From Endogamous Marriage to Ethnicity: Uzbek Community Survival Strategy After the 2010 Conflict in Osh

Abstract

In Uzbek families, marriages are endogamous; people marry within specific social groups or social units and marriages are arranged between families. The ideal marriage is made within their kinship system (oz jak) or among members of the kin group. The events of 2010 in Osh has changed the composition of Uzbek marriage patterns due to fear of rape, humiliation, and disgrace. The main argument of this paper is that the endogamous marriages of Uzbeks have been stretched to a wider Uzbek ethnic group. This means that Uzbek families started searching for a match with outsiders (zhat jak) living within short distances and long distances. Marrying outside of a kin group and village have become possible. As a coping strategy, the whole Uzbek ethnic group in Kyrgyzstan became in consequence a larger strong solidarity unit of kin alliances by accepting non-relatives as marriage partners.

Keywords:

• marriage
• Kyrgyzstan
• conflict
• strategy

Notes

1. A version of this article was published as Ismailbekova, A. 2017 ‘Better to hold on to salt than to hold on to your daughter’ - marriage as a strategy in the aftermath of the conflict in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. In The Family in Central Asia. New Perspectives. Ed Sophie Roche. 108–126. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. The author is grateful to Amantour Japarov and Kirill Istomin for comments during the preparation of this article. The author also thanks Nadezhda Bazhenova, Amantour Japarov, Kirill Istomin, and Tuychi Rashidov for help with text editing.

2. Ordinary, outside of conflict, marriage behavior of different population groups in Kyrgyzstan is beyond the scope of this article.

3. If before the conflict the main reason for leaving for Russia was the need to financially support the family, after its start many young people were forsaking the country to avoid harassment on the part of law enforcement organs.

4. Savat—a basket, wickerwork.

a. See also the article by Sergei N. Abashin in this issue; Cynthia Werner, Christopher Edling, Charles Becker, Elena Kim, Russell Kleinbach, Fatima Sartbay, and Woden Teachout “Bride Kidnapping in Post-Soviet Eurasia: A Roundtable Discussion” Central Asian Survey, 2018, Vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 582-601; S. Roche, ed. The Family in Central Asia: New Perspectives (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2017); and Morgan Liu Under Solomon’s Throne. Uzbek Visions of Renewal in Osh (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012).