The Institutionalization of Mobility: Well-being and Social Hierarchies in Central Asian Translocal Livelihoods

Abstract

In the wider scientific debate, post-Soviet Central Asia has been primarily known for the question in what ways this region currently experiences a ‘New Great Game’ of geostrategy and resource-competition. In contrast to that, ethnographic research on the various cross-border mobilities, networks and identifications of non-elite actors from countries such as Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan has set off only recently. Proposing a conceptual approach based on ‘translocality’ and ‘livelihood’, this article presents in-depth case studies which explore how Central Asians engage in ‘business-making’, ‘evolve’ their Muslim piety, transgress rural–urban boundaries and experience ethnic marginalization in between ‘home’ and cities in Russia, China or Egypt. We show how mobility is institutionalized, i.e. how within these ‘translocal livelihoods’ geographic relocations do not only combine with social mobility, but that assessments on personal well-being and the orientation on cultural norms also draw on somebody’s particular position within social hierarchies of gender and generation.

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