ABSTRACT
Residential neighbourhoods in Central Asia’s cities provide everyday contexts in which to study the formation of subjects and communities, and the articulations of citizens with state power. One type of residential quarter, the mahalla, is presented as a particular socio-spatial form of collective life. Mahallas exhibit dense matrices of social interdependencies, where social categories and hierarchies, such as kinship, gender, age, class, sexuality, conformity, and deviance, emerge from daily interaction. Soviet and post-Soviet states have managed their citizens in part through the material development, bureaucratic administration, and discursive framing of such neighbourhoods. The mahalla is also the subject of narrative, by which residents locate themselves and others socially, and interpret moments of jarring socio-economic change and growing inequality.
Based on fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan within Uzbek-majority , the discussion argues that the anthropological study of neighbourhood offers potential insight on society, economy, and politics in Central Asia broadly. Neighbourhoods can also trigger theoretical reflection on the politics of tradition claims, embodiment, materiality, infrastructure, and the visibility of citizens to the state.
