In the name of the mother: the fight over naming politics in Central Asia opendemocracy.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from opendemocracy.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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For the past two years, three researchers have tried to understand what ‘happiness’ looks like for residents of Kyrgyzstan, and particularly for LGBT and queer people in this Central Asian state, who regularly face rejection and violence.
The result of their work is A Book About Happiness: For Young (and not so) LGBT (and not only) People, which draws on interviews from members of LGBT communities in Kyrgyzstan, but also touches on broader topics: How has the idea of happiness changed in the post-Soviet space? What might happiness look like from a left-wing perspective? Why doesn’t the global positive thinking industry make people happier – wherever they are?
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Over a year ago, a series of articles by feminist scholars from Central Asia exposed the deep inequalities in knowledge production in Central Asian area studies.
Academic discourse on the region has long been dominated by Western scholars who produce knowledge for Western audiences, while routinely ignoring rich contributions by their Central Asian counterparts. Local scholars have often lacked the resources and skills to publish in Western outlets - but even when publicising their work, they have been denied recognition. “[W]e, the Central Asians, are the source material, the ‘field,’ the very fuel that feeds the production of knowledge