Conceptual practice of ‘rural wellbeing’ in Uzbekistan: Contradictions and implications for gender equality

Abstract

This article presents an empirical analysis of inherent contradictions in theoretical understandings of the concept of ‘rural wellbeing.’ In Uzbekistan, a theory-based conceptualisation of rural wellbeing became the basis for a water management project intended to mitigate threats to the economy of a rural village. In 2011–2012, the author inquired into concrete work processes which constituted and expressed rural wellbeing policies there. It was discovered that, as enacted through scientifically informed work activity, the project worked to (re)produce social and economic inequality by excluding certain social groups, including women peasants, from development activities. Consequently, these women, constituting the majority of rural inhabitants, continue to suffer from unreliable and scarce access to the water needed to sustain their livelihoods. The article tracks how such an unintended outcome was produced by mapping the processes and procedures development experts employed in translating policy concepts into on-the-ground practices. The research demonstrates how turning ‘rural wellbeing’ as a well-intended policy concept into practical changes in people’s lives is not a straightforward matter of getting the policy conceptually right. Critical analytic attention must also be paid to how rural wellbeing is operationalised in routine and taken-for-granted practices, lest development programmes risk benefitting only privileged groups.

Keywords:

• development
• gender
• institutional ethnography
• water management