Integration and conflict in Central Asia

In the early days after the disintegration of the Soviet Union many observers expected violent conflicts to shatter the region as people saw themselves faced with radically decaying living standards and highly artificial political boundaries. Studies of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology challenge this view. The construction of ethnic and national identity among two ethnic groups in Central Asia, the Uzbeks and the Kazaks, show that this relationship may better be understood as a dialectical process in which credit has to be given to historical parameters and social configurations to achieve plausibility and legitimacy.