Chopping carrots and becoming ‘real’ men: Uzbek boys, household work and the reproduction of masculinities in post-Soviet Uzbekistan

ABSTRACT

Since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, nationalist discourses have been overtly masculinized, continuing to inform Uzbek males’ daily lives. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Uzbekistan, this article illustrates how Uzbek boys’ domestic relations contribute to the way they learn to (re)produce masculinities, foregrounding a high degree of agency and utility. The analysis uncovered three themes central to the (re)production of Uzbek boyhood in Uzbek families as a site of informal learning: (1) being helpful through domestic labour; (2) being social through showing hospitality; and (3) being tarbiyali through practising national culture. Through scrutinizing the intersections of gender, education and nationalism, this article concludes by connecting Uzbek boyhood in the domestic sphere and nationalist campaigns fostering masculine hegemony in Uzbekistan’s nation building process. Through domesticity – a contentious concept in feminist criticism – this article expands our understanding of the (re)production of boyhood in a conventionally feminized space.

KEYWORDS:

• Boyhood
• domestic masculinities
• household work
• informal learning
• gendered nationalism

Acknowledgement

This work would not have been possible without the support and help of Dr. Jenny Munro and Prof. Garth Stahl, who provided many insightful and constructive comments on the preliminary drafts of this article. I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the editors and reviewers for their thoughtful comments and hard work in helping improve the manuscript. I also would like to acknowledge Kate Leeson’s editorial support, which significantly enhanced the manuscript’s polish and clarity.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Queensland Research Training Scholarship.

Notes on contributors

Yang Zhao

Yang Zhao is a PhD candidate in anthropology in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland, Australia. His doctoral project examines how young Uzbek men, mostly rural-urban migrants, navigate between social expectations and personal aspirations in Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan amidst recent social change such as Islamic revival, ethnic nationalism and economic liberalization. Yang Zhao’s research is closely aligned with anthropology scholarship in gender and ethnic inequalities, with reference to sexual health, particularly HIV/AIDS.