ABSTRACT
Based mainly on multi-temporal fieldwork in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the chapter explores the contingent co-constitution of urban environments in Central Asia by material, economic, social, affective and other facets from the Soviet era until today. Following key transformations of the 1990s, especially the privatization of real-estate markets, the informalisation of urban governance and the demographic changes due to strong rural in-migration, I document how single neighbourhoods and courtyards have lost much of their previous significance as spatial entities where residents used to socialize and be socialized, exchanged mutual support and strongly identified with. In contrast, present-day community-making among long-term city dwellers and urban newcomers in Bishkek, as elsewhere in Central Asia, appears to be less narrowly ‘territorialized’, and is instead inspired by interest-based practices that are spread across a broad spectrum of digital, commercial, or activist spaces.
