symbolic, affective and material consequences of the approaches that have been at the centre of the critique of these scholars. My research reiterates and renews their call for an “engagement with processes and meanings of transformation as it is lived, experienced and negotiated everyday [... an engagement that] provides a most important counterpoint to the bird’s-eye perspective of transitology and to neoliberal ideology” (Hörschelmann and Stenning 2008, 343).

## Failures and successes of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan

In this manuscript, I have presented and discussed my ethnographic engagement with the specific local reality of a village in northern Kyrgyzstan – a standpoint from which I have been able to observe the local re-articulation of the processes of economic liberalisation, state restructuring and nation-building that have been ongoing in the country since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. I have thus shown that villagers re-appropriate the activities promoted by development projects in Pjak or in other villages of the Issyk-Kul province, thereby adapting these activities to existing practices and moralities. In particular, I have made clear that farmers reinterpret the formal framework of the cooperative Ak-Bulut and of other cooperatives and use it mainly as a way to access external resources to be then redistributed along their personal networks rather than as a way to reframe and change their agricultural practices. More in general, villagers have in part embraced new market logics and today base their agricultural activities on monetary exchanges and commercial relations with new private actors such as local or international trade companies and intermediaries; at the same time, however, monetised or nonmonetised informal exchanges within networks of relatives and friends that stretch from the house to international remittance flows are crucial for villagers’ agricultural activities and livelihoods. This confirms the observations of the few studies that have looked, even if only marginally, at cooperation practices in Kyrgyzstan beyond formal institutions (e.g. Sabates-Wheeler 2007; Lerman 2013a, 26–27; Dörre 2015). It also joins conceptualisations within feminist economic geography of economic systems as assemblages
of multiple diverse economic practices stretching across multiple places (in particular Gibson-Graham 2006b; Smith and Stenning 2006).

Moreover, my analysis has revealed that other logics and moralities besides those of the market and of neoliberal capitalism affect the ways in which the surplus generated through agricultural activities is consumed or redistributed within households, personal networks and the village community as a whole. For instance, what villagers praise as the Kyrgyz tradition of sharing solicits successful farmers or entrepreneurs to share at least a part of their gains in the form of gifts that are variably framed as reciprocal obligations or charity. Or, coming back to my experience introduced at the beginning of the manuscript, what villagers emphasise as the distinctive Kyrgyz hospitality urges Jamilya to honour me as a guest with her food even if I thought I was only her customer. This does not only resonate with other ethnographic observations from Kyrgyzstan (e.g. G. Botoeva 2015; Féaux de la Croix 2017) but also meets the reflections of scholars who showed that markets are embedded in social relations and institutions (Polanyi 2001) or moral economies (Thompson 1971; 1991) or, even more convincingly, that markets are *per se* social, moral and political constructs (e.g. Krippner 2001; Palomera and Vetta 2016; Tilzey 2017).

Given this context and its complex processes, it is obviously reductive to state – as it is commonly done by scholars, development or governmental actors and residents of Pjak the like – that cooperatives have failed in Kyrgyzstan. Certainly, international agencies and governmental programmes have largely failed to establish cooperatives as formal and bounded collective enterprises. They have similarly failed, more generally, to establish (or “craft”, the term used by institutionalist scholars) formal cooperation institutions with democratic governance and management mechanisms, as the examples of Water User Associations or Pasture User Committees mentioned in Chapter 9 confirm. Even more certainly, the promotion of agricultural cooperatives by international and local actors has not resulted in the establishment of “perfect” agricultural markets in post-independence Kyrgyzstan – but this is also and mainly because, as many have acknowledged, perfect markets exist only in economic models (e.g. Narotzky and Besnier 2014 among many others).

Nevertheless, the promotion of cooperatives programmes has achieved to provide, directly or indirectly, material resources to some farmers, who have thus been able to reinforce or expand their agricultural activities. This has offered local elites new opportunities for intermediation, in part confirming their economic and social position. At the same time, however, these elites have also faced an increased burden of responsibility towards both external agencies and villagers and have at least in part redistributed their benefits within their personal networks, producing a kind of trickle-down effect. The material and symbolic resources provided by development programmes – in parallel with the emergent agricultural markets – have also offered opportunities to some disadvantaged villagers to, at least partially, challenge some of the local power structures. This has been possible not only because of their improved economic situation and integration in markets as postulated by the logic, often mobilised by development programmes, that increased revenues lead to emancipation; but also (and perhaps mainly) because the
engagement with development actors has allowed these villagers to build alternative personal networks
beyond the local ones.

Finally – and what constitutes one of the main arguments of my analysis – the apparatus, or dispositif, of the promotion of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan, which includes also the narrative about the failure of cooperatives, has certainly achieved to (further) persuade villagers that they lack something and that this something is the fulfilment of the project of neoliberal development that international programmes for the promotion of cooperatives and, more generally, for development or postsocialist transition explicitly advocate or implicitly endorse. If we agree with Escobar (1995) that one of the aims – pursued with intention or by default – of the whole development apparatus is the reproduction and fixation of dichotomous categories of “developed” and “underdeveloped” and if we agree also with Ferguson (1990) that another of its aims is the de-politicisation of a particular development model that is instead presented as universal and whose realisation is claimed to be a technical and not a political matter, we can then conclude that, in these regards, the promotion of cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan has been indeed successful.

In the reminder of this concluding chapter, I discuss how the traditional scholarly approaches on cooperatives and cooperation presented in Chapter 2 contribute to this specific “success”<fnref n="1" /> but also how individuals – in Pjak and outside the village – have been able to contest and resist, at least to some extent, the discursive power of such approaches. I therefore argue, then, for a different epistemological and ontological approach that would help re-valuing the progressive potential of cooperatives and cooperation experiences and re-inscribing them into a more inclusive, emancipatory and equalitarian vision. I conclude the manuscript by reflecting on the contribution of my analysis to broader disciplinary debates and social theories and on the possibilities for further research and engagement.

A hegemonic discourse with disempowering consequences

My analysis has joined the rising critique to institutionalist approaches to cooperation – a critique that recent commoning scholarship especially has convincingly articulated (e.g. Nightingale 2011; Singh 2017). I have also built on the recent and still rare voices that have called for abandoning normative understandings of cooperatives as tools for anti-capitalist resistance (Gibson-Graham 2006b, 101–26), as tools for inclusive development or private business within market economies (Emery, Forney, and Wynne-Jones 2017), or as tools *tout court* (Byrne and Healy 2006). Following these voices, I have analysed cooperatives not as formalised bounded entities but as the always transitory result of cooperation practices. This has allowed (1) to challenge the assumptions and essentialisations of institutionalist approaches on cooperatives and cooperation, (2) to expose the symbolic, affective and material consequences of the hegemonic discourse these approaches contribute to constitute and (3) to reveal the ways in which individuals reproduce or contest the power of this discourse.

<footnote n="1">¹ The quotes, indeed, underline the irony of this meaning of success.</footnote>
The main assumption of institutionalist approaches is that institutions can be “crafted” according to
selected sets of rules and that these institutions will then determine individual behaviour in a specific
direction (see e.g. Ostrom 2000). This assumption bases in turn on another assumption: that individuals
respond to the incentives and sanctions provided by institutions following an economic rationality (even
if a “bounded” one) of profit maximisation. The empirical material presented in the manuscript confirms
instead that, first, the “crafting” of institutions (in my case the promotion of cooperatives) is already
*per se* a fragmentary process of negotiation and reinterpretation by different actors (in my case
development workers and governmental actors) who have each different resources, interests and
aspirations (Chapter 6) and that, second, the always incomplete and ambiguous institutions constituted
through this process are in turn negotiated and reinterpreted by the individuals who are supposed to
comply with the rules of such institutions (in my case farmers, Chapter 7 and Chapter 8). Complex and
often contradictory overlapping rationalities, but also moralities and affects, shape these processes of
negotiation and reinterpretation – processes that are therefore always undetermined and contingent
(Chapter 9).

Critical institutionalist scholars have questioned these assumptions from within the institutionalist
scholarship by drawing attention to processes of “institutional bricolage” and to the role of alternative
rationalities in these processes (e.g. Cleaver 2007). However, they have left other assumptions
unchallenged, especially the ones about the power structures and identities that shape these processes:
notably relevant for the Central Asian context are in this sense the essentialised and homogenising
notions of cultural legacies, especially as related to the Soviet past and to older clan-based patronage
logics<fnref n="2" /> (see e.g. Sehring 2009; Soliev et al. 2017). My ethnographic material refutes the idea that
inherited cultural features determine the actions of individuals in path-dependent patterns. Instead, in line
with the non-deterministic reading advanced by ethnographers of postsocialism, my analysis shows that
individuals respond to (or, more precisely, engage with) changing institutional conditions by re-
articulating and reframing their practices in complex and open-ended ways that include also, but not only,
interpretations of past experiences and re-actualisations of past practices. My analysis also shows that
these processes of re-articulation and reframing continuously reconfigure the personal networks in which
patronage or other reciprocity practices are inserted; these networks include loyalties that are based not
only on clan or kinship ties but also on friendship relations that emerge for instance from collective work
experiences in the Soviet farm, from neighbourhood everyday life or from childhood school connections.

<footnote n="2">² Studies on Central Asia (e.g. Collins 2006) frequently highlight clan-based relations (and sometimes the power structures that underpin them), whereas this is rare in studies on the Global North – as if, in the latter context, clan/kinship relations did not determine inequalities and discriminations. A personal anecdote shows the opposite. While I am finalising the present manuscript, a friend calls on my phone to tell me about her latest experience in the house of her parents-in-law in a Swiss village. She is frustrated because whenever her family visits their house, the parents-in-law implicitly expect (and sometimes explicitly pretend) that my friend and her partner perform several time-consuming and physically demanding tasks in the house and garden. These tasks, my friend lucidly notes, emerge not out of the old couple’s material or psychological basic needs but rather out of its wish to maintain a certain social status in the village (for instance by offering their homemade *schnaps* as a gift to other villagers). The old couple partially involves its son in the planning of tasks and leisure but never includes my friend. It also usually neglects, in this planning, to consider the equally time-consuming and physically demanding tasks the young couple has to simultaneously perform to care for its two young children. My friend’s tale strongly resonates with what I highlighted in Chapter 9, in particular the exclusion of female and/or young family members from decision-making, the double burden falling of women (but in the, at least in some regards, gender-fairer Switzerland, also of young men) and the importance of informal flows of goods and labour within families as well as within local personal networks.</footnote>
Finally, institutionalist approaches – like most community development programmes – tend to assume a homogenising and often romanticised view on local communities, neglecting their internal differentiations and stratifications, of which I have provided several examples throughout the manuscript.

Institutionalist approaches and most other current approaches on cooperative theory and cooperation promotion discussed in Chapter 2 fail therefore to consider and acknowledge other dimensions of social reality beyond a particular, and limited, economic dimension. The simplified reading of social reality produced by these approaches does not remain confined in academic texts (as, unfortunately, is too often the case for their critique) but circulates through specialised degree programmes in educational institutions and through management and design practices in development agencies' offices and reaches local development workers, governmental actors and villagers. The example of the repetition, in academic texts and practice-oriented reports, of Lerman's phrasing about the "psychological resistance to cooperation" in ex-socialist countries (e.g. Gardner and Lerman 2006, among several others, see §6.1.3) and the example of how I encountered Lerman's arguments in conversations with development workers and villagers in Kyrgyzstan reveal the process of circulation of a specific kind of knowledge that becomes, through this circulation, a reality. This specific knowledge is part of, and at the same time constitutes, a broader discourse that becomes hegemonic because it provides the legitimation frame for a series of institutions, knowledges, experiences and identities that, in turn, contribute to produce and legitimise that same framing (see Escobar 1995).

More concretely, the simplified vision of cooperation and institutions produced by scholarly accounts and the consequent recommendations by the latter for the practical implementation of cooperation initiatives (for instance through the application of sets of 'rules', see Ostrom 2000) constitute a handy knowledge that development agencies and their employees can easily appropriate and apply in their programmes. This kind of knowledge is especially convenient within the specific institutional settings of a development apparatus dominated by the logics of short-term mandates and projects, competition for donor funding and requirements of clear indicators and measurable evidence of success. The problem, however, is that, since most of the assumptions underpinning this knowledge are questionable, the probability that development projects follow in practice the path expected in theory is very low, if not null (see e.g. Mosse 2004; 2005). After all, development programmes (but also, similarly, reforms after socialism, structural adjustments or austerity programmes), in order to evolve how they are expected to, would require that the assumptions on which these expectations are based be true: that, for instance, a class of peasant farmers who respond to economic incentives and who profit of what are considered self-evident benefits already exists. Even when acknowledging the absence of such a class, development programmes assume that it will emerge as soon as the correct institutional settings and incentive structures are in place. Ironically, this is reminiscent of the Bolsheviks' plan to establish a proletarian state in the largely unindustrialised Central Asian region, in the absence of a proletarian class that was supposed to emerge as soon as the Soviet regime was put in place.<fnref n="3" />

<footnote n="3">³ I thank Christine Bichsel for suggesting this parallel.</footnote>
The result of all this, as I have shown in detail especially in Part III, is a narrative of failure that places
responsibility for this failure not on the simplistic assumptions of cooperation initiatives and of
cooperative theory but on a series of essentialised lacks among individuals and entire communities. The
hegemonic discourse thus not only legitimises a simplified and partial knowledge as universal but also
*produces* a simplified reality subdivided in dichotomous categories. It generates not only a process of
“double othering” along the lines of East/West and urban/rural, as argued by Kay, Shubin and Thelen
(2012, 57–58) but an even more complex process of multiple othering along the additional lines of,
among others, development/backwardness, modernity/tradition or technical expertise/local experience
and at multiple overlapping scales, for instance *jailoo/village, village/city, Kyrgyzstan/Switzerland or
Central Asia/Europe*. Symbolically, the hegemonic discourse provides a limited repertoire of identities, or
subject positions, and the ones available to villagers are mostly in the negative pole of the dichotomies.

As a consequence, the hegemonic discourse produces mainly negative affects among villagers – of lack, deficiency or inadequacy – with disempowering and disheartening effects on individuals. Finally, because the hegemonic discourse renders largely invisible existing discriminations and inequalities, but also existing cooperation practices, it forecloses the possibility to concretely tackle such discriminations and inequalities as well as to build on and expand such cooperation practices. I have argued, following Byrne and Healy (2006; also Healy 2010), that development workers, governmental actors and villagers, but also many scholars, are in this regard fantasmatic subjects: they are trapped in a fantasy mechanism that produces simultaneously an unrealisable object of desire and the symptoms that prevent its realisation. The consequence of all this, then, is that these subjects are often unable to engage ethically (in the sense intended by Healy 2010) with the concrete everyday challenges of cooperatives or cooperation initiatives and with their concrete opportunities in the here and now.

*Disruptions: individual agency in intervals of discontinuities*

I have joined feminist post-structuralist scholars, in particular the tradition building on Butler's work (e.g. Gibson-Graham 2006a; Nightingale 2019; see Butler 1997) in noting that hegemonic discourses and subjection processes are never fully accomplished and that individual agency can emerge in their intervals of discontinuities. I have thus shown that individuals, in Pjak and outside the village,<fnref n="4" /> engage in different ways with the hegemonic discourse discussed above: they negotiate multiple moralities and identities and thereby shape the hegemonic discourse, sometimes strengthening and sometimes contesting it. Whereas, as we have seen throughout the manuscript, villagers do reproduce the dichotomous categories of the hegemonic developmentalist discourse, identify with the negative subject positions it provides and suffer the negative affects it produces, they also strive, simultaneously, to reclaim an autonomous and more positive identity for its negative pole. They do so by mobilising another powerful framing that is available

<footnote n="4">⁴ Outside Pjak, we have seen especially the example of development workers in Chapter 6. Since I have engaged in a much more
limited way with these actors during my fieldwork, I have been able to only suggest some of the ways they seem to navigate
between different framings, moralities and aspirations or how their multiple subjectivities emerge. I could not deepen my analysis in
this direction, but Féaux de la Croix's (2013) study on Kyrgyzstani development workers does well to confirm my impressions.</footnote>
to them: the repertoire of “Kyrgyzness” that is employed and legitimised especially by the nationalist
narratives emerged within the nation-building process following Kyrgyzstan’s independence (see e.g.
Everett-Heath 2003; Isaacs and Polese 2016). If, on the one hand, within the developmentalist discourse
Kyrgyzstan is the backward Other of the developed West or North, the nationalist discourse, on the other
hand, attributes to – invented (see Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992) – Kyrgyz traditions and positive values
related to solidarity, community and genuineness in opposition to the assumed cold individualism and
detachment from nature and community of Western societies. Kyrgyzstani ruralities represent, in the
overlapping of the two discourses and their processes of multiple othering, the two most extreme poles:
they are considered backward and deficient in their comparison with urban development on the one hand
and, on the other, they are valued as strongholds of genuine Kyrgyzness in opposition to Western
societies and Kyrgyzstani cities.

I argue that the two developmentalist and nationalist discourses imply two different sets of moralities,
which in some regards converge and, in some others, diverge. Villagers continuously reinterpret and
renegotiate these moralities: in different contexts they draw on one or the other repertoire to legitimise
their practices and identities or to make sense of the reality they experience. On the one hand, we have
seen that the logic of sharing (endorsed by the nationalist discourse) counters the logic of private
accumulation (endorsed by the developmentalist discourse) when villagers redistribute the surplus
generated through their private activities (in a cooperative or outside it) among their relatives and friends
as a way to honour Kyrgyz kinship or friendship traditions and to comply with their values. If read
through Thompson’s (1971) moral economies lenses, this process is an example of how local social
relations embed emerging markets attempting to reduce the negative social consequences of the latter on
local communities. If read through Polanyi’s (2001) “double movement” lenses, the process is an
example of how a movement of social protection parallels a movement of marketisation. However, I have
also shown that the reciprocity obligations implied by the logic of sharing within personal networks can
represent a burden and, in Fraser’s (2013) formulation, limit the “negative liberty” offered by markets
(for instance the possibility to bath in a private *banja* without having to perform hospitality rituals, or
starting a business activity without having to rely on one’s mother-in-law approval) and thereby their
potential for emancipation from oppressive social relations.

On the other hand, I have shown that some villagers creatively construct an identity as “charitable
entrepreneurs” as a way to justify and legitimise their practices of private accumulation through the
mobilisation of the repertoire of traditional sharing. Here, although the two logics (accumulating versus
sharing) diverge, the discursive mobilisation of the latter supports the material realisation of the former.
The two logics converge thus in a specific morality of (hard) work – a morality that directly attributes the
responsibility of economic success to the individual, as is expressed by the Kyrgyz proverb “who works,
will eat”. Villagers reproduce this specific morality in their narratives but, simultaneously, they see that it
does not correspond to their everyday experiences of economic success or failure. Therefore, while they
endorse the principle that economic success is a matter of individual responsibility, they simultaneously
mobilise the dichotomous categories of the developmentalist discourse to evacuate this individual
responsibility from themselves and shift it on structural elements such as the “Soviet legacy” or “Kyrgyz mentality”. In this way, these categories are further reinforced, as are the negative identities and affects they produce.

Considering all this, we can conclude, on the one hand, that the villagers who are in some ways related to the cooperative Ak-Bulut (or to other cooperatives) are postfantasmatic co-operator subjects (as intended by Byrne and Healy 2006 and as discussed in Chapter 4) because they do not base their decisions and negotiations concerning the cooperative on the normative, idealised model of cooperative promoted by development agencies. Instead, they reinterpret this model every time a concrete question emerges and engage with the question in an open-ended way, considering alternative moralities and identities and deciding, for instance, to redistribute to other villagers the surplus generated through the cooperative even if this is not officially foreseen by the formal regulations of the cooperative. In a similar way, when development workers or governmental actors suggest to a group of farmers to register as a cooperative to access a credit scheme or when they renegotiate the terms and contents of the activities planned in their programmes, we can see them as postfantasmatic subjects who have been able to overcome the normativity of the hegemonic discourse.

On the other hand, I argue that villagers related to Ak-Bulut, like other villagers less related to it as well as many development workers, governmental actors and scholars, are simultaneously fantasmatic subjects in many other regards. First, the nationalist discourse is not less essentialist and normative than the developmentalist discourse: its notion of “Kyrgyzness” is dangerous not only because it excludes other ethnic groups but also because it is romanticised and homogenising and, therefore, it masks social stratifications and inequalities inherent to communities. Second, the legitimisation of private accumulation through the mobilisation of the repertoire of traditional sharing in fact withdraws accumulation processes from others’ scrutiny and further reduces the possibility to renegotiate these processes to make them more inclusive. Third, contesting, like I have shown villagers do, the logic of individual responsibility for economic success is paramount: however, the way it is contested through the reproduction of the dichotomous categories of the developmentalist discourse fails to diagnose – and therefore tackle – the actual structural conditions that make the rule “who works, will eat” invalid in practice. Tackling these structural conditions would mean, for instance, to renegotiate governmental social security and redistribution systems, to redefine farmers’ participation and decision-making power in political and economic institutions or to redefine traditional roles within households. I have shown that villagers implicitly raise their claims concerning these issues through nostalgic narratives about the past. However, I have argued that these claims, too, are based on romanticised and essentialised reinterpretations of past experiences and, therefore, similarly fail to diagnose and tackle the roots of inequality in the past as in the present.
A postcapitalist framework to engage with cooperatives in postsocialism

Despite the critique I have raised through my analysis, I argue that scholars and activists should not completely dismiss the idea of cooperatives as frameworks to foster cooperation and inclusion. Inspired by the longstanding engagement of Gibson-Graham (e.g. 2006a), Healy (e.g. 2010; Byrne and Healy 2006) and other scholars who have followed their path (e.g. Emery, Forney, and Wynne-Jones 2017 and the authors of their edited special issue), I advance an alternative approach to rethink cooperatives in postsocialism in theory and to engage with them in practice. Certainly, the approach I propose does not provide handy “rules” or schemata to be easily applied in development projects and is thus, in this regard, incompatible with the current structure of the development apparatus discussed above. I argue, however, that this should not be a reason to reject the approach I propose, but rather an argument for the necessity to rethink also the structure of today’s international development system.<fnref n="5" />

I thus call for an antiessentialist approach to cooperatives. This means, first of all, to engage in a process of deconstruction of essentialist assumptions and normative notions about cooperatives and cooperation – assumptions and notions that circulate widely and that are rooted deeply in subjects, including ourselves as researchers.<fnref n="6" /> This concerns above all our understandings of identities, rationalities and institutions. We should ask what identities/rationalities/institutions we are assuming, whether they correspond to what we can observe in the social reality we are engaging with and, if not, what the symbolic, affective and material consequences of these assumptions are. Here, in particular, we should pay specific attention to avoid essentialist understandings of communities (which is indeed crucial at the end of a decade that has seen the steady rise of such understandings) but also to acknowledge the heterogeneity of antiessentialist communities, asking how power relations produce their internal differentiations and stratifications (Amin and Howell 2016; Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy 2016). The rejection of essentialism should concern cultural, social and also economic categories, embracing a postcapitalist stance that disrupts the hierarchical categories through which we are used to make sense of economic practices (Byrne and Healy 2006; Gibson-Graham 2006a). Here, in particular, we should include and value in our analysis economic practices that are too often neglected, especially informal and nonmonetised practices and those that are performed in the private sphere.

<footnote n="5">⁵ An engagement in this direction, building on the countless already existing attempts in the same direction, is far beyond the scope of this manuscript, but certainly represents a much-needed project for scholars, development practitioners and citizens globally. Such an endeavour could start from the official recognition by development institutions of what is already evident to every individual development worker with some experience in the field and what ethnographers of aid have reiterated for decades: that a development project in practice necessarily differs from its theory because actors inevitably reinterpret and renegotiate its meanings and activities in their everyday. This not only could reduce the blaming of so-called project beneficiaries for the deviations of projects from their planned goals and activities. It could also bring about a process of emancipation of individual development workers who could finally be transparent on their experiences in the field without having to “embellish” them to make them fit rigid evaluation schemes and expectations of compliance with project goals.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ A last personal anecdote proves the deep roots of such assumptions and notions and how difficult is to abandon them. After I have engaged six years with these reflections in the framework of my doctoral research (and even longer if we consider my previous academic, professional and personal experiences), the capitalocentric structures deeply rooted in my subject still manifest in my writing practice. I am thankful to Bruno Meeus who, while reviewing one of the last sections of this manuscript, noted, with his striking and inspiring sensibility, that I put concepts such as “market” or “economy” almost systematically in the subject position of my sentences, even when these are turned in the passive form. The way I unconsciously structured my sentences relegates other entities, such as social relations, moralities, or even human actors, to secondary grammatical functions. I have revised as far as possible the construction of my sentences in the last sections of the manuscript, while I have left it mostly unchanged in the central chapters – also as a way to testify the subtle, tortuous and always incomplete transformation of one’s own subjectivity.</footnote>
I call for a postfantasmatic approach to cooperatives, through which we do not focus on an idealised future or a nostalgic past but we engage ethically in the actual present. This means that we should strive to traverse our own fantasies about idealised models of cooperatives and cooperation, to abandon our teleological visions of development and to let go of our fixation on symptoms that our fantasies themselves produce. We should abandon normative and purist visions of how a cooperative should be; instead, we should learn to “stay with the trouble” (Haraway 2016; see also Nightingale 2019) of acknowledging, accepting and engaging with the intrinsic fragmentation, contingency and incompleteness of always open-ended, undetermined and unpredictable social processes. Only in this way can we “pass to the act” and “act ethically” (Healy 2010, 503): engage with the contingent present, here and now, with concrete open questions that raise day after day, and negotiate these questions by considering all their implications for the human and nonhuman entities that are affected by them and by assuming our responsibility for our decisions and actions. This means, more concretely, to engage openly with the social relations and practices that we can observe in a specific local reality – such as patronage relations, reciprocity networks, informal exchanges or even illegal practices. We should, first, ask what inclusions or exclusions, benefits and inequalities these relations and practices produce and, then, act ethically *from* them to tackle the roots of the exclusions and inequalities we wish to transform.

I call for a relational approach to cooperatives. This means that in order to transform what we wish to transform, we should first of all transform ourselves and our relations with the entities concerned by this transformation. Cooperatives, then, are not anymore formal institutions that are crafted to prompt individual behaviour in a wished direction, but become one among other possible ways to nurture and reconfigure relations (Singh 2017; Nightingale 2019). Within this approach, a particular engagement with the affective dimensions of cooperatives is indispensable. While engaging with the assumptions, notions, fantasies, relations and practices discussed in the two previous paragraphs, we should thus interrogate their affective consequences and, if they affects they produce are negative, we should reflect on how to nurture more positive ones through what relations.

As a compass to orient ourselves in this transformation, I suggest that Fraser's (2013; also 2015) conceptualisation of a "triple movement" can be helpful, even if perhaps not enough. Fraser argues for a progressive project that comprises the elements of three "movements": an attention to social protection (to whom and how to redistribute surplus) and to emancipation (who has access to rights and recognition) combined with a regulated marketisation that offers negative liberty to individuals. Fraser, however, does not expand on the importance of political (and here I intend political in the broadest sense) decision-making, which for her is a component of emancipation. I propose a stronger focus on this element, intended not necessarily as the establishment of formal institutions of representative democracy but rather, more broadly, as participation in decision-making processes at several levels, from the household to national and international formal political institutions through informal groupings of whatever kind. Furthermore, I insist on the importance of ethical responsibility as a way to acknowledge the intertwining of our and others' actions within complex social systems and the implications of our decisions for multiple communities at multiple scales.
For such a complex and ambitious project, we cannot eschew a deep intellectual and affective engagement through methodologies that do not limit our multi-dimensional experience as researching subjects and that instead leave large room for openness to the unexpected, the unknown and the unthought. A weak theory approach combined with feminist ethnography as the one I have engaged with in my research is, therefore, an appropriate starting point. It is not, however, enough: a more active commitment to collaboration for a more explicit collective transformational effort is needed. Adequate for such a commitment are certainly, but not exclusively, action-research practices within hybrid collectives that would include, besides social scientists, for instance farmers, villagers, development workers, governmental actors, natural scientists and artists (see Gibson-Graham and Roelvink 2010b).<fnref n="7" />

## Outlook

I made clear in the manuscript that my reflections were triggered in particular by the negative affects I felt when engaging with the institutionalist literature on (“failed”) cooperation in postsocialism. My theoretical reflections and my approach to the empirical material were fuelled by my wish to counter the determinism of approaches that tend to conceptualise institutions as rigid structures that govern individual behaviour. As a way to counterbalance the excessive focus on determined and determining structures of institutionalist approaches, I emphasised and insisted on the fluidity and plurality of social entities and on the overdetermination and open-endedness of social processes. A further, rebalancing, step could consist in reconsidering the regulating (but never fully determining) power of institutions on individual behaviour.<fnref n="8" /> Such a step could rehabilitate the notion of “institutions” – intended not only as formal ones such as cooperatives but also as informal ones such as kinship. Here, however, it would be crucial to conceptualise institutions not as rigid structures but as fluid entities – as Vasile (2019b) suggests with the notion of “enlivened institutions”.

I have built my critique to institutionalist approaches to cooperation on the commoning scholarship emerged recently as a feminist current within political ecology (see Clement et al. 2019). By applying to agricultural cooperatives the reflections articulated within this scholarship, I have expanded these reflections beyond their focus on entities that are part of the traditional realm of commons – such as forest, fish or pasture land – and of the more recent “new commons” – such as information resources and technology (the digital commons), the body or atmosphere. I have shown the validity and usefulness of the relational approach developed within the commoning scholarship to illuminate and better make sense of forms of cooperation that do not emerge out of relations with a specific commons entity – as in the case of the cooperative Ak-Bulut, where we cannot consider agricultural land strictly as a commons. By insisting on the importance of a specific attention to the subjection processes – and their affective consequences – produced by hegemonic discourses on economy, my research contributes to enrich the reflections of commoning scholars, who sometimes overlook to engage explicitly with a thorough

<footnote n="7">⁷ See also the several examples of such practices by the members of the Community Economies Research Network (http://www.communityeconomies.org, accessed 23.12.2019).</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ I thank Bruno Meeus for suggesting this step.</footnote>
deconstruction of economic categories and with an analysis of their consequences. I also introduce into these reflections the concept of fantasy and a more precise attention to dimensions of temporality (reinterpreted pasts and aspired futures) – two elements that are still underinvestigated within the commoning scholarship. Thereby, I contribute to the recent and promising dialogue, within the commoning scholarship, between its political ecologist and postcapitalist currents (id.). Certainly, my analysis could be reinforced and expanded through an engagement with the specific sensibilities promoted by the political ecologist current. In particular, a deeper analysis of the role of nonhuman entities – especially soil, seeds and climate – in the processes I have described in the manuscript would allow to strengthen the significance of my research in relation to environmental processes and challenges, in the historical context of the decade that is about to start where tackling these challenges has become imperatively urgent.

My research confirms the validity and importance of a postcapitalist approach in economic geography (see in particular Gibson-Graham 2006a) and enriches the theoretical apparatus of this approach with reflections grounded in empirical material from a context – postsocialist ruralities – that until present has not been included in the reflections of postcapitalist scholars. I argue that two elements are particularly relevant in this regard. First, in the Central Asian postsocialist ruralities, the overlapping of processes of multiple othering at multiple scales is better visible than in the contexts with which postcapitalist scholars are used to engage (in particular the deindustrialising Global North and the Global South). My analysis has revealed the disheartening consequences of these othering processes and calls thus for a stronger commitment to their deconstruction and analysis also in contexts where these processes are less visible. Second, the particular historical trajectories of ex-socialist countries in CEE and the FSU endows the present realities of these countries with dimensions of temporality that are different from those from which postcapitalist theory has emerged. In general, in the deindustrialising Global North, where Gibson-Graham has mostly engaged, the industrial past represents modernity and prosperity: subjects thus experience today a loss and perceive their trajectory as a regression with respect to a linear teleological vision of history. On the other hand, in the Global South, the past is represented as backward (even if romanticisations of local traditions and communities are common) while the present is experienced as a transitory stage towards development/modernity within the same linear teleological vision of history. In ex-socialist countries in CEE and the FSU, instead, the past represents something else; socialist experience represents a different kind of modernity and perceived prosperity that, after the end of the Cold War, has, however, lost its legitimacy. The present is thus both a regression from the past modernity but also a transitory stage towards another kind of modernity. We have seen that these particular dimensions of temporality importantly shape the processes I have described in the manuscript. Therefore, I suggest that a deeper reflection on specific localised dimensions of temporality could be illuminating also in the other contexts and that a comparison of the role of these dimensions in these different contexts could be productive to deepen our understandings of diverse economies – and of economy *tout court*.

Finally, then, the results of my analysis of marketisation processes in a Kyrgyzstani village are not relevant only for the specific and limited local context but, I argue, join the contributions of other
ethnographic analysis of postsocialism “to reconceptualizations of taken-for-granted concepts such as ‘the market’, ‘class’ or ‘civil society’” (Hörschelmann and Stenning 2008, 356) – but also, in my case, as “economy”, “development” or “modernity” and as “past”, “present” and “future”. Such reconceptualisation, indeed, “enabl[es] further theorizations of social change and pos[es] questions about the validity of the models now applied in postsocialist countries for established capitalist societies themselves” (ibid). In particular, my analysis contributes to better understand complex processes of subjection and the room for individual agency left by their discontinuities as well as to better grasp the role of temporalities, multiple othering processes at multiple scales and affects within these processes. In a decade that is commencing with the risk that increasingly vigorous sovereignist/nationalist forces use the urgency of the environmental crisis to advance and impose their authoritarian agendas, understanding how individual agency can destabilise or disrupt hegemonic power is vital.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abazov, Rafis. 1999. 'Policy of Economic Transition in Kyrgyzstan'. *Central Asian Survey* 18 (2): 197-223.

———. 2008. *The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia*. Palgrave Macmillan.

Abele, Steffen, and Klaus Frohberg, eds. 2003. *Subsistence Agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe: How to Break the Vicious Circle? Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Central and Eastern Europe* 22. Halle (Saale): IAMO.

Abrams, Lynn. 2010. *Oral History Theory*. London: Routledge.

Agarwal, Bina. 2010. 'Rethinking Agricultural Production Collectivities'. *Economic and Political Weekly* 45 (9): 64-78.

Agrawal, Arun. 2005. *Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects*. Durham: Duke University Press Books.

Ahmed, Sara. 2007. *The Cultural Politics of Emotion*. New York: Routledge.

Ahrens, Joachim, and Herman W. Hoen. 2012. *Institutional Reform in Central Asia: Politico-Economic Challenges*. New York: Routledge.

Akramov, Kamiljon T., and Nurbek Omuraliev. 2009. 'Institutional Change, Rural Services, and Agricultural Performance in Kyrgyzstan'. IFPRI Discussion Paper. International Food Policy Research Institute.

Alexander, Catherine. 2004. 'Value, Relations, and Changing Bodies: Privatization and Property Rights in Kazakhstan'. In *Property in Question: Value Transformation in the Global Economy*, edited by Katherine Verdery and Caroline Humphrey, 251-73. Oxford, UK; New York, NY, USA: Bloomsbury Academic.

Alff, Henryk. 2016. 'Flowing Goods, Hardening Borders? China's Commercial Expansion into Kyrgyzstan Re-Examined'. *Eurasian Geography and Economics* 57 (3): 433-56.

Alsop, Christiane Kraft. 2005. 'Home and Away: Self-Reflexive Auto/Ethnography. Auto/Biography and Auto/Ethnography'. In *Auto/Biography and Auto/Ethnography. Praxis of Research Method*, edited by Wolff-Michael Roth, 430-720. Leiden: Brill Sense.

Altman, Morris. 2015. 'Cooperative Organizations as an Engine of Equitable Rural Economic Development'. *Journal of Co-Operative Organization and Management* 3 (1): 14-23.

Altvater, Elmar. 1998. 'Theoretical Deliberations on Time and Space in Post-Socialist Transformation'. *Regional Studies* 32 (7): 591-605.

Alymkulov, Emil, and Marat Kulatov. 2001. 'Local Government in the Kyrgyz Republic'. *Developing New Rules in the Old Environment. Local Governments in Eastern Europe, in the Caucasus and in Central Asia*. Budapest: Open Society Institute.

Amin, Ash, and Philip Howell, eds. 2016. *Releasing the Commons: Rethinking the Futures of the Commons*. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2016.

Amit, Vered. 2000. *Constructing the Field: Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Contemporary World*. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.

Atabaki, Touraj, and John O'Kane, eds. 1998. *Post-Soviet Central Asia*. London; New York: I. B. Tauris.
Atanasova, Todorova Stela. 2014. 'Agricultural Production Cooperatives in Bulgaria: Evolution, Present Status, Problems and Possibilities for Development'. *СОВРЕМЕННАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА: ПРОБЛЕМЫ, ТЕНДЕНЦИИ, ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ* 10: 21.

Babajanian, Babken. 2011. 'Problematising the Community-Contribution Requirement in Participatory Projects: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan'. *Development in Practice* 21 (3): 317–29.

———. 2015. 'Promoting Empowerment? The World Bank's Village Investment Project in Kyrgyzstan'. *Central Asian Survey* 34 (4): 499–515.

Babajanian, Babken, Sabine Freizer, and Daniel Stevens. 2005. 'Introduction: Civil Society in Central Asia and the Caucasus'. *Central Asian Survey* 24 (3): 209–24.

Baerlein, Tanja, Ulan Kasymov, and Dimitrios Zikos. 2015. 'Self-Governance and Sustainable Common Pool Resource Management in Kyrgyzstan'. *Sustainability* 7 (1): 496–521.

Bandey, Aijaz A., and Farooq Ahmad Rather. 2013. 'Socio-Economic and Political Motivations of Russian Out-Migration from Central Asia'. *Journal of Eurasian Studies* 4 (2): 146–53.

Barret, Michèle. 1980. *Women's Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis*. Verso.

Beishenaly, Nazik, and Burul Namazova. 2012. 'Development of Agricultural Cooperatives in the Kyrgyz Republic'. Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).

Benfield, Richard W. 1998. 'Evolution of the Rural Landscape of Ysyk-Kul Oblast, Republic of Kyrgyzstan'. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma, Graduate College.

Bennett, Abigail, Leslie Acton, Graham Epstein, Rebecca L. Gruby, and Mateja Nenadovic. 2018. 'Embracing Conceptual Diversity to Integrate Power and Institutional Analysis: Introducing a Relational Typology'. *International Journal of the Commons* 12 (2): 330–57.

Beyer, Judith. 2006. 'Revitalisation, Invention and Continued Existence of the Kyrgyz Aksakal Courts: Listening to Pluralistic Accounts of History'. *The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law* 38 (53–54): 141–176.

———. 2007. 'Imagining the State in Rural Kyrgyzstan: How Perceptions of the State Create Customary Law in the Kyrgyz Aksakal Courts'. Working Paper 95. Halle (Saale): Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

———. 2016. *The Force of Custom: Law and the Ordering of Everyday Life in Kyrgyzstan*. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Beyer, Jürgen, and Jan Wielgohs. 2001. 'On the Limits of Path Dependency Approaches for Explaining Postsocialist Institution Building: In Critical Response to David Stark'. *East European Politics and Societies* 15 (2): 356–88.

Bichsel, Christine. 2009. *Conflict Transformation in Central Asia: Irrigation Disputes in the Ferghana Valley*. London: Routledge.

Bichsel, Christine, Gilber Fokou, Asel Ibraimova, Ulan Kasymov, Bernd Steimann, and Susan Thieme. 2010. 'Natural Resource Institutions in Transformation: Tragedy and Glory of the Private'. In *Global Change and Sustainable Development: A Synthesis of Regional Experiences From Research Partnerships*, edited by Hans Hurni and Urs Wiesmann, University of Bern, 5: 255–69. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South. Bern: Geographica Bernensia.

Bierschenk, Thomas, Jean-pierre Chauveau, and Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan. 2002. 'Local Development Brokers in Africa: The Rise of a New Social Category'. Working Paper 13. Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz.
Birchall, Johnston. 2004. *Cooperatives and the Millennium Development Goals*. Geneva: International Labour Office.

Botoeva, Aisalkyn, and Regine A. Spector. 2013. 'Sewing to Satisfaction: Craft-Based Entrepreneurs in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan'. *Central Asian Survey* 32 (4): 487–500.

Botoeva, Gulzat. 2015. 'The Monetization of Social Celebrations in Rural Kyrgyzstan: On the Uses of Hashish Money'. *Central Asian Survey* 34 (4): 531–48. h

Brigg, Morgan. 2002. 'Post-Development, Foucault and the Colonisation Metaphor'. *Third World Quarterly* 23 (3): 421–36.

Brockmeier, Jens. 2002. 'Remembering and Forgetting: Narrative as Cultural Memory'. *Culture & Psychology* 8 (1): 15–43.

Brower, Daniel R. 2003. *Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire*. London; New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

Burawoy, Michael, Pavel Krotov, and Tatyana Lytkina. 2000. 'Involution and Destitution in Capitalist Russia'. *Ethnography* 1 (1): 43–65.

Burawoy, Michael, and Katherine Verdery. 1999a. 'Introduction: Uncertain Transition'. In *Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World*, edited by Michael Burawoy and Katherine Verdery. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

———. 1999b. *Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World*. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Bustanov, Alfrid K. 2015. *Soviet Orientalism and the Creation of Central Asian Nations*. Central Asian Studies Series. New York: Routledge.

Butler, Judith. 1990. *Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity*. New York: Routledge.

———. 1997. *The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection*. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.

Buxton, Charles. 2009. 'NGO Networks in Central Asia and Global Civil Society: Potentials and Limitations'. *Central Asian Survey* 28 (1): 43–58.

Byrne, Ken, and Stephen Healy. 2006. 'Cooperative Subjects: Toward a Post-Fantasmatic Enjoyment of the Economy'. *Rethinking Marxism* 18 (2): 241–58.

Çalışkan, Koray, and Michel Callon. 2009. 'Economization, Part 1: Shifting Attention from the Economy towards Processes of Economization'. *Economy and Society* 38 (3): 369–98.

———. 2010. 'Economization, Part 2: A Research Programme for the Study of Markets'. *Economy and Society* 39 (1): 1–32.

Callon, Michel. 1998. 'Introduction: The Embeddedness of Economic Markets in Economics'. *The Sociological Review* 46 (1_suppl): 1–57.

Cameron, Jenny, and J.K. Gibson-Graham. 2003. 'Feminising the Economy: Metaphors, Strategies, Politics'. *Gender, Place & Culture* 10 (2): 145–57.

Chambers, Robert. 1994. 'The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal'. *World Development* 22 (7): 953–69.

Childress, Saltanat. 2018. ""Plates and Dishes Smash; Married Couples Clash": Cultural and Social Barriers to Help-Seeking Among Women Domestic Violence Survivors in Kyrgyzstan'. *Violence Against Women* 24 (7): 775–97.
Choi, Jieun, Sebastian Saez, Alberto Portugal, Andrew Myburgh, Eric van der Marel, Martin Molinuevo, Lorenzo Costantino, Nurlanbek Tynaev, Serhiy Osavolyuk, and Vanya Pasheva. 2016. 'Competitiveness of the Kyrgyz Economy in the Wake of Accession to the Eurasian Custom Union: Selected Issues and Opportunities'. The World Bank.

Cima, Ottavia. 2013. 'Accountability at the Local Level in Fragile Contexts: Nepal Case Study'. Working Paper 421. Brighton: Institute for Development Studies.

———. 2015. 'Expanding Spaces of Participation: Insights from an Infrastructural Project in Rural Nepal'. *Geographica Helvetica* 70 (4): 353–61.

Clapham, Christopher S. 1982. *Private Patronage and Public Power: Political Clientelism in the Modern State*. London: Pinter.

Cleaver, Frances. 2002. 'Reinventing Institutions: Bricolage and the Social Embeddedness of Natural Resource Management'. *The European Journal of Development Research* 14 (2): 11–30.

———. 2007. 'Understanding Agency in Collective Action'. *Journal of Human Development* 8 (2): 223–44.

Cleaver, Frances, and Jessica de Koning. 2015. 'Furthering Critical Institutionalism'. *International Journal of the Commons* 9 (1): 1–18.

Clement, Floriane, Wendy Jane Harcourt, Deepa Joshi, and Chizu Sato. 2019. 'Feminist Political Ecologies of the Commons and Commoning'. *International Journal of the Commons* 13 (1): 1–15.

Cloke, Paul J., Ian Cook, Philip Crang, Mark Goodwin, Joe Painter, and Chris Philo, eds. 2004. *Practising Human Geography*. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE.

Collier, Stephen J. 2011. *Post-Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, Biopolitics*. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Collins, Kathleen. 2006. *Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. 2009. *Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Community Economies Collective. 2001. 'Imagining and Enacting Noncapitalist Futures'. *Socialist Review* 28 (3/4): 93–135.

Cook, Michael L., Fabio R. Chaddad, and Constantine Iliopoulos. 2004. 'Advances in Cooperative Theory since 1990: A Review of Agricultural Economics Literature'. In *Restructuring Agricultural Cooperatives*, edited by George W.J. Hendrikse, 65–89. Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam School of Management.

Cooke, Bill, and Uma Kothari. 2001. *Participation: The New Tyranny?*. London: Zed Books.

Cornwall, Andrea, and Vera Schatten Coelho. 2007. *Spaces for Change?: The Politics of Citizen Participation in New Democratic Arenas*. London: Zed Books.

Cornwell, Janelle. 2012. 'Worker Co-Operatives and Spaces of Possibility: An Investigation of Subject Space at Collective Copies'. *Antipode* 44 (3): 725–44.

Crang, Mike, and Ian Cook. 2007. *Doing Ethnographies*. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE.

Creed, Gerald W. 1998. *Domesticating Revolution: From Socialist Reform to Ambivalent Transition in a Bulgarian Village*. University Park, Pa: Penn State University Press.
Curl, John. 2010. 'The Cooperative Movement in Century 21'. *Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action*.

Dadabaev, Timur. 2015. *Identity and Memory in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Uzbekistan's Soviet Past*. New York: Routledge.

Davies, Charlotte Aull. 1999. *Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching Selves and Others*. Psychology Press.

De Soto, Hernando. 1989. *The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World*. New York: Harpercollins.

Deininger, Klaus. 1995. 'Collective Agricultural Production: A Solution for Transition Economies?' *World Development* 23 (8): 1317-34.

DeMartino, George. 2013. 'Ethical Economic Engagement in a World beyond Control'. *Rethinking Marxism* 25 (4): 483-500.

Dogaru, Tatiana - Camelia. 2014. 'The National Policy-Making Process in the Context of the International Economic and Financial Movements'. *Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences* 143 (August): 964-70.

Dooren, Thom van, and Vinciane Despret. 2018. 'Evolution'. In *The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies*, edited by Lynn Turner, Undine Sellbach, and Ron Broglio. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Dörre, Andrei. 2015. 'Promises and Realities of Community-Based Pasture Management Approaches: Observations from Kyrgyzstan'. *Pastoralism* 5 (1): 15.

Dyttrich, Bettina, and Pit Wuhrer. 2012. *Wirtschaft Zum Glück: Solidarisch Arbeiten Heute, Weltweit*. Zürich: Rotpunktverlag.

Earle, Lucy. 2005. 'Community Development, “Tradition” and the Civil Society Strengthening Agenda in Central Asia'. *Central Asian Survey* 24 (3): 245-60.

Edgar, Adrienne. 2006. 'Bolshevism, Patriarchy, and the Nation: The Soviet “Emancipation” of Muslim Women in Pan-Islamic Perspective'. *Slavic Review* 65 (2): 252-72.

Eisenstadt, S. N. 1973. *Traditional Patrimonialism and Modern Neopatrimonialism*. Beverly Hills Calif.: SAGE.

Ellis, Frank, and Stephen Biggs. 2001. 'Evolving Themes in Rural Development 1950s-2000s'. *Development Policy Review* 19 (4): 437-48. h

Emery, Steven B., Jérémie Forney, and Sophie Wynne-Jones. 2017. 'The More-than-Economic Dimensions of Cooperation in Food Production'. *Journal of Rural Studies* 53 (July): 229-35.

Empson, Rebecca M. 2011. *Harnessing Fortune: Personhood, Memory and Place in Mongolia*. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Engle Merry, Sally. 2012. 'Legal Pluralism and Legal Culture'. In *Legal Pluralism and Development*, edited by Brian Z. Tamanaha, Caroline Sage, and Michael Woolcock, 66-82. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Escobar, Arturo. 1995. *Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World*. Princeton University Press.

Everett-Heath, Tom. 2003. *Central Asia: Aspects of Transition*. London: New York: Routledge.
Fairbairn, Brett. 1994. *The Meaning of Rochdale: The Rochdale Pioneers and the Co-Operative Principles*. Occasional Paper Series 94.02. Saskatoon, Sask., Canada: Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, University of Saskatchewan.

Fairclough, Norman. 2003. *Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research*. London: Routledge.

FAO. 2018. 'Development of Organic Agriculture in Central Asia'. In *Proceedings of the International Conference Held during 22-24 August 2017 in Tashkent and Samarkand, Uzbekistan*. Tashkent: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

Farnsworth, Kevin, and Zoë Irving. 2018. 'Austerity: Neoliberal Dreams Come True?' *Critical Social Policy* 38 (3): 461–81.

Féaux de la Croix, Jeanne. 2013. 'How to Build a Better Future? Kyrgyzstani Development Workers and the "Knowledge Transfer" Strategy'. *Central Asian Survey* 32 (4): 448–61.

———. 2017. *Iconic Places in Central Asia: The Moral Geography of Dams, Pastures and Holy Sites*. Transcript-Verlag.

Ferguson, James. 1990. *The Anti-Politics Machine: 'Development', Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho*. CUP Archive.

Flick, Uwe, Ernst von Kardorff, and Ines Steinke, eds. 2004. *A Companion to Qualitative Research*. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Florin, Moritz. 2016. 'Becoming Soviet through War: The Kyrgyz and the Great Fatherland War'. *Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History* 17 (3): 495–516.

Foley, Douglas E. 2002. 'Critical Ethnography: The Reflexive Turn'. *International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education* 15 (4): 469–90.

Foucault, Michel. 1991. 'Governmentality'. In *The Foucault Effect*, edited by Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, 87–104. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Fraser, Nancy. 2013. 'A Triple Movement? Parsing the Politics of Crisis after Polanyi'. *New Left Review* 81: 119–32.

———. 2015. 'Feminism's Two Legacies: A Tale of Ambivalence'. *South Atlantic Quarterly* 114 (4): 699–712.

Freiré, Maria Raquel. 2009. 'Russian Policy in Central Asia: Supporting, Balancing, Coercing, or Imposing?' *Asian Perspective* 33 (2): 125–49.

Fulton, Murray. 2017. 'Co-Operative Research: What We Don't Know?' Presented at the XXII. AGI Young Researchers' Conference, Berlin, Germany, March 31.

Gambold, Liesl, and Patrick Heady. 2003. 'Cooperation, Power and Community: Economy and Ideology in the Russian Countryside'. In *The Postsocialist Agrarian Question: Property Relations and the Rural Condition*, by Chris M. Hann. LIT Verlag Münster.

Gardner, Bruce, and Zvi Lerman. 2006. 'Agricultural Cooperative Enterprise in the Transition from Socialist Collective Farming'. *Journal of Rural Cooperation* 34 (1): 1–18.

Gerkey, Drew. 2013. 'Cooperation in Context: Public Goods Games and Post-Soviet Collectives in Kamchatka, Russia'. *Current Anthropology* 54 (2): 144–76.

Gibson, Katherine, Amanda Cahill, and Deirdre McKay. 2010. 'Rethinking the Dynamics of Rural Transformation: Performing Different Development Pathways in a Philippine Municipality'. *Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers* 35 (2): 237–55.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2003. 'Poststructural Interventions'. In *A Companion to Economic Geography*, edited by Eric Sheppard and Trevor J. Barnes, 95–110. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

———. 2005. 'Surplus Possibilities: Postdevelopment and Community Economies'. *Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography* 26 (1): 4–26.

———. 2006a. *A Postcapitalist Politics*. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

———. 2006b. *The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy*. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

———. 2008. 'Diverse Economies: Performative Practices for `other Worlds''. *Progress in Human Geography* 32 (5): 613–32.

———. 2011. 'A Feminist Project of Belonging for the Anthropocene'. *Gender, Place & Culture* 18 (1): 1–21.

———. 2014. 'Rethinking the Economy with Thick Description and Weak Theory'. *Current Anthropology* 55 (S9): 147–53.

Gibson-Graham, J.K., Jenny Cameron, and Stephen Healy. 2013. *Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities*. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

———. 2016. 'Commoning as a Postcapitalist Politics'. In *Releasing the Commons: Rethinking the Futures of the Commons*, edited by Ash Amin and Philip Howell, 192–212. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.

Gibson-Graham, J.K., and Gerda Roelvink. 2010a. 'An Economic Ethics for the Anthropocene'. *Antipode* 41 (s1): 320–46.

———. 2010b. 'An Economic Ethics for the Anthropocene'. *Antipode* 41 (s1): 320–46.

Giffen, Janice, Lucy Earle, and Charles Buxton. 2005. *The Development of Civil Society in Central Asia*. The International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC).

Giovarelli, Renée. 2004. *Are Rural Women Disadvantaged in Asset Ownership and Business Relations in the Kyrgyz Republic? USAID*.

Giovarelli, Renée, Chinara Aidarbekova, Jennifer Duncan, Kathryn Rasmussen, and Anara Tabyshalieva. 2001. *Women's Rights to Land in the Kyrgyz Republic*. The World Bank.

Glassman, Jim. 2003. 'Rethinking Overdetermination, Structural Power, and Social Change: A Critique of Gibson-Graham, Resnick, and Wolff'. *Antipode* 35 (4): 678–98.

Gleason, Gregory. 2001. 'Foreign Policy and Domestic Reform in Central Asia'. *Central Asian Survey* 20 (2): 167–82.

Gomm, Roger, Martyn Hammersley, and Peter Foster, eds. 2000. *Case Study Method: Key Issues, Key Texts*. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE.

Götz, Norbert. 2015. "Moral Economy": Its Conceptual History and Analytical Prospects'. *Journal of Global Ethics* 11 (2): 147–62.

Government of the Kyrgyz Republic. 2013. 'National Sustainable Development Strategy for the Kyrgyz Republic for the Period of 2013-2017'. National Council for Sustainable Development of the Kyrgyz Republic.

———. 2014. 'Concept of Agricultural Cooperative System Development in the Kyrgyz Republic for 2015-2017'.
———. 2017. ‘National Sustainable Development Strategy for the Kyrgyz Republic for the Period of 2018-2022’. National Council for SUstainable Development of the Kyrgyz Republic. h

Grafe, Clemens, Martin Raiser, and Toshiaki Sakatsume. 2008. ‘Beyond Borders—Reconsidering Regional Trade in Central Asia’. *Journal of Comparative Economics* 36 (3): 453–66.

Gray, Patty A. 2011. ‘The Emerging Powers and the Changing Landscape of Foreign Aid and Development Cooperation. Public Perceptions of Development Cooperation. Summary Paper 4: Russia’. University of Cambridge.

Guadagni, Maurizio, and Turi Fileccia. 2009. ‘The Kyrgyz Republic: Farm Mechanization and Agricultural Productivity’. The World Bank and FAO.

Hann, Chris. M. 2002. *Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies, and Practices in Eurasia*. Psychology Press.

Hansmann, Henry. 1999. ‘Cooperative Firms in Theory and Practice’. *LTA* 48 (4): 387–403.

Haraway, Donna J. 1988. ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’. *Feminist Studies* 14 (3): 575–99.

———. 2016. *Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene*. Duke University Press.

Harcourt, Wendy, and Ingrid L. Nelson. 2015. *Practising Feminist Political Ecologies: Moving Beyond the ‘Green Economy’*. London: Zed Books.

Hardin, Garrett. 1968. ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’. *Science* 162 (3859): 1243–48.

———. 1998. ‘Extensions of “The Tragedy of the Commons”’. *Science* 280 (5364): 682–83.

Harding, Sandra G. 1987. *Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues*. Indiana University Press.

———. 1991. *Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women’s Lives*. Cornell University Press.

Hare, Paul. 1989. ‘The Economics of Shortage in the Centrally Planned Economies’. In *Models of Disequilibrium and Shortage in Centrally Planned Economies*, edited by Christopher Davis and Wojciech Charemza, 49–81. International Studies in Economic Modelling. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Hastrup, Kirsten. 1990. ‘The Ethnographic Present: A Reinvention’. *Cultural Anthropology* 5 (1): 45–61.

Haugen, Arne. 2003. *The Establishment of National Republics in Soviet Central Asia*. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Healy, Stephen. 2010. ‘Traversing Fantasies, Activating Desires: Economic Geography, Activist Research, and Psychoanalytic Methodology’. *The Professional Geographer* 62 (4): 496–506.

Herrschel, Tassilo. 2007. *Global Geographies of Post-Socialist Transition: Geographies, Societies, Policies*. London; New York, NY: Routledge.

Hickey, Samuel, and Giles Mohan. 2004. *Participation - From Tyranny to Transformation?: Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development*. London: Zed Books.

Hinterleitner, Markus, Fritz Sager, and Eva Thomann. 2016. ‘The Politics of External Approval: Explaining the IMF’s Evaluation of Austerity Programmes’. *European Journal of Political Research* 55 (3): 549–67.

Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence O. Ranger. 1992. *The Invention of Tradition*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hoelscher, Steven, and Derek H. Alderman. 2004. ‘Memory and Place: Geographies of a Critical Relationship’. *Social & Cultural Geography* 5 (3): 347–55.
Hörschelmann, Kathrin, and Alison Stenning. 2008. ‘Ethnographies of Postsocialist Change’. *Progress in Human Geography* 32 (3): 339–61.

Humphrey, Caroline. 1991. “‘Icebergs”, Barter, and the Mafia in Provincial Russia’. *Anthropology Today* 7 (2): 8.

———. 1998. *Marx Went Away - But Karl Stayed Behind*. University of Michigan Press.

———. 2002. *The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies After Socialism*. Cornell University Press.

Hussi, Pekka, Josette Murphy, Ole Lindberg, and Lyle Brennernan. 1993. ‘The Development of Cooperatives and Other Rural Organizations. The Role of the World Bank’, World Bank Technical Paper 199, Africa Technical Department Series.

ICA. 2016. ‘Guidance Notes to the Co-Operative Principles’. International Co-operative Alliance (ICA).

———. 2019a. ‘Cooperative Identity, Values & Principles’. International Co-Operative Alliance. 2019. https://www.ica.coop/en/cooperatives/cooperative-identity.

———. 2019b. ‘History of the Cooperative Movement’. International Co-Operative Alliance. 2019. https://www.ica.coop/en/cooperatives/history-cooperative-movement.

ILO. 2018. ‘Caribbean Cooperative Management Training Programmes. Module 1: What Is a Cooperative Enterprise’. International Labour Organization (ILO), Office for the Caribbean.

ILO/ICA. n.d. ‘Cooperatives and the Sustainable Development Goals. A Contribution to the Post-2015 Development Debate’. International Labour Organization (ILO) and International Co-operative Alliance (ICA).

INTRAC. 2011. ‘Decentralisation in Kyrgyzstan’. INTRAC.

Isaacs, Rico, and Abel Polese. 2016. *Nation-Building and Identity in the Post-Soviet Space: New Tools and Approaches*. New York: Routledge.

Isabaeva, Eliza. 2013. ‘Leaving to Enable Others to Remain: Remittances and New Moral Economies of Migration in Southern Kyrgyzstan’. Movement, Power and Place in Central Asia and Beyond. 13 September 2013.

Ismailbekova, Aksana. 2014. ‘Migration and Patrilineal Descent: The Role of Women in Kyrgyzstan’. *Central Asian Survey* 33 (3): 375–89.

———. 2016. ‘Constructing the Authority of Women through Custom: Bulak Village, Kyrgyzstan’. *Nationalities Papers* 44 (2): 266–80.

———. 2017. *Blood Ties and the Native Son: Poetics of Patronage in Kyrgyzstan*. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Jacquesson, Svetlana. 2010. ‘Reforming Pastoral Land Use in Kyrgyzstan: From Clan and Custom to Self-Government and Tradition’. *Central Asian Survey* 29 (1): 103–18.

Jeffrey, Alex. 2012. *The Improvised State: Sovereignty, Performance and Agency in Dayton Bosnia*. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Johnson, Simon, Daniel Kaufmann, Andrei Shleifer, Marshall I. Goldman, and Martin L. Weitzman. 1997. ‘The Unofficial Economy in Transition’. *Brookings Papers on Economic Activity* 1997 (2): 159.

Jones, Derek C., and Panu Kalmi. 2012. ‘Economies of Scale Versus Participation: A Co-Operative Dilemma?’ *Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity* 1 (1).
Jørgensen, Marianne, and Louise Phillips. 2002. *Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method*. 6 Bonhill Street, London England EC2A 4PU United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Jossa, B. 2005. 'Marx, Marxism and the Cooperative Movement'. *Cambridge Journal of Economics* 29 (1): 3–18.

Kaminska, Monika Ewa. 2010. 'Bonding Social Capital in a Postcommunist Region'. *American Behavioral Scientist* 53 (5): 758–77.

Kamp, Marianne. 2007. 'The Wedding Feast'. In *Everyday Life in Central Asia: Past and Present*, edited by Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca, 103–14. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Kandiyoti, Deniz. 1998. 'Rural Livelihoods and Social Networks in Uzbekistan: Perspectives from Andijan'. *Central Asian Survey* 17 (4): 561–78.

Kantarci, Kemal, Muzaffer Uysal, and Vincent P. Magnini. 2014. *Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges*. CRC Press.

Karadag, Sevinç. 2006. 'Dating Behaviours, Views of Marriage and Marital Preparation among University Students in Kyrgyzstan'. *Manas Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi* 16: 207–218.

Karner, Christian, and Bernhard Weicht. 2016. 'Markets, “Communities” and Nostalgia'. In *The Commonalities of Global Crises: Markets, Communities and Nostalgia*, edited by Christian Karner and Bernhard Weicht, 1–33. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Kassenova, Nargis. 2009. 'China as an Emerging Donor in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan'. *Russie.Nei.Visions* 36. IFRI Russia/NIS Center.

Kasymov, Ulan, and Dimitrios Zikos. 2017. 'Understanding Human Actions and Institutional Change: What Are the Impacts of Power Asymmetries on Efficiency in Pasture Use?' *Resources* 6 (4): 71.

Kay, Rebecca, Sergei Shubin, and Tatjana Thelen. 2012. 'Rural Realities in the Post-Socialist Space'. *Journal of Rural Studies* 28 (2): 55–62.

Khan, Azizur Rahman, and Dharam P. Ghai. 1980. *Collective Agriculture and Rural Development in Soviet Central Asia*. New York: St. Martin's Press.

KHMI, SAAC, SSGC, and JICA. 2006. 'The Study on Integrated Development Plan of Issyk-Kul Zone in the Kyrgyz Republic. Final Report: Summary'. KRI International Corporation, Nippon Koei Co. Ltd., Aero Asahi Corporation.

Kim, Elena, Asel Myrzabekova, Elena Molchanova, and Olha Yarova. 2018. 'Making the “Empowered Woman”: Exploring Contradictions in Gender and Development Programming in Kyrgyzstan'. *Central Asian Survey* 37 (2): 228–46.

Klümper, Frederike, Insa Theesfeld, and Thomas Herzfeld. 2018. 'Discrepancies between Paper and Practice in Policy Implementation: Tajikistan's Property Rights and Customary Claims to Land and Water'. *Land Use Policy* 75 (June): 327–39.

Korf, Benedikt. 2010. 'The Geography of Participation'. *Third World Quarterly* 31 (5): 709–20.

Kornai, János. 1980. *Economics of Shortage*. Amsterdam; New York: New York: Elsevier Science.

Krippner, Greta R. 2001. 'The Elusive Market: Embeddedness and the Paradigm of Economic Sociology'. *Theory and Society* 30 (6): 775–810.

Kuehnast, Kathleen. 1998. 'From Pioneers to Entrepreneurs: Young Women, Consumerism, and the “World Picture” in Kyrgyzstan'. *Central Asian Survey* 17 (4): 639–654.
Kuehnast, Kathleen, and Nora Dudwick. 2004. *Better a Hundred Friends than a Hundred Rubles?: Social Networks in Transition - The Kyrgyz Republic*. World Bank Working Papers. The World Bank.

Kulaklikaya, Musa, and Rahman Nurdun. 2010. 'Turkey as a New Player in Development Cooperation'. *Insight Turkey; Ankara* 12 (4): 131–45.

Kurmanalieva, Elvira. 2008. 'Empirical Analysis of Kyrgyz Trade Patterns'. *Eurasian Journal of Business and Economics* 1(1): 83–97.

Lacan, Jacques. 1977. *Écrits: A Selection*. New York: Norton.

Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 1985. *Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics*. London; New York: Verso.

Laliberté, Nicole, and Carolin Schurr. 2016. 'Introduction'. *Gender, Place & Culture* 23 (1): 72–78.

Ledeneva, Alena V. 1998. *Russia's Economy of Favours*. Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange. Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies. Cambridge University Press.

Legg, Stephen. 2007. 'Reviewing Geographies of Memory/Forgetting'. *Environment and Planning A* 39: 456–66.

Lerman, Zvi. 2004. 'Policies and Institutions for Commercialization of Subsistence Farms in Transition Countries'. *Journal of Asian Economics* 15 (3): 461–79.

———. 2009. 'Land Reform, Farm Structure, and Agricultural Performance in CIS Countries'. *China Economic Review*, Special Issue: Agriculture in Transition Agriculture in Transition, 20 (2): 316–26.

———. 2013a. 'Cooperative Development in Central Asia'. *FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia*.

———. 2013b. 'Cooperative Development in Central Asia'. *FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, Policy Studies on Rural Transition*, 2013–4: 39.

Lerman, Zvi, Csaba Csaki, and Gershon Feder. 2004. *Agriculture in Transition: Land Policies and Evolving Farm Structures in Post-Soviet Countries*. Lexington books.

Lerman, Zvi, and David Sedik. 2009a. 'Agrarian Reform in Kyrgyzstan: Achievements and the Unfinished Agenda'. *FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, Policy Studies on Rural Transition*, 2009–1: 26.

———. 2009b. 'Agricultural Recovery and Individual Land Tenure: Lessons from Central Asia'. *Policy Studies on Rural Transition* 3.

———. 2013. 'Cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan: Findings from a Survey of Cooperatives and Users'. Discussion Paper. Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

———. 2014. 'Agricultural Cooperatives in Eurasia'. *FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, Policy Studies on Rural Transition*, 2014–3.

———. 2017. 'Cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan: Findings from a Survey of Cooperatives and Users'. In *Management and Governance of Networks*, edited by George W. J. Hendrikse, Gérard Cliquet, Thomas Ehrmann, and Josef Windsperger, 233–49. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

———. 2018. 'Transition to Smallholder Agriculture in Central Asia'. *Journal of Agrarian Change* 18 (4): 904–12.

Lerman, Zvi, David Sedik, and Csaba Csaki. 2016. *Agricultural Cooperatives in Transition Countries*. Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing.
Levi, Scott. 2007. 'Turks and Tajiks in Central Asian History'. In *Everyday Life in Central Asia: Past and Present*, edited by Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca, 15–31. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

———. 2012. 'Early Modern Central Asia in World History'. *History Compass* 10 (11): 866–78.

Lincoln, Yvonna S., and Egon G. Guba. 1985. *Naturalistic Inquiry*. SAGE.

Lindner, Peter. 2008. *Der Kolchoz-Archipel im Privatisierungsprozess: Wege und Umwege der russischen Landwirtschaft in die globale Marktgesellschaft*. Transcript.

Linebaugh, Peter. 2008. *The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All*. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lipton, Michael. 2009. *Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs*. Routledge.

Lissowska, Maria. 2013. 'The Deficit of Cooperative Attitudes and Trust in Post-Transition Economies'. *Papers in Evolutionary Political Economy*, EAEPE 10.

Long, Norman. 1990. 'From Paradigm Lost to Paradigm Regained? The Case for an Actor-Oriented Sociology of Development'. *Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y Del Caribe / European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies* 49: 3–24.

Long, Norman, and Ann Long. 1992. *Battlefields of Knowledge: The Interlocking of Theory and Practice in Social Research and Development*. London; New York: Routledge.

Loring, Benjamin. 2008. 'Rural Dynamics and Peasant Resistance in Southern Kyrgyzstan, 1929-1930'. *Cahiers du monde russe. Russie - Empire russe - Union soviétique et États indépendants* 49 (1): 183–210.

———. 2014. "'Colonizers with Party Cards': Soviet Internal Colonialism in Central Asia, 1917–39'. *Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History* 15 (1): 77–102.

Lovell, Stephen, Alena V. Ledeneva, and A. B. Rogachevski. 2000. *Bribery and Blat in Russia: Negotiating Reciprocity From the Middle Ages to the 1990s*. St. Martin's Press, in Association with School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London.

Lovell, Terry. 2000. 'Thinking Feminism with and against Bourdieu'. *Feminist Theory* 1 (1): 11–32.

Luong, Pauline Jones. 2009. *Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Power, Perceptions, and Pacts*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MacKenzie, Professor of Sociology Donald, Donald A. MacKenzie, Fabian Muniesa, and Lucia Siu. 2007. *Do Economists Make Markets?: On the Performativity of Economics*. Princeton University Press.

Mackenzie, Suzanne, and Damaris Rose. 1983. 'Industrial Change, the Domestic Economy and Home Life'. *Redundant Spaces in Cities and Regions*, 155–200.

Malena, Carmen, Reiner Forster, and Janmejay Singh. 2004. 'Social Accountability. An Introduction to the Concept and Emerging Practice'. *Social Development Papers. Participation and Civic Engagement* 76.

Mathijs, Erik, and Johan FM Swinnen. 1998. 'The Economics of Agricultural Decollectivization in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union'. *Economic Development and Cultural Change* 47 (1): 1–26.

Mauss, Marcel. 1966. *The Gift. Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies*. London: Cohen & West LTD.
McDowell, L. 1983. 'Towards an Understanding of the Gender Division of Urban Space'. *Environment and Planning D: Society and Space* 1 (1): 59-72.

McGee, Rosemary, and John Gaventa. 2010. 'Synthesis Report. Review of Impact and Effectiveness of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives'. *Transparency & Accountability Initiative*.

McGregor, Andrew. 2009. 'New Possibilities? Shifts in Post-Development Theory and Practice'. *Geography Compass* 3 (5): 1688-1702.

McGuire, Darren, and Knut Laaser. 2018. ""You Have to Pick": Cotton and State-Organized Forced Labour in Uzbekistan'. *Economic and Industrial Democracy*.

McMann, Kelly M. 2014. *Corruption as a Last Resort: Adapting to the Market in Central Asia*. 1st Edition edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Meeus, Bruno, Tim Devos, and Seppe De Blust. 2016. 'The Politics of Nostalgia in Urban Redevelopment Projects: The Case of Antwerp-Dam'. In *The Commonalities of Global Crises: Markets, Communities and Nostalgia*, edited by Christian Karner and Bernhard Weicht, 249-69. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Meinzen-Dick, Ruth, Monica DiGregorio, and Nancy McCarthy. 2004. 'Methods for Studying Collective Action in Rural Development'. *Agricultural Systems* 82 (3): 197-214.

Militz, Elisabeth, Caroline Faria, and Carolin Schurr. 2019. 'Affectual Intensities: Writing with Resonance as Feminist Methodology'. *Area*, October, area.12584.

Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. *Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity*. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Mogilevskii, Roman, Nazgul Abdrazakova, Aida Bolotbekova, Saule Chalbasova, Shoola Dzhumaeva, and Kanat Tilekeyev. 2017. 'The Outcomes of 25 Years of Agricultural Reforms in Kyrgyzstan'. Working Paper 162, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies.

Mogilevskii, Roman, James Thurlow, and Adeline Yeh. 2018. 'Kyrgyzstan's Accession to the Eurasian Economic Union: Measuring Economy-Wide Impacts and Uncertainties'. Working Paper 44. University of Central Asia, Graduate School of Development, Institute of Public Policy and Administration.

Morris, Jeremy, and Abel Polese. 2013. *The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods*. Routledge.

———. 2015. *Informal Economies in Post-Socialist Spaces: Practices, Institutions and Networks*. Springer.

Mosse, David. 2004. 'Is Good Policy Unimplementable? Reflections on the Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice'. *Development and Change* 35 (4): 639-71.

———. 2005. *Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice*. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press.

Müller, Martin. 2018. 'In Search of the Global East: Thinking between North and South'. *Geopolitics*, October, 1-22.

———. 2019. 'Goodbye, Postsocialism!' *Europe-Asia Studies* 71 (4): 533-50.

Murray, Catherine. 2008. 'Social Capital and Cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe. A Framework for Research on Governance'. *Journal of Rural Cooperation* 36 (1): 3-20.

Narotzky, Susana, and Niko Besnier. 2014. 'Crisis, Value, and Hope: Rethinking the Economy: An Introduction to Supplement 9'. *Current Anthropology* 55 (S9): S4-16.
Nightingale, Andrea. 2011. 'Beyond Design Principles: Subjectivity, Emotion, and the (Ir)Rational Commons'. *Society & Natural Resources* 24 (2): 119–32.

———. 2013. 'Fishing for Nature: The Politics of Subjectivity and Emotion in Scottish Inshore Fisheries Management'. *Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space* 45 (10): 2362–78.

———. 2019. 'Commoning for Inclusion? Political Communities, Commons, Exclusion, Property and Socio-Natural Becomings'. *International Journal of the Commons* 13 (1): 16–35.

Northrop, Douglas. 2003. *Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia*. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Noxolo, Patricia. 2009. "‘My Paper, My Paper’: Reflections on the Embodied Production of Postcolonial Geographical Responsibility in Academic Writing". *Geoforum* 40 (1): 55–65.

Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre. 2005. *Anthropology and Development: Understanding Contemporary Social Change*. London: Zed Books.

———. 2008. *La Rigueur Du Qualitatif. Les Constraintes Empiriques de l'interprétation Socio-Anthropologique*. Louvain la Neuve: ACADEMIA.

Olson, Mancur. 1965. *The Logic of Collective Action*. Public Goods and the Theory of Groups*. Harvard University Press.

———. 1985. 'Space, Agriculture, and Organization'. *American Journal of Agricultural Economics* 67 (5): 928–37.

Ortmann, G. F., and R. P. King. 2007. 'Agricultural Cooperatives I: History, Theory and Problems'. *Agrekon* 46 (1): 18–46.

Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. *Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action*. Cambridge University Press.

———. 2000. 'Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms'. *Journal of Economic Perspectives* 14 (3): 137–58.

———. 2010. 'Analyzing Collective Action: Analyzing Collective Action'. *Agricultural Economics* 41 (November): 155–66.

Ostrom, Elinor, Roy Gardner, James Walker, James M. Walker, and Jimmy Walker. 1994. *Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources*. University of Michigan Press.

Paasiaro, Maija. 2009. 'Home-Grown Strategies for Greater Agency: Reassessing the Outcome of Civil Society Strengthening in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan'. *Central Asian Survey* 28 (1): 59–77.

Paldam, Martin, and Gert Tinggaard Svendsen. 2000. 'An Essay on Social Capital: Looking for the Fire behind the Smoke'. *European Journal of Political Economy* 16 (2): 339–66.

Palomera, Jaime, and Theodora Vetta. 2016. 'Moral Economy: Rethinking a Radical Concept'. *Anthropological Theory* 16 (4): 413–32.

Pandey, Kalyan, and Yuri Misnikov. 2001. 'Decentralization and Community Development: Strengthening Local Participation in the Mountain Villages of Kyrgyzstan'. *Mountain Research and Development* 21 (3): 226–230.

Pavlovskaya, Marianna. 2004. 'Other Transitions: Multiple Economies of Moscow Households in the 1990s'. *Annals of the Association of American Geographers* 94 (2): 329–51.

Persky, Joseph. 1995. 'Retrospectives: The Ethology of *Homo Economicus*'. *Journal of Economic Perspectives* 9 (2): 221–31.
Pétric, Boris. 2005. 'Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan or the Birth of a Globalized Protectorate'. *Central Asian Survey* 24 (3): 319–332.

———. 2013. *On a mangé nos moutons - Le Kirghizstan, du berger au biznesman*. Paris: BELIN LITTERATURE ET REVUES.

Pétric, Boris, Svetlana Jacquesson, Jean-François Gossiaux, and André Bourgeot. 2004. 'L'émergence de Nouveaux Pouvoirs Locaux Sur Les Cendres d'un Kolkhoze Kirghize (Oblast de Naryn)'. *Cahiers d'Asie Centrale* 3/14: 21–44.

Pianciola, Niccolò. 2001. 'The Collectivization Famine in Kazakhstan, 1931–1933'. *Harvard Ukrainian Studies* 25 (3/4): 237–51.

Pickles, John, and Adrian Smith. 1998. *Theorizing Transition: The Political Economy of Post-Communist Transformations*. London; New York: Routledge.

Pigg, Stacy Leigh. 1992. 'Inventing Social Categories Through Place: Social Representations and Development in Nepal'. *Comparative Studies in Society and History* 34 (3): 491–513.

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. *The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time*. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Polese, Abel, Colin C. Williams, Ioana A. Horodnic, and Predrag Bejakovic. 2017. *The Informal Economy in Global Perspective: Varieties of Governance*. Springer.

Pomfret, Richard. 2010. 'Trade and Transport in Central Asia'. *Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies* 2 (3): 237–56.

Popke, Jeff. 2010. 'The Spaces of Being In-Common: Ethics and Social Geography'. In *The SAGE Handbook of Social Geographies*, edited by Susan J. Smith, Rachel Pain, Sallie A. Marston, and Jones III John-Paul, 435–54. Los Angeles; London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Portes, Professor Alejandro, Professor Manuel Castells, and Professor Lauren A. Benton, eds. 1989. *The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries*. Baltimore, Md: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Quigley, Kevin F.F., and Lex Rieffel. 2008. 'Ten Times the Peace Corps: A Smart Investment in Soft Power'. *Brookings Global Economy and Development, Policy Brief* 2008-02: 7.

Ranis, Peter. 2010. 'Argentine Worker Cooperatives in Civil Society: A Challenge to Capital–Labor Relations'. *WorkingUSA* 13 (1): 77–105.

Reeves, Madeleine. 2012. 'Black Work, Green Money: Remittances, Ritual, and Domestic Economies in Southern Kyrgyzstan'. *Slavic Review* 71 (1): 108–34.

———. 2014. *Border Work: Spatial Lives of the State in Rural Central Asia*. 1 edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Reynolds, Rebecca. 2012a. 'Locating Persons: An Ethnography of Personhood and Place in Rural Kyrgyzstan'. Doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow.

———. 2012b. 'Homemaking, Homebuilding, and the Significance of Place and Kin in Rural Kyrgyzstan'. *Home Cultures* 9 (3): 285–302.

Rizov, Marian, Dinu Gavrilescu, Hamish Gow, Erik Mathijs, and Johan F. M Swinnen. 2001. 'Transition and Enterprise Restructuring: The Development of Individual Farming in Romania'. *World Development* 29 (7): 1257–74.
Roest, Kees de, Paolo Ferrari, and Karlheinz Knickel. 2018. 'Specialisation and Economies of Scale or Diversification and Economies of Scope? Assessing Different Agricultural Development Pathways'. *Journal of Rural Studies* 59 (April): 222–31.

Rose, Gillian. 1993. *Feminism & Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge*. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

———. 1997. 'Situating Knowledges: Positionality, Reflexivities and Other Tactics'. *Progress in Human Geography* 21 (3): 305–20.

Roy, Olivier. 2000. *The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations*. New York: New York University Press.

Rubel, Paula G., and Abraham Rosman, eds. 2003. *Translating Cultures: Perspectives on Translation and Anthropology*. Oxford: Berg Publishers.

Rubinov, Igor. 2010. 'Migration, Development, and the “Toi Economy”: Cultural Integration of Remittances in Northern Kyrgyzstan'. Paper presented at the Social Research Centre, American University of Central Asia, Bishkek.

———. 2012. 'Kyrgyk Feasts and Migrant Dreams: Embedding Remittances in Hybrid Social Networks'. In *Identities in Transition*, by Georgina Tsolidis, 137–46. At the Interface. Oxford, UK: Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Rummery, Kirstein, and Michael Fine. 2012. 'Care: A Critical Review of Theory, Policy and Practice'. *Social Policy & Administration* 46 (3): 321–43.

Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel. 2004. 'Institutional Complexity and Resource Access in Transition: The Challenges of Co-Operation for Rural Livelihood Improvement'. DfID.

———. 2007. 'Safety in Small Numbers: Local Strategies for Survival and Growth in Romania and the Kyrgyz Republic'. *The Journal of Development Studies* 43 (8): 1423–47.

Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel, and M. Childress. 2004. 'Asset-Pooling in Uncertain Times: Implications of Small-Group Farming in the Kyrgyz Republic for Agricultural Restructuring'. Working Paper 239. Brighton: Institute for Development Studies.

Sampson, Steven L. 1987. 'The Second Economy of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe'. *The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science* 493 (1): 120–36.

Sassen, Saskia. 1993. 'The Informal Economy: Between New Developments and Old Regulations Symposium: The Informal Economy'. *Yale Law Journal*, 8 (1994): 2289–2304.

Sato, Chizu, and Jozelin Maria Soto Alarcón. 2019. 'Toward a Postcapitalist Feminist Political Ecology's Approach to the Commons and Commoning'. *International Journal of the Commons* 13 (1): 36–61.

Schmidt, Peter. 2012. '“Voice and Choice”: Rural Advisory Services in Kyrgyzstan. Learning from 20 Years of Development and Cooperation'. *Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation*.

Schneiberg, Marc, Marissa King, and Thomas Smith. 2008. 'Social Movements and Organizational Form: Cooperative Alternatives to Corporations in the American Insurance, Dairy, and Grain Industries'. *American Sociological Review* 73 (4): 635–67.

Sehring, Jenniver. 2009. 'Path Dependencies and Institutional Bricolage in Post-Soviet Rural Water Governance'. *Water Alternatives* 2 (1): 53–60.

Shaffer, Jack. 1999. *Historical Dictionary of the Cooperative Movement*. Scarecrow Press.
Shelley, Louise I. 1990. 'The Second Economy in the Soviet Union'. In *The Second Economy in Marxist States*, edited by Maria Łoś, 11–26. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Shigaeva, Jyldyz, Shannon Hagerman, Hisham Zerriffi, Christian Hergarten, Aiganыш Isaeva, Zuura Mamadalieva, and Marc Foggin. 2016. 'Decentralizing Governance of Agropastoral Systems in Kyrgyzstan: An Assessment of Recent Pasture Reforms'. *Mountain Research and Development* 36 (1): 91–101.

Shigaeva, Jyldyz, Bettina Wolfgramm, and Chad Dear. 2013. 'Sustainable Land Management in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan: A Research Review'. *Mountain Societies Research Institute*, University of Central Asia.

Simon, Herbert A. 1955. 'A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice'. *The Quarterly Journal of Economics* 69 (1): 99–118.

Singh, Neera. 2013. 'The Affective Labor of Growing Forests and the Becoming of Environmental Subjects: Rethinking Environmentality in Odisha, India'. *Geoforum* 47 (June): 189–98.

———. 2015. 'Payments for Ecosystem Services and the Gift Paradigm: Sharing the Burden and Joy of Environmental Care'. *Ecological Economics* 117 (September): 53–61.

———. 2017. 'Becoming a Commoner: The Commons as Sites for Affective Socio-Nature Encounters and Co-Becomings'. *Ephemera* 17 (4): 751–76.

Smith, Adrian, and Alena Rochovská. 2007. 'Domesticating Neo-Liberalism: Everyday Lives and the Geographies of Post-Socialist Transformations'. *Geoforum*, Theme Issue: Geographies of Generosity, 38 (6): 1163–78.

Smith, Adrian, and Alison Stenning. 2006. 'Beyond Household Economies: Articulations and Spaces of Economic Practice in Postsocialism'. *Progress in Human Geography* 30 (2): 190–213.

Soliev, Ilkhom, Insa Theesfeld, Kai Wegerich, and Alexander Platonov. 2017. 'Dealing with “Baggage” in Riparian Relationship on Water Allocation: A Longitudinal Comparative Study from the Ferghana Valley'. *Ecological Economics* 142 (December): 148–62.

Stark, David. 1992. 'Path Dependence and Privatization Strategies in East Central Europe'. *East European Politics and Societies* 6 (1): 17–54.

Stark, David, Laszlo Bruszt, Stark Bruszt, and Stark/Bruszt. 1998. *Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe*. Cambridge University Press.

Steimann, Bernd. 2011. *Making a Living in Uncertainty: Agro-Pastoral Livelihoods and Institutional Transformations in Post-Socialist Rural Kyrgyzstan*. Human Geography Series 26. Bishkek and Zurich: University of Zurich.

Stenning, Alison, Adrian Smith, Alena Rochovska, and Dariusz Swiatek. 2010. *Domesticating Neo-Liberalism: Spaces of Economic Practice and Social Reproduction in Post-Socialist Cities*. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2003. *Globalization and Its Discontents*. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Stock, Paul V., Jérémie Forney, Steven B. Emery, and Hannah Wittman. 2014. 'Neoliberal Natures on the Farm: Farmer Autonomy and Cooperation in Comparative Perspective'. *Journal of Rural Studies* 36 (October): 411–22.

Stodulka, Thomas, Samia Dinkelaker, and Ferdiansyah Thajib. 2019. *Affective Dimensions of Fieldwork and Ethnography*. Springer Nature.

Strathern, Marilyn. 1999. *Property, Substance and Effect: Anthropological Essays on Persons and Things*. London: The Athlone Press.
Swain, Nigel. 1999. 'Agricultural Restitution and Co-Operative Transformation in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia'. *Europe-Asia Studies* 51 (7): 1199–1219.

Tangri, Roger K. 1999. *The Politics of Patronage in Africa: Parastatals, Privatization, and Private Enterprise*. Africa World Press.

Theesfeld, Insa. 2004. 'Constraints on Collective Action in a Transitional Economy: The Case of Bulgaria's Irrigation Sector'. *World Development* 32 (2): 251–71.

———. 2019. 'The Role of Pseudo-Commons in Post-Socialist Countries'. In *Routledge Handbook of the Study of the Commons*, edited by Blake Hudson, Jonathan D. Rosenbloom, and Daniel G. Cole, 345–59. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.

Theesfeld, Insa, and Ivan Boevsky. 2005. 'Reviving Pre-Socialist Cooperative Traditions: The Case of Water Syndicates in Bulgaria'. *Sociologia Ruralis* 45 (3): 171–86.

Thompson, E. P. 1966. *The Making of the English Working Class*. New York: Vintage.

———. 1971. 'The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century'. *Past and Present* 50 (1): 76–136.

Thompson, E.P. 1991. 'The Moral Economy Reviewed'. In *Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture*, by E.P. Thompson, 259–315. Penguin.

Tilzey, Mark. 2017. 'Reintegrating Economy, Society, and Environment for Cooperative Futures: Polanyi, Marx, and Food Sovereignty'. *Journal of Rural Studies* 53 (July): 317–34.

Turdalieva, Cholpon, and Rene Provis. 2017. 'Dynamics of Reciprocity and Networks of the Kyrgyz through Bishkek Toi Making'. *Central Asian Affairs* 4 (2): 197–216.

Twyman, Chasca. 2017. 'Community-Based Natural Resource Management'. In *International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology*, edited by Douglas Richardson, Noel Castree, Michael F. Goodchild, Audrey Kobayashi, Weidong Liu, and Richard A. Marston, 1–9. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Umetbaeva, Damira. 2015. 'Official Rhetoric and Individual Perceptions of the Soviet Past: Implications for Nation Building in Kyrgyzstan'. *Region: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia* 4 (1): 71–93.

Urinboyev, Rustamjon. 2015. 'Local Government Capacity in Post-Soviet Central Asia'. *Viešoji Politika Ir Administravimas* 14 (3): 177–99.

Van Rijsoort, Jeanette, and Johan Van den Berg. 2012. 'Assessment of Cooperatives in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - Part Kyrgyzstan'. *Agriterra*.

Vasile, Monica. 2019a. 'The Enlivenment of Institutions: Emotional Work and the Emergence of Contemporary Land Commons in the Carpathian Mountains'. *Journal of Environmental Planning and Management* 62 (1): 124–50.

———. 2019b. 'The Enlivenment of Institutions: Emotional Work and the Emergence of Contemporary Land Commons in the Carpathian Mountains'. *Journal of Environmental Planning and Management* 62 (1): 124–50.

Veldwisch, Gert Jan A., and Bettina B. Bock. 2011. 'Dehkans, Diversification and Dependencies: Rural Transformation in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan'. *Journal of Agrarian Change* 11 (4): 581–97.

Verdery, Katherine. 1991. 'Theorizing Socialism: A Prologue to the “Transition”'. *American Ethnologist* 18 (3,): 419–39.

———. 1996. *What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next?* Princeton University Press.
———. 2002. ‘Whither Postsocialism?’ In *Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies, and Practices in Eurasia*, by Chris. M. Hann, 15–21. Psychology Press.

———. 2003. *The Vanishing Hectare: Property and Value in Postsocialist Transylvania*. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Vidickiene, Dalia, and Zivile Gedminaite-Raudone. 2012. ‘Support for Farmers’ Cooperatives: Case Study Report. The Role of Post-Socialist Cooperatives in Rural Communities in Lithuania’. European Commission.

Vögtli, Franziska. 2008. ‘Application of a Result-Based Payment System in the Kyrgyz Swiss Agricultural Programme KSAP. Possibilities and Limits of NPM Reform Initiatives in Developing Countries’. Berne: University of Berne.

Walker, Julian. 2013. ‘Time Poverty, Gender and Well-Being: Lessons from the Kyrgyz Swiss Swedish Health Programme’. *Development in Practice* 23 (1): 57–68.

Watts, Michael. 2003. ‘Development and Governmentality’. *Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography* 24 (1): 6–34.

Wegren, Stephen K., and David J. O’Brien. 2018. ‘Introduction to Symposium: Smallholders in Communist and Postcommunist Societies’. *Journal of Agrarian Change* 18 (4): 869–81.

Whyte, William Foote, and Kathleen King Whyte. 1991. *Making Mondragón: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative Complex*. Cornell University Press.

Williams, Richard C. 2016. *The Cooperative Movement: Globalization from Below*. Routledge.

Williamson, Oliver E. 2000. ‘The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead’. *Journal of Economic Literature* 38 (3): 595–613.

Wynne-Jones, Sophie, Steven B. Emery, and Jérémie Forney, eds. 2017. ‘The More-than-Economic Dimensions of Cooperation in Food Production. Special Issue’. *Journal of Rural Studies* 53: 229–334.

Yin, Robert K. 2003. *Case Study Research: Design and Methods*. 3rd ed. Applied Social Research Methods Series, v. 5. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Yoshida, Setsuko. 2005. ‘Ethnographic Study of Privatisation in a Kyrgyz Village: Patrilineal Kin and Independent Farmers’. *Inner Asia* 7 (2): 215–47.

Younas, Ammar. 2017. ‘Subjects, Objects and Forms of Land Ownership in Kyrgyzstan: Challenges and Prospective’. *International Journal of Innovative Technologies in Economy* 2(8): 19–21.

Zamagni, Vera Negri. 2012. ‘Interpreting the Roles and Economic Importance of Cooperative Enterprises in a Historical Perspective’. SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2194289. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network.

Zeuli, Kimberly, David Freshwater, Deborah Markley, and David Barkley. 2004. ‘Cooperatives in Rural Community Development: A New Framework for Analysis’. *Community Development Society. Journal* 35 (2): 17–35.

Zeuli, Kimberly, and Jamie Radel. 2005. ‘Cooperatives as a Community Development Strategy: Linking Theory and Practice’. *Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy* 35 (1): 43–54.

Zhunusova, Eliza, and Roland Herrmann. 2018. ‘Development Impacts of International Migration on “Sending” Communities: The Case of Rural Kyrgyzstan’. *The European Journal of Development Research* 30 (5): 871–91.
ANNEX I – WHO IS WHO: PERSONS MENTIONED IN THE MANUSCRIPT

<table><thead><tr><td>Name</td><td>Gender, ev. year of birth</td><td>Main characterisation</td><td>First occurrence</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Aibek</td><td>Man, 1963</td><td>Kumbat's neighbour, ex-mechanic in the Soviet farm</td><td>§8.4.2</td></tr><tr><td>Aisha</td><td>Woman, 1975</td><td>Member of Kara-Jer cooperative</td><td>§7.2.3</td></tr><tr><td>Adis</td><td>Man, 1969</td><td>Farmer, Kumbat's relative</td><td>§7.3.3</td></tr><tr><td>Amirbek</td><td>Man, 1983</td><td>Villager met in a shared taxi</td><td>§9.5.3</td></tr><tr><td>Arstan</td><td>Man 1975</td><td>Kumbat's oldest son</td><td>§9.2</td></tr><tr><td>Aziza</td><td>Woman, 1952</td><td>Kumbat's friend, ex-accountant in the sovkhoz</td><td>§7.4.5</td></tr><tr><td>Baburbek</td><td>Man</td><td>Development worker at GIZ</td><td>§6.2.1</td></tr><tr><td>Baktigul</td><td>Woman, 1954</td><td>Ex-accountant in the sovkhoz</td><td>§7.3.4</td></tr><tr><td>Batma</td><td>Woman, 1963</td><td>Kara-Jer Cooperative's Chairwoman</td><td>§7.2.3</td></tr><tr><td>Batyr</td><td>Man, 1974</td><td>Owner of a big farm enterprise</td><td>§9.5.2</td></tr><tr><td>Begimai</td><td>Woman, 1972</td><td>Deputy in the village council</td><td>§9.3.6</td></tr><tr><td>Bermet</td><td>Woman, 1980</td><td>Kumbat's daughter</td><td>§9.3.1</td></tr><tr><td>Bob</td><td>Man</td><td>Development worker at a UN organisation</td><td>§6.2.2</td></tr><tr><td>Damir</td><td>Man</td><td>Villager met in the street</td><td>§7.4.1</td></tr><tr><td>Daniar</td><td>Man, 1974</td><td>Deputy of the village council</td><td>§7.3.4</td></tr><tr><td>Dinara</td><td>Woman, 1953</td><td>Kumbat's wife</td><td>Chapter 1</td></tr><tr><td>Ermek</td><td>Man, 1959</td><td>Kumbat's neighbour, ex-mechanic in the sovkhoz</td><td>§8.4.2</td></tr><tr><td>Bolot</td><td>Man, 1941</td><td>Ex-specialist in the sovkhoz</td><td>§8.3.1</td></tr><tr><td>Elzada</td><td>Woman, 1972</td><td>Interpreter in 2015 and 2017</td><td>Chapter 1</td></tr><tr><td>Gulperi</td><td>Woman</td><td>Development worker at Bio-KG</td><td>§6.2.4</td></tr><tr><td>Indira</td><td>Woman</td><td>Development worker at ICA-Asia and Pacific</td><td>§6.5</td></tr><tr><td>Jamilya</td><td>Woman, 1981</td><td>Elzada's in-law relative in Pjak</td><td>Chapter 1</td></tr><tr><td>Jibek</td><td>Man</td><td>Civil servant, province level</td><td>§6.2.2</td></tr><tr><td>Joldosh</td><td>Man, 1991</td><td>Bermet's husband's cousin</td><td>§9.2</td></tr><tr><td>Jumabek</td><td>Man, 1934</td><td>Ex-specialist in the sovkhoz</td><td>§8.3.5</td></tr><tr><td>Leila</td><td>Woman, 2002</td><td>Osmon's daughter</td><td>§9.2</td></tr><tr><td>Kairat</td><td>Man, 1951</td><td>Well-off farmer</td><td>§7.4.4</td></tr><tr><td>Kasym</td><td>Man</td><td>Civil servant, aiyl level</td><td>§6.2.1</td></tr><tr><td>Keres</td><td>Woman, 1951</td><td>Granddaughter of a local leader</td><td>§8.1.3</td></tr><tr><td>Kumbat</td><td>Man, 1949</td><td>Ak-Bulut's Chairman</td><td>Chapter 1</td></tr><tr><td>Mamat</td><td>Man, 1952</td><td>Kumbat's friend, historian in his free time</td><td>§8.4.1</td></tr><tr><td>Meder</td><td>Man, 1981</td><td>Arstan's colleague and friend from Bishkek</td><td>§9.2</td></tr><tr><td>Mirislam</td><td>Man, 1927</td><td>Ex-brigadier in the sovkhoz</td><td>§8.3.5</td></tr><tr><td>Nadyrbek</td><td>Man, 1975</td><td>Civil servant, district level</td><td>§6.4.1</td></tr></tbody></table>
Annexes

<table><tr><td>Nazgul</td><td>Woman, 1936</td><td>Former simple worker in the sovkhoz</td><td>§8.3.5</td></tr><tr><td>Nazira</td><td>Woman, 1958</td><td>Director of the kindergarten</td><td>§7.3.1</td></tr><tr><td>Nurbek</td><td>Man, 1980</td><td>Owner of Ak-Bulut Cooperative's tractor</td><td>§7.2.3</td></tr><tr><td>Nurlan</td><td>Man, 1968</td><td>Civil servant, aiyl level</td><td>§6.4</td></tr><tr><td>Osmon</td><td>Man, 1982</td><td>Kumbat's son who lives in Pjak</td><td>§9.2</td></tr><tr><td>Roku</td><td>Woman</td><td>Development worker at a UN organisation</td><td>§6.3.2</td></tr><tr><td>Saikal</td><td>Woman, 1992</td><td>Interpreter in 2014 and 2016</td><td>§5.2.4</td></tr><tr><td>Samat</td><td>Man, 1989</td><td>Kumbat's youngest son</td><td>§9.3.1</td></tr><tr><td>Sezim</td><td>Woman</td><td>CUK director</td><td>§6.2.1</td></tr><tr><td>Sabyr</td><td>Man, 1992</td><td>Arstan's oldest son</td><td>§9.2</td></tr><tr><td>Stanislav</td><td>Man, 1951</td><td>Oktjabr Cooperative's director</td><td>§7.1</td></tr><tr><td>Sultanbek</td><td>Man, 1968</td><td>Tokoi Cooperative's Chairman</td><td>§7.3.4</td></tr><tr><td>Talant</td><td>Man</td><td>Development worker at JICA</td><td>§6.2.2</td></tr><tr><td>Tuman</td><td>Man, 1984</td><td>Kumbat's son who lives in Russia</td><td>§7.3</td></tr><tr><td>Ulan</td><td>Man, 1967</td><td>Kumbat's relative</td><td>§7.2.2</td></tr><tr><td>Zamir</td><td>Man, 1955</td><td>Aziza's husband, ex-head accountant in the sovkhoz</td><td>§7.2.2</td></tr></table>

Note on anonymisation: all names of persons, villages and cooperatives are fictitious.
ANNEX II – FIGURES<fnref n="1" />

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: Map of the Issyk-Kul region; © STRM data V4, elaboration by C. Pellet</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

<footnote n="1">¹ Pictures by the author unless indicated.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4: Postcard of the Issyk-Kul lake<fnref n="2" /></figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

<footnote n="2">² https://colnect.com/en/postcards/postcard/58675-Issyk-Kul_Lake-Pictorial_Tour_of_Kyrgyzstan-Kyrgyzstan (accessed 18.12.19)</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6: Land use in the Issyk-Kul region; KHMI et al. (2006, 4)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 8: Map of Kok-Bulak aiy/l by a villager (2016)**</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>Figure 10: Pavlovskaya's representation of diverse economies; modified by the author from Pavlovskaya (2004, 335)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /></figure>

<footnote n="3">³ The original iceberg can be found in Community Economies Collective (2001). The figure here reproduces the newest version of the iceberg developed by the Community Economies Research Network: https://www.communityeconomies.org/index.php/resources/diverse-economies-iceberg (accessed 15.10.2019).</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>Figure 12: Diverse economies after Kyrgyzstan’s independence; adapted by the author from Pavlovskaya (2004, 335, 337)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Note that in Figure 11 and Figure 12, I drop the separation between the private and the public spheres. I do so for aesthetic reasons but also because ascribing a practice to one sphere or the other is often very difficult.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_17.png" /><figcaption>Figure 14: Barley stored in the summer kitchen (2017)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_19.png" /><figcaption>Figure 16: Sowing potatoes by hand (2016)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_21.png" /><figcaption>Figure 18: Summer remont and cleaning (2015)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 20: Construction work through ashar** (2015)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 22: Irrigation infrastructure (2016)**</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>Figure 24: Modern farming in the Issyk-Kul region; drawing by a boy from the region (2016)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>Figure 25: Typical jailoo landscape with yurt; drawing by a boy from Bishkek (2016)</figcaption></figure>