Working Class Subjectivities and Neoliberalisation in Kyrgyzstan: Developing Alternative Moral Selves

Abstract

This article investigates the subjectivities of working class people in Kyrgyzstan, examining their boundary work produced in response to neoliberal changes. While working class people are depicted as unenterprising and ‘backward’ by the rich and the middle classes, they often react with anger and lament the colonisation of life by market values, usually invoking non-market norms and nostalgia for the Soviet era of labour, solidarity and equality. Most importantly, they draw upon alternative cultural resources and discourses, such as traditional morality and Islam, to develop alternative ‘caring’ and ‘pious’ selves, which dissociate wealth from moral worth and provide other sources of self-esteem. But these counter-values can also be problematic, as they are ineffective in countering market forces and hardening class divisions.