ABSTRACT
The case studies presented in Chapter 6 illustrate how alternative conceptions of academic sociology have emerged within different institutional contexts in postSoviet Kyrgyzstan. They also demonstrate that ‘Central Asian sociology’, far from being a monolithic enterprise, in fact encompasses a range of meanings. However, the field also extends beyond academic institutions into the public sphere, particularly into areas of commerce, ‘development’ and media. This chapter will explore how and why the content, methods and roles of social scientific knowledge have been negotiated in the national print media, thus becoming types of ‘public science’ and tied to debates about independence, decolonization, authoritarianism, globalization, Westernization, modernity and truth.
