Securing future lives of children through ritualized parenthood in the village of Bulak, Kyrgyzstan
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Abstract
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine how patron-client relations (ökül ata-ene) make sense of their future in acceptable ways in response to dramatic economic, social and political changes in Kyrgyzstan's post-Soviet environment. After the collapse of the USSR, people in rural Kyrgyzstan came to rely on kinship, ritual kin relations, and alternative support networks. These networks provide better security and enable feelings of belonging in a period when people are insecure about their future prospects. These networks bring new opportunities new opportunities for identification within a potential system, which provides access to resources and satisfies basic needs in present time. If the sense of belonging previously was tied to the Soviet state as a provider of security and social welfare, and this may be partially true – health care, education, income – but there were some limitations as well. In other words, today’s nostalgia for the past includes some glorification of the past.
Today the concern with relying more on patron-client relations ökül ata-ene is linked to safety network that they provide. In this context, the old patterns of patron-client relations are not only perpetuated but also recreated, though in a radically different form than before.
Keywords: future, identity, patron-client relations, Kyrgyzstan
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