ABSTRACT
Central Asia is often portrayed by governments and the media, in academia and policy circles, as a region that is endangered by a host of crises. Inspired by realist approaches, many accounts of security in Central Asia take security to be an objectively measurable phenomenon. In the past three decades, however, this orthodox approach to studying security has faced criticism from scholars associated with what has come to be known as ‘Critical Security Studies.’ Inspired by post-structuralist and constructivist thinking, critical scholars argue that, rather than existing independently of social relations, security threats are intersubjectively constituted within discourses. Scholars working on security in Central Asia have not been immune to these developments. Studying discourses of security in isolation only provides insights into how objects, or subjects, come to be constructed as threats, neglecting what happens afterwards. More recently, scholars working in critical approaches to security have engaged with the broader “practice turn” in the social sciences.
