ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s, Central Asia1 has been perceived as a place in danger of violent conflict. In particular the Ferghana Valley, a large intramontane basin shared by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, became the focus of both academic and journalistic conflict analyses, as well as practical attempts to mitigate the perceived potential for violence. A field study commissioned by a non-governmental organisation (NGO) accordingly characterises the Ferghana Valley as ‘a culturally rich and diverse area with the potential for real growth in many spheres, but also the undeniable potential for dangerous divisions’ (Mercy Corps 2002: 3, emphasis added). Such ‘dangerous divisions’, the project document concluded, were constituted among other factors by organised inter-ethnic violence, a confusing and provocative system of increasingly militarised borders, spiralling poverty and a disintegrating, outdated agricultural, social and industrial infrastructure. This portrayal of bleak prospects for the Ferghana Valley in project documents of international peace-building sets the frame for this book.
