Laruelle, M;
(2021)
Central Peripheries: Nationhood in Central Asia.
[Book].
Fringe.
UCL Press: London, UK.
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Abstract
Central Peripheries explores post-Soviet Central Asia through the prism of nation-building. Although relative latecomers on the international scene, the Central Asian states see themselves as globalized, and yet in spite of – or perhaps precisely because of – this, they hold a very classical vision of the nation-state, rejecting the abolition of boundaries and the theory of the ‘death of the nation’. Their unabashed celebration of very classical nationhoods built on post-modern premises challenges the Western view of nationalism as a dying ideology that ought to have been transcended by post-national cosmopolitanism. Marlene Laruelle looks at how states in the region have been navigating the construction of a nation in a post-imperial context where Russia remains the dominant power and cultural reference. She takes into consideration the ways in which the Soviet past has influenced the construction of national storylines, as well as the diversity of each state’s narratives and use of symbolic politics. Exploring state discourses, academic narratives and different forms of popular nationalist storytelling allows Laruelle to depict the complex construction of the national pantheon in the three decades since independence. The second half of the book focuses on Kazakhstan as the most hybrid national construction and a unique case study of nationhood in Eurasia. Based on the principle that only multidisciplinarity can help us to untangle the puzzle of nationhood, Central Peripheries uses mixed methods, combining political science, intellectual history, sociology and cultural anthropology. It is inspired by two decades of fieldwork in the region and a deep knowledge of the region’s academia and political environment.
| Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Title: | Central Peripheries: Nationhood in Central Asia |
| ISBN-13: | 9781800080133 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.9781800080133 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800080133 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Text © Marlene Laruelle, 2021 Images © Author and copyright holders named in captions, 2021 This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Non-derivative 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non-commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Attribution should include the following information: Laruelle, M. 2021. Central Peripheries: Nationhood in Central Asia. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800080133 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at http://creative commons.org/licenses/ Any third-party material in this book is published under the book’s Creative Commons licence unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. |
| Keywords: | Central Asian, nationhood, sovereignty, political science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10130177 |
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