Variations on Uzbek Identity: Strategic Choices, Cognitive Schemas and Political Constraints in Identification Processes

Throughout its history the concept of Uzbekness, or more generally of a Turkic-speaking sedentary population, has continuously attracted members of other groups to join, as being Uzbek promises opportunities to enlarge ones social network. Accession is comparatively easy, as Uzbekness is grounded in a cultural model of territoriality, rather than genealogy, as the basis for social attachments. It acknowledges regional variation and the possibility of membership by voluntary decision. Therefore, the boundaries of being Uzbek vary almost by definition, incorporating elements of local languages, cultural patterns and social organization. This book combines an historical analysis with thorough ethnographic field research, looking at differences in the conceptualization of group boundaries and the social practices they entail. It does so by analysing decision-making processes by Uzbeks on the individual as well as cognitive level and the political configurations that surround them.Peter Finke is Professor for Social Anthropology at the University of Zurich and Co-director of the Centre for Anthropological Studies on Central Asia (CASCA). Between 2000 and 2006 he was a Research Fellow and Head of a Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle. He also served as a Visiting Professor at the University of New Hampshire (2002/2003) and the Middle Eastern Technical University, Ankara (2004 to 2006). Since the early 1990s he has conducted field research in Mongolia, Kazakstan, and Uzbekistan, and has published extensively on economic transformation, social change and processes of identity formation.