Youth in the Former Soviet South: Everyday Lives between Experimentation and Regulation

by Kirmse; Stefan B.

• ISBN13: 9780415680998
• ISBN10: 0415680999
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-10
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of youth, in all its diversity, in Muslim Central Asia and the Caucasus. It brings together a range of academic perspectives, including media studies, Islamic studies, the sociology of youth, and social anthropology. While most discussions of youth in the former Soviet South frame the younger generation as victims of crisis, as targets of state policy, or as holy warriors, this book maps out the complexity and variance of everyday lives under post-Soviet conditions. Youth is not a clear-cut, predictable life stage. Yet, across the region, young people#xE2;#xAC;"s lives show forms of experimentation and regulation. Male and female youth explore new opportunities not only in the buzzing space of the city, but also in the more closely monitored neighbourhood of their family homes. At the same time, they are constrained by communal expectations, ethnic affiliation, urban or rural background and by gender and sexuality. While young people are more dependent and monitored than many others, they are also more eager to explore and challenge. In many ways, they stand at the cutting edge of globalization and post-Soviet change, and thus they offer innovative perspectives on these processes. This book was published in Central Asian Survey.

Author Biography

Stefan B. Kirmse is a Lecturer and Research Fellow at the Department of Eastern European History, Humboldt-Universitt zu Berlin, Germany. This research and teaching focuses on Russia and post-Soviet Central Asia.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	p. vii
Introduction: Bridging the gap: the concept of 'youth' and the study ofCentral Asia and the Caucasus	p. 1
In. the marketplace for styles and identities: globalization and youthculture in southern Kyrgyzstan	p. 9
From youth bulge to conflict: the case of Tajikistan	p. 25
Embracing globalization: university experiences among youth in contemporary Kyrgyzstan	p. 41
Forging ahead: Azerbaijan's new generation and social change	p. 55
'Urbanizing' Bishkek: interrelations of boundaries, migration, group size and opportunity structure	p. 73
Education, youth and Islam: thi growing popularity of private religiouslessons in Dushanbe, Tajikistan	p. 89
What's in a name? The personal and political meanings of 'LGBT' fornon-heterosexual and transgender youth in Kyrgyzstan	p. 105
School, work and community-level diflferences in Afghanistan and Tajikistan:divergence in secondary school enrolment of youth	p. 121
Disjuncture 2.0: youth, Internet use and cultural identity in Bishkek	p. 141
Post-Communist youth: is there a Central Asian pattern?	p. 157
Index	p. 171
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