Becoming sovereign in post-Soviet Central Asia : 'discursive encounters' between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
Abstract
In 1991 republics of Soviet Central Asia were reluctantly ‘launched’ into independence.
The central puzzle of this dissertation is: “How has sovereign statehood been
‘constructed’ in the post-independence period in the absence of history of anti-colonial
struggle?” This is an analysis of state sovereignty as a practice that is performative and
interactive through the examination of ‘discursive encounters’ between Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan. Such analysis traces temporal and spatial dimensions of dialogical
sovereign identity construction.
In post-Soviet Tajikistan and Uzbekistan sovereignties have been performed in a
dialogue, through dynamic interactions with one another. The work of asserting state
sovereignty is performed by various actors who claim to impersonate the state and
speak on its behalf. Multiple narratives of the self are articulated in relation to the
relevant “interlocutor”, whose reactions and counter-articulations are “fed back” into
the narrative of the self. The right to existence of these states as agents of international
relations is justified through such ‘discursive encounters’ that simulate sovereignty. I
propose the Möbius strip as a conceptual model for understanding the process of
sovereignty-assertion.
Competing historiographies present two irreconcilable narratives: history of an
ethnic
group
and history of the
territory
of the current state. These are consistent with the
nature of nationalisms in each state. While Tajik nationalists long for ‘historical
Tajikistan’, Uzbek nationalism is inherently conservative and defensive of territorial
sovereignty.
The controversy surrounding the Roghun HPP is an example of the daily construction
and maintenance of a state. Competing principles of water sharing contributed to an
ongoing crisis in Tajik-Uzbek relations. Sovereignty is simulated within the periods and
zones of ‘exception’ via a Möbian mechanism of dialogical meaning-making, whereby
each side strives to exploit the inherent ambiguity of signifiers in order to advance their
own narrative of the self and other.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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