Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T21:02:47.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Between the state and the artist: Representations of femininity and masculinity in the formation of ideas of the nation in Central Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Diana T. Kudaibergenova
Diana T. Kudaibergenova*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
*
∗Email: dk406@cam.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

After the Soviet collapse, the newly independent states of Central Asia found themselves in the process of forming their own national “imagined communities.” This was done to legitimize their existing territorial integrity, their rights to their titular ethnicities, and the position of political elites. This process expressed itself through the creation of particular symbols, myths, and rituals which distinguished the nation but were also used to legitimize the nation's right to exist. The symbolic and ideological construction was influenced by the former Soviet era. For example, symbolically the country was still called Rodina (motherland), but most of the symbols of power were represented by male images, for example, Amir Timur in Uzbekistan or Ablay Khan in Kazakhstan. The tradition of representing power through a male connotation had a long history in Soviet Central Asia. Interestingly, however, some contemporary artists took an alternative view and used feminine images as strong, central symbols of their interpretation of national identity, contesting the official view of nation-building. This paper seeks to trace the development of the feminine and masculine dichotomy of representation by comparing official iconography with works of famous female artists such as Umida Akhmedova from Uzbekistan and Saule Suleimenova and Almagul Menlibayeva from Kazakhstan.

Keywords

nationartfemale artistsUzbekistanKazakhstan
Type
Special Section: Gender and Nation in Post Soviet Central Asia
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , March 2016 , pp. 225 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 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

Adams, Laura. 2010. The Spectacular State: Culture and National Identity in Uzbekistan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Akhmedova, Umida. 2007. “Tam gde liudi, tam i pozitiv” [Where people are there are positive emotions]. Accessed May 17, 2012. http://cultureuz.net/photo/umidaahmedova/ Accessed 17 May 2012.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Blom Hansen, Thomas, and Stepputat, Finn, eds. 2001. States of Imagination. Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1996. The Rules of Art. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 1994. “Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutionalist Account.” Theory and Society 23 (1): 47–78.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2011. “Nationalizing States Revisited: Projects and Processes of Nationalization in Post-Soviet States.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 34 (1): 1785–1814.Google Scholar
Castells, Manuel. 2009. Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cummings, Sally. 2005. Kazakhstan: Power and the Elite. London: LB. Tauris.Google Scholar
Cummings, Sally, ed. 2010. Symbolism and Power in Central Asia: Politics of the Spectacular. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dave, Bhavna. 2007. Kazakhstan: Ethnicity and Power. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Doran, Christine. 1999. “Women, Nationalism and the Philippine Revolution.” Nations and Nationalism 5 (2): 237–258.Google Scholar
Duara, Pransejit. 1998. “The Regime of Authenticity: Timelessness, Gender and National History in Modern China.” History and Theory 37 (3): 287–308.Google Scholar
Fauve, Adrien. 2015. “A Tale of Two Statues in Astana: The Fuzzy Process of Nationalistic City Making.” Nationalities Papers 43 (3): 383–398.Google Scholar
Forte, Jeanie. 1988. “Women's Performance Art: Feminism and Postmodernism.” Theatre Journal 40 (2): 217–235.Google Scholar
Ibraeva, Valeria. 2014. Iskusstvo Kazakhstana. Postsovetskyi Period [Art in Kazakhstan. Post-Soviet Period]. Almaty: Tonkaya Gran.Google Scholar
Jones Luong, Pauline, ed. 2004. The Transformation of Central Asia. States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kamp, Marianne. 2006. The New Woman in Uzbekistan: Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling under Communism. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, Deniz. 1988. “Bargaining with Patriarchy.” Gender and Society 2 (3): 274–290.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, Deniz. 1991. “Identity and its Discontents: Women and the Nation.” Millenium 20: 429–443.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, Deniz. 2000. “Guest Editor's Introduction. The Awkward Relationship: Gender and Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism 6 (4): 491–494.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Eric and Zimmer, Oliver. 1998. “In Search of the Authentic Nation: Landscape and National Identity in Canada and Switzerland.” Nations and Nationalism 4 (4): 483–510.Google Scholar
Kim-Puri, Jyoti. 2005. “Conceptualizing Gender-Sexuality-State-Nation. An Introduction.” Gender and Society 19 (2): 137–159.Google Scholar
Kudaibergenova, Diana. 2013. “'Imagining Community’ in Soviet Kazakhstan. An Historical Analysis of Kazakh-Soviet Nationalistic Narratives.” Nationalities Papers 41 (5): 839–854.Google Scholar
Lauretis, Teresa de. 1990. “Rethinking Women's Cinema: Aesthetics and Feminist Theory.” In Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Erens, Patricia, 288–308. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Marat, Erica. 2007. “State-Propagated Narratives about a National Defender in Central Asian States.” The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, no. 6/7: 2–16.Google Scholar
March, Andrew. 2003. “State Ideology and the Legitimation of Authoritarianism: The Case of Post-Soviet Uzbekistan.” Journal of Political Ideologies 8 (2): 209–232.Google Scholar
Megoran, Nick. 1999. “Theorizing Gender, Ethnicity and the Nation-State in Central Asia.” Central Asian Survey 18 (1): 99–110.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 1991. “The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics.” American Political Science Review 85 (1): 77–96.Google Scholar
Mulin, Amy. 2003. “Feminist Art and Political Imagination.” Hypatia 18 (4): 189–213.Google Scholar
Nauryzbayeva, Zhanara. 2011. “Portraiture and Proximity: ‘Official’ Artists and the State-ization of the Market in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan.” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 76 (3): 375–397.Google Scholar
Northrop, Douglas. 2004. Veiled Empire. Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Pryke, Sam. 1998. “Nationalism and Sexuality, What are the Issues?” Nations and Nationalism 4 (4): 529–546.Google Scholar
Sluga, Glenda. 2000. “Female and National Self-determination: A Gender Re-Reading of ‘The Apogee of Nationalism'.” Nations and Nationalism 6 (4): 495–521.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony. 1988. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony. 1999. Myths and Memories of the Nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony. 2001. Nationalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Tlostanova, Madina. 2011. Gender Epistemologies and Eurasian Borderlands. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Verdery, Katherine. 1996. What is Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2003. “Nationalist Projects and Gender Relations.” Croatian Journal of Ethnology and Folklore Research 40 (1): 9–36.Google Scholar
Umida Akhmedova interview “Tam gde ludi, tam i pozitiv” [Where people are there are positive emotion] http://cultureuz.net/photo/umidaahmedova/ visited on May 17, 2012.Google Scholar
Accessed July 2, 2014. http://forbes.kz/life/opinion/bahyit_bubikanova_ya_i_sama_stesnyayus_svoih_rabot visited on December 10, 2013.Google Scholar
Accessed July 2, 2014. http://blogbasta.kz/?p=3238 visited on February 10, 2014 interview with Yerbossyn Meldibekov, Valeriya Ibrayeva 2008.Google Scholar