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"Judith Beyer presents a finely textured ethnographic study that sheds new light on the legal and moral ordering of everyday life in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. Beyer shows how local Kyrgyz negotiate proper behavior and regulate disputes by invoking custom, known to the locals as salt. While salt is presented as age-old tradition, its invocation needs to be understood as a highly developed and flexible rhetorical strategy that people adapt to suit political, legal, economic, and religious environments"-- "The Force of Custom presents a finely textured ethnographic study that sheds new light on the legal and moral ordering of everyday life in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. Through her extensive fieldwork and firsthand experience, Judith Beyer reveals how Kyrgyz in Talas province negotiate proper behavior and regulate disputes by invoking custom, known to the locals as salt. While salt is presented as age-old tradition, its invocation is shown to be a highly developed and flexible rhetorical strategy that people adapt in order to meet the challenges of contemporary political, legal, economic, and religious environments. Officially, codified state law should take precedence when it comes to dispute resolution, yet the unwritten laws of salt and the increasing importance of Islamic law provide the standards for ordering everyday life. As Beyer further demonstrates, interpretations of both Islamic and state law are also intrinsically linked to salt. By interweaving case studies on kinship, legal negotiations, festive events, mourning rituals, and political and business dealings, Beyer shows how salt is the binding element in rural Kyrgyz social life and how it is used to explain and negotiate moral behavior and to postulate communal identity. In this way, salt provides a time-tested, sustainable source of authentication that defies changes in government and the shifting tides of religious movements"--

HISTORY / Asia / Central Asia. --- SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural. --- National characteristics, Kyrgyz. --- Ethnology --- Kyrgyz --- Kyrgyz national characteristics --- Kaisaks --- Kaissaks --- Kirghese --- Kirghiz --- Kirghizes --- Kirgiz --- Kirgizes --- Kirguis --- Kyrgyzes --- Turkic peoples --- Ethnic identity --- History. --- Kyrgyzstan --- Jierjisi gong he guo --- Jumhūrī-i Qirqīzistān --- Kirghizia --- Kirgisia --- Kirgisien --- Kirgisistan --- Kirgizii︠a︡ --- Kirgizistan --- Kirgiziya --- Kirgizstan --- Kirugisu --- Kirugisutan --- Kuruguzu --- Kuruguzusutan --- Kyrghyzstan --- Kyrgyz Republic --- Kyrgyz Respublikasy --- Kyrgyzskai︠a︡ Respublika --- Kyrgyzskaya Respublika --- Kyrgyzstan Respublikasy --- Qirghiz Respublikasi --- Qīrghīzistān --- Qırğız Respublikası --- Qırğızstan --- Qirqīzistān --- Republic of Kyrgyzstan --- Respublika Kyrgyzstan --- Кыргыз Республикасы --- Кыргызстан --- Кыргызская Республика --- Киргизия --- キルギス --- キルギスタン --- クルグズ --- クルグズスタン --- Kirghiz S.S.R. --- Social life and customs. --- Kyrgyzstanis

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With fresh and provocative insights into the everyday reality of politics in post-Soviet Central Asia, this volume moves beyond commonplaces about strong and weak states to ask critical questions about how democracy, authority, and justice are understood in this important region. In conversation with current theories of state power, the contributions draw on extensive ethnographic research in settings that range from the local to the transnational, the mundane to the spectacular, to provide a unique perspective on how politics is performed in everyday life.

Ethnology --- Asia, Central --- Ethnic relations. --- Politics and government

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History