Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-01T05:17:39.663Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bottom-up peacekeeping in southern Kyrgyzstan: how local actors managed to prevent the spread of violence from Osh/Jalal-Abad to Aravan, June 2010

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Alisher Khamidov ,
Nick Megoran  and
John Heathershaw
Alisher Khamidov*
Affiliation:
Politics, and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK
Nick Megoran
Affiliation:
Politics, and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK
John Heathershaw
Affiliation:
Exeter University, Exeter, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: akhamido@hotmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the aftermath of the June 2010 violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, much scholarly attention has focused on its causes. However, observers have taken little notice of the fact that while such urban areas as Osh, Jalal-Abad, and Bazar-Korgon were caught up in violence, some towns in southern Kyrgyzstan that were close to the conflict sites and had considerable conflict potential had managed to avoid the violence. Thus, while the question, “What were the causes of the June 2010 violence?” is important, we have few answers to the question, “Why did the conflict break out in some places but not others with similar conflict potential?” Located in the theoretical literature on “the local turn” within peacekeeping studies, this article is based on extensive empirical fieldwork to explore the local and micro-level dimensions of peacekeeping. It seeks to understand why and how local leaders and residents in some places in southern Kyrgyzstan managed to prevent the deadly clashes associated with Osh, Jalal-Abad, and Bazar-Korgon. The main focus of the project is on Aravan, a town with a mixed ethnic population where residents managed to avert interethnic clashes during the June 2010 unrest. The answers to the question of why violence did not occur can yield important lessons for conflict management not only for southern Kyrgyzstan, but also for the entire Central Asian region.

Keywords

ethnic violenceconflict managementsocial mobilizationnationalismethnic minoritiescivil societypeacekeeping
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 45 , Issue 6 , November 2017 , pp. 1118 - 1134
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akhmetshina, Madina. 2012. “Loving Your Neighbor as Your Self-Identity: Women's Leading Role in the Interethnic Sheltering During the Osh Conflict of 2010.” Master's thesis. Central European University.Google Scholar
Asankanov, Abilabek. 1996. “Ethnic Conflict in the Osh Region in Summer 1990: Reasons and Lessons.” In Ethnicity and Power in the Contemporary World, edited by Rupesinghe, Kumar and Tishkov, Valery, 116–124. Paris: United Nations University.Google Scholar
Autesserre, Séverine. 2014a. “Going Micro: Emerging and Future Peacekeeping Research.” International Peacekeeping 21 (4): 492–500.Google Scholar
Autesserre, Séverine. 2014b. Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barron, Patrick, and Burke, Adam. 2008. Supporting Peace in Aceh: Development Agencies and International Involvement, Vol. 47, Policy Studies. Washington, DC: East-West Center.Google Scholar
Bichsel, Christine. 2009. Conflict Transformation in Central Asia: Irrigation Disputes in the Ferghana Valley. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bieber, Florian. 2005. “Local Institutional Engineering: A Tale of Two Cities, Mostar and Brčko.” International Peacekeeping 12 (3): 420–433.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul. 1997. Theft of an Idol: Text and Context in the Representation of Collective Violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul. 2003. The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India. London: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Daley, Patricia. 2014. “Unearthing the Local: Hegemony and Peace Discourses in Central Africa.” In Geographies of Peace, edited by Fiona McConnell, Nick Megoran, and Williams, Philippa, 66–86. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Fortna, Virginia Page. 2008. Does Peacekeeping Work?: Shaping Belligerents’ Choices After Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Goetschel, Laurent, and Hagmann, Tobias. 2009. “Civilian Peacebuilding: Peace by Bureaucratic Means?” Conflict, Security & Development 9 (1): 55–73.Google Scholar
Heathershaw, John. 2009. Post-Conflict Tajikistan: The Politics of Peacebuilding and the Emergence of Legitimate Order. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heathershaw, John, and Megoran, Nick. 2011. “Contesting danger: a new agenda for policy and scholarship on Central Asia.” International Affairs 87 (3): 589–612.Google Scholar
Howard, Lise. 2008. UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
International Crisis Group. 2010. “The Pogroms in Kyrgyzstan.” https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/central-asia/kyrgyzstan/pogroms-kyrgyzstan.Google Scholar
Ismailbekova, Aksana. 2013. “Coping Strategies: Public Avoidance, Migration, and Marriage in the Aftermath of the Osh Conflict, Fergana Valley.” Nationalities Papers 41 (1): 109–127.Google Scholar
Ismailbekova, Aksana, and Sultanaliev, Rufat. 2012. The Role of NGOs in Conflict Management and Resolution in Post-Conflict Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2003. “The Ontology of “Political Violence” Action and Identity in Civil Wars.” Perspectives on Politics 1 (3): 475–494.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Khamidov, Alisher. 2015. “What it Takes to Avert a Regional Crisis: Understanding the Uzbek Government's Responses to the June 2010 Violence in South Kyrgyzstan.” Central Asian Affairs 2 (2): 168–188.Google Scholar
Koopman, Sara. 2011. “Alter-geopolitics: Other Securities are Happening.” Geoforum 42 (3): 274–284.Google Scholar
Koopman, Sara. 2014. “Making Space for Peace: International Protective Accompaniment in Colombia.” In The Geographies of Peace, edited by Fiona McConnell, Nick Megoran, and Williams, Philippa, 109–130. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Kutmanaliev, Joldon. 2015. “Public and Communal Spaces and their Relation to the Spatial Dynamics of Ethnic Riots.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 35 (7/8): 449–477.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 2015. ““Illiberal Spaces:” Uzbekistan's Extraterritorial Security Practices and the Spatial Politics of Contemporary Authoritarianism.” Nationalities Papers 43 (1): 140–159.Google Scholar
Megoran, Nick, Satybaldieva, Elmira, Lewis, David, and Heathershaw, John. 2014. Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Projects in Southern Kyrgyzstan. SIPRI–OSF Policy Brief. New York, NY: Open Society Foundations. http://www.sipri.org/research/security/afghanistan/central-asia-security/publications/sipri-osf-policy-brief-megoran-et-al-june-2014.Google Scholar
Melvin, Neil. 2011. Promoting a Stable and Multiethnic Kyrgyzstan: Overcoming the Causes and Legacies of Violence. New York, NY: Open Society Foundations.Google Scholar
Moore, Adam. 2013. Peacebuilding in Practice: Local Experience in Two Bosnian Towns. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Myrzakmatov, Melis. 2011. Men izdegen chyndyk [The Truth that I've Been Searching For]. Bishkek: Turar.Google Scholar
Nichol, Jim. 2005. “Coup in Kyrgyzstan: Developments and Implications.” U.S. Congressional Report, the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
OSCE. 2011. “Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Events in Southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010.”Google Scholar
Ponomarev, Vitaliy. 2012. A Chronicle of Violence: The Events in South Kyrgyzstan in June 2010 (Osh Region). Moscow: Memorial Human Rights Center.Google Scholar
Reeves, Madeleine. 2014. Border Work: Spatial Lives of the State in Rural Central Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Richmond, Olivier. 2008. Peace in International Relations. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smirl, Lisa. 2011. “Drive by Development.” Unpublished paper, issued posthumously at https://spacesofaid.wordpress.com.Google Scholar
Tishkov, Valery. 1995. “'Don't Kill Me, I'm a Kyrgyz!': An Anthropological Analysis of Violence in the Osh Ethnic Conflict.” Journal of Peace Research 32 (2): 133–149.Google Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh. 2001. “Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society: India and Beyond.” World Politics 53 (3): 362–398.Google Scholar
Williams, Phillippa. 2007. “Hindu Muslim Brotherhood: Exploring the Dynamics of Communal Relations in Varanasi, North India.” Journal of South Asian Development 2 (2): 153–176.Google Scholar