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Part 2. Women’s Roles in the Construction of Identity in Kyrgyzstan: Ideas and Expectations of Women

Welcome to the second blogpost in the miniseries about the roles of women in Kyrgyz national identity! In the first blogpost, I introduced and elaborated on concepts such as national identity. Ethnicity, religion, and nomadism are all important, yet in very different ways, in Kyrgyzstani identity. In this part, I will continue to elaborate on how these are part in shaping ideas and expectations of Kyrgyz women, and how this might have an impact on women’s situation in Kyrgyzstan today. Because of rather limited space, much will be generalized, thus I want to highlight that there exists multiple dimensions...

Part 1. Women’s Roles in the Construction of Identity in Kyrgyzstan: What is Kyrgyz National Identity?

Welcome to the first blogpost in the miniseries about the roles of women in Kyrgyz national identity! This post will be dedicated to clarify some concepts, such as national identity and gender, and shortly explain how and why they relate to each other. I will present a few theories of how national identity is constructed and maintained, to elaborate on my first out of three questions presented in my introductory post: What has been central in the construction of Kyrgyz national identity post-independence? What is National Identity? The understanding of a nation can be manifold. Several scholars from many...

Part 1 on Democratization in Kyrgyzstan: Perspectives on Democracy

  What is democratization? How does it come about? How does Central Asia Solidarity Groups view democratization in general and in Kyrgyzstan in particular? All over the globe, people tend to have a love-hate relationship to the word “democracy”. It might be the most frequently used word in political speech. It might also be the most unclear word in political speech. The sibling of the word, “democratization”, which tries to capture the process with which any given entity is said to be moving towards what is called democracy, is arguably even more difficult to grasp. Since I like drama,...

CAG exhibition Activism, Civil Society and Rights Based Work in Kyrgyzstan now touring Sweden!

It’s been quite a journey. After receiving funding from Forum Syd in the beginning of the year, meeting with various civil society actors in Kyrgyzstan and developing a visual concept during the summer, CAG’s exhibition Activism, Civil Society and Rights Based Work in Kyrgyzstan is finally touring Sweden! The tour started out successfully in October at Gothenburg’s Frilagret, a vibrant center for youth located on the city’s central Järntorget. Since then we’ve moved to Malmö where the exhibit is currently being shown in the main city library’s beautiful new wing, the Calendar of Light. Later this month it will...

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Vernacular design in Central Asia – A showcase of handmade objects from Kyrgyzstan

A man tends to his shop of babies’ cradles at Osh Bazaar, Kyrgyzstan Note to readers: this post was originally published on the author’s Medium account. Check this link to read it from the original source. Central Asia is regarded as a region of excellence when it comes to the production of artifacts such as carpets, textiles and felt. This traditions have been deeply explored and rightfully celebrated, however very little can be found on the design of everyday things in the region. The Southern part of Kyrgyzstan, a rather small country of 5 million, is especially interesting because...

(English) Non-violence training in Osh

In June Centralasiengrupperna visited Novi Ritm in Osh for a week and hosted a training in non-violence intervention with Per Herngren, non violent trainer and active within the plowshares movement, at the Novi Ritm house. The lectures focused mainly on tools to improve the democracy within meetings, how to approach problematic situations and how to intervene when a conflict arises. During the trainings the participants got a chanse to try out different non-violent methods by reenacting possible situations. For example how to repond to sexist comments or other discriminating acts. The participants from Novi ritm discussed how they could...

How is Novi Ritm working with a Rights-Based Approach?

By Johan Blomqvist, Centralasiengrupperna / Novi Ritm Osh, Kyrgyzstan Introduction On the 17th – 18th of April, 2015, Centralasiengrupperna’s partner organization ‘Novi Ritm’ in Osh, Southern Kyrgyzstan, held a two-day event informing about human rights. At the event, speakers from different organizations, such as OSCE, UNHCR and OCHCR, told about their work with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as their main tool. Since then there have been thoughts and discussions within Novi Ritm about what and how we could (and should) work with human rights. A springboard for the discussion has been the concept of a Rights-Based Approach...