![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
Abstract
In this paper, we use Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of capitals and fields in the context of a transitional rural economy. We investigate ways to adopt these concepts for the study of land governance, in an attempt to gain new insights in post-socialist transition. By means of an in-depth study of land and water reform in two Uzbek villages, we reveal the intimate connections between access to water and access to land in the Uzbek rural economy, as well as the wide variety of strategies used by farmers to secure access to these resources. It is argued that the increased importance of the political field, in combination with its increased volatility and the dismantling of Soviet local governance, led to opacity in the conversion rates of capitals, to a bet on land as safe haven, and an ambiguous status of money.
Acknowledgments
The research for this study was conducted under the ZEF/UNESCO Khorezm project “Economic and Ecological Restructuring of Land- and Water Use in the Region Khorezm (Uzbekistan): A Pilot Project in Development Research” funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (Project Number 339970D). The authors would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
Notes
1. In this paper, the term ‘farmer’ translates the Uzbek term of ‘fermer’, which refers to farm labourers that cultivate land under a state contract.
2. Although for the possibility of gravity irrigation the difference between canal water level and field elevation is decisive, due to the lack of continuous canal level measurements absolute elevation values (based on SRTM data) were used as a proxy.
3. Rice can be sold directly on the local market, so that sales revenues stay directly with the seller. In contrast, state crops are sold via bank accounts where revenues cannot be withdrawn for private consumption.