Born Kyrgyz, Raised as Russians and Buried as Arabs. Negotiating Childhood and Personhood in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

This book introduces readers to an ethnography about children in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and the values associated with their upbringing from local people’s own point of views. The author, who conducted her research in Kochkor, a village in northern Kyrgyzstan, approaches the topic of children and their childhood through the prism of ‘healthy growth’. In the local context, ideas about healthy growth of children are not limited to their physical, mental or emotional development; it also includes bringing up ‘culturally educated’ members of society with proper moral values, as well as the conduct of culturally determined health-related and life-cycle rituals. Discourses on the healthy development of children are presented through the voices of the people of Kochkor about Kyrgyz cultural practices, the increasing role of Islam, modernity and globalisation in Kyrgyzstan and how these dynamics have changed their perceptions of children and their childhoods. Therefore, this book can also be seen as an ethnographic study of the social changes in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan that are shaping and re-shaping the values, worldviews and daily practices of local people.