My Views on and Assessment of Existing Connections between Central (Eur)Asian Ethnography/Anthropology and (Post)colonialism

Abstract

The connections between Central (Eur)Asian ethnography/anthropology and colonialism are complex and
seemingly paradoxical. Russia’s Imperial ambitions and military conquest of the region helped to professionalize
and institutionalize ethnography as a discipline. At the same time, by describing the variation among humans
and these periphery populations’ byt (lifeways), sensibilities, and values, Central (Eur)Asian ethnography
always provided a challenge, even if not intentional, to an assumption of universality when it came to the
European, Russian, or Soviet values, and their respectful civilizing missions.