Hojaqizi - Citizenship and Ethnicity

Citizenship and Ethnicity: Old Propiska and New Citizenship in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan
Author(s): GULIATIR HOJAQIZI

Source: Inner Asia, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2008), pp. 305-322
Published by: BRILL
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Citizenship and Ethnicity: Old Propiska and New
Citizenship in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan
GULIATIR HOJAQIZI
Independent Researcher
ABSTRACT
This paper looks at two modes of 'belonging' in Uzbekistan: the firstas a full cit
izen and the second as an 'illegal' resident of the place, these being two different
ways of perceiving oneself as an Uzbek citizen. It is of crucial importance to con

sider the direct effect of existing internal registration regulations (propiska) on
the self-perception of being a citizen and an Uzbek. I argue that this local policy,
together with the failure of citizenship, has led to other kinds of memberships
within non state institutions. The overarching Uzbek national identity has
become a formal cover and an instrument for political discourse only at a higher
level. At the lower level, as local discourses indicate, 'ethnic' or regional net
works and identities have been strengthened and regained their importance in the
everyday lives of people in Uzbekistan. I will make use of contemporary
approaches to the studies of citizenship that focus on the experiences of citizens

and social constmction of citizenship frombelow. The data used in the article was
collected as part of fieldwork of thirteen months conducted in Uzbekistan.
Key words: citizenship, ethnic networks, nationalism,propiska
INTRODUCTION
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan faced numerous chal
lenges building an independent state. The Uzbek government system remains a
mirror image of its predecessor and is arguably a continuation of the soviet

regime in post-Soviet Central Asia (Humphrey 2002; Hann 1998,2002; Tishkov
1997). Humphrey (2002: 12) rightlypointed out:
First, there can never be a sudden and total emptying out of all social phenomena
and their replacement by other ways of life. Second, what Rudolf Bahro called
'actually existing socialism' was a deeply pervasive phenomenon, existing not
only as practices but also as public and covert ideologies and contestations. A third
assumption, more disputed perhaps, is that 'actually existing socialism' had a cer
tain foundational unity, derived in its public ideology from Marx and in its
dominant political practice from Lenin.
InnerAsia 10 (2008): 305-22

© 2008 Global Oriental Ltd

306 GULIATIR HOJAQIZI
One salient difference between contemporary Uzbekistan and the Soviet era,
however, is the welfare system. During the Soviet era, the welfare system met
certain minimal guarantees in provisioning its citizens. In contemporary

Uzbekistan, it has fallen apart along with the other so-called advantages of the
Soviet system. The welfare system is one of the key functions of the state in pro
viding for its citizens. The lack of welfare support from the state has prompted
the decay in the importance and meaning of the sense of belonging to the state or
being part of the civil society. People have to search for other types of belonging
and support which is kinship or ethnic1and regional affiliations.2
Uzbekistan cherishes the centralised system of government it inherited from
the Soviet Union. The centralised political system established by the Bolsheviks
as an effective control-mechanism has remained in place; it was even expanded
to further strengthen the control by the post-Soviet Uzbek government.3
Resources in post-Soviet Uzbekistan are still allocated according to the old
Soviet doctrine of 'one city centralisation'. Under this policy, the government
allocates a disproportionate amount of investment to the capital city of Tashkent,

to the detriment of other cities and regions. Compared to other cities in
Uzbekistan, Tashkent has better employment opportunities, better medical care
facilities, better secondary education, and better services. Outside the capital city
all of these resources are in poor condition or even absent. All of the main offices
of businesses and international organisations are concentrated in the capital city.

This has led to extreme levels of poverty in the rural areas of the country and has
prompted out-migration from various regions with people mainly moving to

Tashkent. Ilkhamov (2001: 53), in his article about the creation of the 'new poor'
in Uzbekistan, identifies the huge gap that has been created between rich and
poor, rural and urban populations. He estimates that in the eight years before
2001, 90,000 people migrated annually to the capital, a total of half a million
people.
Migration to the capital, however, is not necessarily a matter of free choice.
Registration requirements forbid the free movement of people within

Uzbekistan. Nevertheless, internal migration, even in contravention of local
laws, has made Tashkent the most ethnically diverse city in the country. People
therefore have to develop strategies to establish themselves in the capital, either
legally or illegally. This requires specialised knowledge and access to social net
works. On the one hand, people have to resort to institutions and policies of
Soviet origin where propiska (residence permit)4 is of cmcial importance in this
context. On the other hand, networks of families, kin and friends come together,
supporting each other, organising day-to-day life and even reviving aspects of
regional culture in Tashkent. In the Soviet Union, the propiska and the internal
passport regime5 were legitimised as strategies to ensure and control the 'proper'
mixing of the population. The official aim was thus an internationalisation and
Sovietisation of the population of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the over
population of 'closed cities' (settlements with travel and residency restrictions)
(Buckley 1995: 905) was to be prevented (Suny 1999; Brubaker 1994;

307 CITIZENSHIP AND ETHNICITY
Hôjdestrand 2003). 'Closed cities' were mainly the central cities that have
attracted more people than other cities due to the economic and other incentives.
Therefore the registration requirements in those cities were more restricted and
limited (Buckley 1995).
Uzbekpropiska policy has been inheritedfromthe Soviet system and took on
another meaning and nature in the regulation of citizens' mobility in Uzbekistan.
Thanks to internal regulations to 'improve a [proper] registration of citizens of
the Republic of Uzbekistan'6 it became almost impossible to obtain propiska,
especially after 1999 when 'terrorist' bombings took place in the centre of
Tashkent. These restrictionson the mobility of Uzbek citizens within the territory
of their own country have made most migrants at least 'half legal' if not 'illegal'.
The official legislation of residence permits or local registration policies in
fact contradicts the Constitution of Uzbekistan. Thanks to a dual legislation
system7 the internal legislation includes all the amendments and additional rules
that are absent in the official legislation. Without a propiska document, a citizen
is deprived of his/her civil and social rights, including rights to employment,
property ownership, health care, secondary schooling and so on as dictated by the
Constitution. This, in Kabeer's (2005:18) phrasing, is a 'brutal denial of rightsto
the majority of citizens' by the state that challenges the notion of citizenship and
political/national belonging.
In this paper I will limit the discussion and focus on the effectsof Soviet and
post-Soviet policies on local communities and on the experiences of Uzbek 'citi
zens' as internal migrants. Everyday experiences of the Uzbek 'citizens' will be
analysed in the scope ofpractices of citizenship in order to shed light on the defi
nitions of citizenship.
CITIZENS AND 'CITIZENS': THEORETICAL DEBATES AND THEIR

IMPLICATIONS FOR UZBEK CITIZENSHIP
The debates over citizenship have regained strength in the aftermath of the Soviet
collapse. Recent theoretical approaches to citizenship 'from below' analyse citi

zenship on the basis of citizens' experiences of everyday life (Kabeer ibid.). I will
follow this approach in my examination of internal migrants.8
Kabeer (2002, 2005) focused on the aspects of citizenship that were ignored
so far and suggested an alternative way of theorising it 'from below', in other
words from the stand point of the experiences of those who are largely excluded.
She states in her edited volume Inclusive Citizenship that:
[...] theoretical debate about citizenship is taking place in an 'empirical void',

where the views of 'ordinary' citizens are largely absent. We do
and perspectives
not know what citizenship means to people - particularly people whose status as
citizens is either non-existent or extremely precarious - or what these
meanings
tell us about the goal of building inclusive societies (2005:1; emphasis added).

The debate on citizenship has usually been approached from a systemic level and
citizenship was initially the domain of political sciences while social sciences
mainly analysed citizenship on the macro level (Marshall 1950; Steward 1995:
63). The actor-centred perspective, which Kabeer (2005) and others have intro
duced, leads to quite different results from those that are gained from a systemic
perspective. This approach allows one to draw on both ordinary people's under
standing of being citizens and belonging to a state as well as expectations of the

state in the exchange for the rights granted to its citizens. As Kabeer (ibid.: 3)
rightlystated 'there are certain values that people associate with the idea of citi
zenship which cut across the various boundaries that divide them'. She continues
to argue that these values and ideas people have of citizenship are so widely
spread that they influence their 'organisation of collective life and the way in
which people connect with each other'. Hall and Williamson (1999: 2) argued in
a similar vein regarding understanding citizenship fromthe people's lived experi
ences and 'the meaning that citizenship actually has in people's lives and the
ways in which people's social cultural backgrounds and material circumstances
affecttheir lives as citizens'.
The results of the kind of approach mentioned above offer answers to ques
tions such as where the two poles of offeringand receiving citizenship meet, if
they ever do, and if not, how both sides account for this disparity. In other words:
do people enjoy the rights of being a citizen, and does the state meet citizens'
expectations. The state expectations are that citizens comply with the Western
normative scheme of state-citizen relations including the paying of taxes, serving
in the army, respecting laws, and so forth.
When the focus of the analysis is on the actual practices of citizenship this
calls for a wider definition of citizenship as for example Turner (1990, 1993)
defined it. He (1993: 2) understood citizenship as a '[...] set of practices
(juridical, political, economic and cultural) which define a person as a competent
member of society, and which as a consequence shape the flow of resources to
persons and social groups'. This type of definition of citizenship reveals its
dynamic character, since Turner adds that this 'changes historically as a conse
quence of political [or social] struggles' (ibid.). To my mind it is fruitfulto define

citizenship as 'practices' rather than 'a set of rights', since this underlines its
dynamic character from a bottom-up perspective. Turner (ibid.) used the term
'practices' in order to avoid fixing citizenship to 'a collection of rights and obli
gations'. I use the term 'practices' in the meaning of everyday life experiences of
citizenship by 'citizens' on the local level.
He argued against generalising principles on defining and analysing citizen
ship. Turner (ibid.: 9) located the concept in a regional context: 'The notion of
citizenship can be traced [...] through the national cultures of differentregions
and nation-states'. In other words, Turner has shown citizenship's
implications
for different'practices' that are regionally and culturally specific and
depend on
the historical development of the concept. Moreover it is of no less to
importance
see what are the meanings attached to the term in the local context its
considering

local history and political culture. Different locales produce different meanings
thatare historically and politically shaped.
The notion of citizenship is variously defined in different countries by use of
different terms that have different etymological origins in different cultures. For
example, the French term is derived from cité, which refers to individuals who
enjoy limited rights within a city. In German and Dutch the term is associated
with the idea of civil society (biirgerliche Gesellschaft) (Turner ibid.: 9). In
Uzbek the term citizen, fuqaro, is derived from the Arabic faqir, meaning
poor/underprivileged. One Uzbek-Russian dictionary (Akbarov: 1988) when
explaining the word, uses as an example a sentence thatis cited fromlocally pub
lished Uzbek texts: 'men sizga aytsam, bizning Qamishkapa eskidan uruqqa
ajrab keladi: faqir va hoja' (I tell you that our Qamishkapa9 is divided by uruq [a
tribe, or descent group] since earlier times: faqir and hoja).10 Initially the term
was used for the ordinary population, which was usually poor and unprivileged.
The past use of the word ironically matches its actual practice and of course con
tradictsto the ideals of citizenship envisioned by the state.

The notion of citizenship, in the sense of rightsto social welfare and partici
pation in political life of the state, was introduced by the Soviets in the territoryof
Central Asia. That is why the notion of citizenship as 'grajdanstvo' has entered
the region and was translated into Uzbek as fuqaro without much investigation of
the etymology of the word fuqaro. To be a Soviet citizen meant to be entitled to
social and legal rights within the territoryof the Soviet Union. Free education,
health care and housing was provided by the Soviet welfare system. Social
equality was a central item promoted by the Soviet state in order to achieve class
less society throughout the Soviet Union. The idea of citizenship was presented
and more or less introduced in the light of its equal accessibility to all the Soviet
citizens. Having an idea about what citizenship means does not necessarily coin
cide with its actual practices on the ground. The simple example would be that
the Constitution grants freedom of movement within one's own country which is
a basic prerogative of any citizen and the actual practice is not necessarily the
same.
The concept of citizenship imported to the region by Soviets was successfully

adopted by the local state. The state and citizen relationship did not continue even
at the level it was during the soviet times. This relationship startedto vanish with
the collapse of the Soviet Union and has become blurred at the present time. It has
been replaced with other kinds of bonds and relationships between citizens and,
now, between members to kinship or ethnic networks. These 'informal' institu
tions to some degree replaced the functions of the state in relation to their
citizens. This new form of membership has more or less provided the advantages
that ideally citizenship would grant. Desforges (2005) pointed to the importance
of considering citizenship within certain places and spaces as this concept is terri
torially and structurallybound. When theorising citizenship it is helpful to use the
geographical terms of spatiality and scales and I would consider citizenship as
territoriallybound in the Uzbek context. Uzbek citizens do have their minimum

entitlements as citizens, only at the particular locales where they have permanent
registration(propiska). Whenever they starttravelling outside of their region of

permanent residence within the same national territory their rights as citizens
become limited if not the same as non-citizens.
'THE PROPISKA IS THE FIRST THING TO DO AND ORGANISE

BEFORE COMING TO TASHKENT; OTHERWISE YOU CANNOT
COME AND LIVE HERE ... '11
Obtaining a propiska12 remains the biggest problem that a person faces when
deciding to move to Tashkent, particularly after 1999, when Tashkent was shaken
by explosions in the city centre and the government consequently tightened its
control over the city and country.Uzbekistan has a dual legislation system: 'offi
cial' (zakonniy) and internal (vnutrenniy).Official decrees and laws exist and are
available for the general public. Internal decrees are issued strictlyfor internal
use of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Uzbek security services but nonethe
less bind the people regardless of whether they know of the decree.
Article 28 of the Constitution of Uzbekistan says 'Any citizen of the Republic

of Uzbekistan shall have the rightto freedom of movement in the territoryof the
Republic, as well as a free entryto and exit from it, except in events specified by
law.' The new internal regulations that restrict free movement of the citizens
within the country by means of controlling the propiska contradict the principles
of the constitution.
Internal registration requirements, particularly those for the capital city, are
similar to the registration requirements for foreigners. Foreigners must register in
- and the same
every place where they stay for more than three days goes for Uzbek
citizens. There are two types of registration for propiska: short-term and perma
nent. A short-term propiska limits the rights of its holder in a manner
corresponding to the rights of short-term registrations for foreigners, who do not
have employment and property ownership rights. Any Uzbek citizen who leaves
his or her place of permanent residence must comply with the local registration
system and obtain a short-term propiska if she or he stays at a place for more than
three days. A short-term propiska is given for a maximum of six months but
presently official practice is to grant short-termpropiskas for no more than three

months. After each expiry of a short-term propiska one must get it renewed. In
order to obtain a short-term propiska one should provide written proof of a 'legiti
mate' reason for staying in the new place of residence such as education,
employment, sickness, family reasons, etc. It is possible to obtain short-term
propiska by paying an amount equal to two average monthly salaries in cases

where one cannot provide proof of the legitimate reason. Although in theory it is
possible to get a permanentpropiska, in practice it is extraordinarilydifficultifnot
impossible.
In order to comply with the law and obtain a permanent propiska, internal

migrants must provide proof of employment, recommendations from local
authorities or some proof that they have close family living in the region, where
they want to migrate to. The most important document necessary for obtaining
both short-term and permanent propiska is written and notarised agreement of the
owner of the flat or house where the applicant intends to reside for purposes of
registration. By agreeing to 'accommodate' a person in his/her private house or
flat the owner runs the risk of his propertybeing divided if the new 'inhabitant'
claims part of the house or flat. This is usually only in cases of permanent regis
tration in the house or flat. Short-term registration in any house could only cause
a short-term delay for selling it as the registered persons in any house or flat have
to be de-registered. All of this described registering and deregistering in private

homes is the result of the absence of Renting Contracts which are avoided by
owners of accommodation so that they do not have to pay taxes on the rent and
additionally the process of entering the rental business is time consuming and
bureaucratically difficult. Consequently it is not an easy task to find a volunteer
owning a house or flat who would agree to risk his/her property even if the
requester is a relative.
Every citizen of Uzbekistan must comply with the mies of propiska when
ever he/she changes his/her place of residence be it a move within the same
neighbourhood or another city. Usually the procedure takes a few days, if the new
residence place is not a 'closed' city such as Tashkent. It becomes problematic

when people start moving to more 'attractive' places like Tashkent. As I men
tioned above the primary stream of internal migrants move to Tashkent as a result
of the old system of single-city centralisation - and the policy of closed cities
poses tremendous problems for the majority of migrants.
To apply for a city propiska in Tashkent an applicant must go to a special

department which is part of the unit which usually deals with foreigners, while
applicants who already have Tashkent registrationbut wish to move within the
city go to a normal registration office in the district where he/she wants to relo
can there are two of registration or propiska - the

cate. So one say types
restricted/closed type for places/cities that are 'closed' and the open type for
that are not closed. Once an applicant is granted the long awaited
places/cities
permanent propiska he/she will not have any problems with registrationwithin
the city and will be granted all the advantages of being a 'full' citizen such as
access to employment and other services. It is con
rights to buy and sell property,
sidered to be a very great accomplishment if one obtains a permanent propiska in
Tashkent.
The whole of applying for propiska is a long one. An applicant must

process
numerous types of harassment from different officials in different
undergo
instances and deal with the disappointment of being sent from one place to
another for a small of paper that certifies something that may even be irrel
piece
evant to the application. In addition to all the trouble they must go to an applicant
has to be ready to pay the expenses for transport and other administrative costs
and time is lost waiting in long queues or rescheduling appointments that are

continuously cancelled. The frustration and disappointment as a result of an
applicant going through this sort of contact with the 'state', as represented by the
bureaucracy, makes many lose any hopes they may have had to appeal to the state
for support. The sense of being a 'citizen' is replaced with feelings of becoming
an 'internal other'.13 Even if a migrant is able to comply with all the local proce
dures and meets all the requirements to receive a propiska, the waiting period is
between six months and two years, although he/she has already spent time on the
long application process described above.

Migrants must pass innumerable internal checkpoints on their way from their
home town or village to Tashkent, and these resemble international border check
points. The migrants also have to deal with a state culture that sees internal
migration as inherentlysuspicious, just as it perceives international migration as

such. This can be seen in the mass deportations of illegal residents from Tashkent
to their home regions approximately one week before national holidays, particu
larly such as Independence Day on the first of September. A week before
such holidays the checkpoints around Tashkent limit passage to travellers that
have a permanentpropiska stamp in their passports that verifytheir residency in
the capital.
The deportation process is usually implemented in the following way. In a
period starting around three months before a national holiday the police carefully
register the residents of each household, including 'formal' (registered) and
'physical' or informal inhabitants by asking neighbours and working in close
cooperation with the mahalla14 committee. In fact, each mahalla committee
building has an 'uchastkoviy militia', meaning the police offices are located
within the building. After the lists have been completed and compared with the
previous lists, the police implement the deportation process on theirassigned ter
ritories, which they call the 'chistka' (from Russian 'cleaning') of people in the
mahalla who only have a short-term propiska or with no documentation at all.
People are 'kindly' asked to leave the city within the three days; if they do not do
so, they are taken to the Ippodromli where buses go from Tashkent to the outlying
regions of the country. This practice of asking people who have short-term
propiska to leave their flats until the end of holiday celebrations is implemented
with extreme rigorousness in the central part of Tashkent. This surveillance by
state officials and the demand for constant compliance with registration require
ments leads internal migrants to live their lives in an almost perpetual state of
'immigration'. They must constantly be able to prove that they have permission
to live where they do, otherwise they face state sanctions. The journey from a
rural to Tashkent can take a long time - not in the sense of distance,
region just
but in legal and emotional terms. Migrants are directly affected by all these rules
and laws, but they are excluded from the processes of making law and at
policy
the national level.
While the state as a law giver is out of reach, people must face the police on a
day-to-day basis and find ways to come to terms with officials who enforce these
laws.

CITIZENSHIP AND NATIONALISM IN UZBEKISTAN
Citizenship is a necessary element of 'civil society' according to Western models

of a state based on democratic principles. But these models failed to be imported
'fully' into the new post-Soviet states (Hann 1996; Kandiyoti 2002). After
gaining independence, Uzbekistan adopted its current Constitution in 1992
which theoretically grants equal rightsto all the citizens of Uzbekistan, including
non-Uzbeks. But the citizenship types that have been considered in academic
research do not fullyfitthe understanding of citizenship in Uzbekistan.
Following the generally accepted views on citizenship as a necessary devel
opment of modernity, which implies some heterogeneity by its inclusive

character, one would assume the equality of legal status of all citizens in
Uzbekistan, including non-Uzbeks, as defined in the Constitution. What has been

called Uzbek National Ideology ( Uzbek Milliy Goyasi) in the national state lan
guage16 has been promoted as national state policy, discriminating against
non-Uzbeks and making 'Uzbekness' an important value for the most 'attractive'
This policy is formally implemented by means of promotion of Uzbek

identity.17
symbolic capital and national language policies, and by grantingUzbeks priority
to high-rankingpositions within the state system and so on. Uzbek Milliy Goyasi
is a political ideology adapted from the principles of Sovietisation. This puts
ideals of citizenship, promoted on the state political discourse, under the question
and its democratic principles based on the equality of all the citizens. Thus, one
may assume that citizenship in Uzbekistan has a nationalist character and theo
retically, therefore,all Uzbeks should at least enjoy basic rights of citizenship.

But it is not that simple, since in fact practices of citizenship have a more com
plex character.
I argue thatcitizenship and citizenship rightsare limited to the locale of 'per

manent legal residence'. 'Legally' one only enjoys 'basic' citizenship rights in
the place where one has a permanentpropiska. The state of illegality of 'citizens'
starts at the point when they leave 'their place of permanent residence' to go to
another region, but this is often not clear to them initially; they slowly come to
realise the limits on their rightsas a 'citizen' often aftertheir firstcontact with a
police officerin the city.
The notion of citizenship is challenged by an existing system of dual legisla
tion I mentioned above thatrestrictsand limits social, legal and political rightsof
citizens of Uzbekistan. Thus I use the word 'citizen' in quotation marks to
emphasise the malfunction and illegitimacy of this legal status.
During conversations with migrants about their lives in Tashkent, many of

them made statements like 'I don't understand these laws that do not allow
Uzbeks to live and work wherever they want to within Uzbekistan' or '[what is
this] if one can't move within Uzbekistan and be Uzbek'18 which I encountered in
many differentvariations and which challenged the legitimacy of the law in
Uzbekistan. This perception of being illegal in one's own country leads actors to
finding an alternative refuge within other structures of belonging. One way to

find these 'structures' or spaces of refuge is within kinship and regional net
works. When talking about the solidarity of the migrant group and their mutual
assistance, many proudly stated that 'they are known for their having one mouth'
(from the Uzbek saying 'ogzibirchilik' which means 'to be united or have soli
darity'). In similar conversations about the migrants' life in Tashkent the notion
of musofir (musafir) was introduced with reference to migrants in Tashkent,
which in earlier times referredto a traveller who is far away from his home. It is
often introduced in statements like 'we are all musofirs collecting our rizq (suste
nance19) here (in Tashkent)'. Calling themselves musofir is an explicit reference
to the perception of leaving home for a foreign country. If the notion of citizen
ship in terms of 'belonging' to the state does not exist, the question then, is how
can itbe defined, and whether belonging to a family or kinship network (and only
formally being a citizen) is sufficientreplacement for advantages of citizenship.
The migrant group members, like any other internal migrant group in
Tashkent who do not have a legal rightto reside in the city,are officially 'citizens'
of the state but do not practise 'the ways of belonging' to the state listed in Glick
Schiller's (1999, 2004) definition. According to that analytical distinction
between 'ways of being' and 'ways of belonging' the former is more of a passive
state of existence whereas the latter is a more active participation and engage
ment in the collectivity one belongs to. One can be an Uzbek citizen but not
necessarily identify with this identity and not be willing to participate in the
processes of social and political life expected of a citizen, such as getting
employed within the state agencies, participating in political life of the state or
performing other duties expected by the state. Instead one actively belongs to a
network or collectivity with which one identifies oneself and actively participates
both in social and political life inside. In the following case study of a workers'
team it is implied that the notion of the 'cruel outside' does not encourage efforts
to go outside the networks that provide a safe environment and trust. The latter is
of crucial importance particularly in the cases of 'illegal' existence and was
stressed often in the contexts of discussing relationships and networks.
Below I cite the experiences of migrants without propiska in Tashkent
focusing on the process of 'becoming illegal,' which means the gradual loss of
citizenship rights and the strengthening of regional or kinship networks when
leaving the locale of permanent residency.
DIFFICULTIES IN BEING ILLEGAL RESIDENTS AND LEGAL

CITIZENS
In this section I present a typical situation that internal migrants face after coming
to Tashkent. It demonstrates the process in which a person realises the significant
reduction of expectations of a citizen in Uzbekistan. It will also touch upon the
processes of everyday face-to-face interaction of ordinary people with govern
ment institutions through the police. I studied three teams of workers in my

fieldwork. Two of them were organised under the auspices of family and business
networks, and the other one was led by a foreman who himself had a contract
with a customer. The foreman assembled his team by going back to his home vil
lage. The case I present here involves a team organised by this foreman, who was
responsible for everything from the organisation of the work to its administra
tion. One day Husan,20 the foreman, told me about the trouble he and his group
had while walking in the streetthe day before:
I was walking with four of my men in Yunusabad [one of the quarters of Tashkent]
and two policemen approached us in the street, of course requesting our passports.
I had a short-term propiska that did not expire yet but the boys had no propiska for
Tashkent in their passports. I asked why they [policemen] only asked us for our
passports, and they [the policemen] answered that we looked 'suspicious'21 so
they had to stop us and check our documents. The policemen took all of our pass
ports and asked us to follow them to the police station. I refused and proposed that
the policemen check our bags and passports right there on the street without taking
us to the police station. I said to the policemen that the four men were my friends
and had only arrived today. I asked the policemen to only take my passport and
return the others as I was the one who lives in Tashkent and I told them
[policemen] that my friends were visiting me and had no intention of staying in
Tashkent longer than three days.22 The policemen didn't even bother to listen to
what I was saying and the boys felt lost and scared because it was their first day in
Tashkent and - imagine - they had never been outside of their village before.
Finally I had to tell them the truth. I said that we were not doing anything
wrong in the city but came to work and earn money to feed our families at home.
But the police replied by saying that if we work hard, using our tools to earn,
money, then they also worked hard, using their pens to earn their living. We had to
follow them to the police station as they started to use force. At the police station
the boys were forced to write a statement (obyasnitelnaya) which was dictated by
the policemen and it said: 'we, (full name), confirm that we were approached by
policemen. After they showed us their IDs23 they asked for our passports but we
lied by saying that we didn't have them with us. We apologised for that. We were
hired by (my full name) based on an oral agreement in which he was supposed to
take us out of the country to work in Kazakhstan'.
Husan and his team were on their way to Kazakhstan where they had an agree
ment to do some work in a private house. Husan said that those statements signed
by four scared and lost men would mean several years of imprisonment24 for him.
AfterI asked whether policemen had the rightto detain people without proof
and officially approved orders, Husan answered that they did and that it was
writtenin the regulations {codex) that they could detain anybody 'suspicious' to
them (policemen) for from three hours to three days. I responded that if a person
knows his rights then the police cannot do anything to them, even in Uzbekistan.
He replied that now 'the power is in their [the police's] hands (hukumaf5 hozir
ularning kolinda), they can do whatever they want and the only thingthey want is

money'. I asked him what would happen if a person had no money. He answered
that he would have to find money if he did not want to have problems all the time.
I asked if he (Husan) had left the police station by saying 'go ahead and file
charges in the court'. He said that that would not have worked; if the case were
passed on to the court then it would be very difficult to get out of there and 'in a
regional police station (ROVD) they beat you up in any case'. I tried to suggest
ways that he could have rid himself of the police, but he came up with answers
such as 'that doesn't work, they don't care and they aim to get money and they do
everything to get it'. The story ended with Husan paying the equivalent of 45
USD as a bribe which the policemen said was a fine forbreaking the law. I asked
if they were given receipts but they were not. In this context Husan used the word
ôldja (booty/prey) and asked 'Didn't you know thatthey go out to hunt?'
This metaphor of the police as hunterand ordinary people as prey is not ironic
or amusing. Husan depicts a central aspect of the relationship between migrants
in Tashkent and the authorities. Encounters can sometimes be even more dra
matic. The state institutions abuse their power on a regular basis. Husan said that
he and his team were used to this kind of behaviour; once they had even been
arrested in their own flat just before sitting down to have their evening meal. The
police usually accused them of living withoutpropiska. If they had propiska, then
they were accused of bringing girls and organising orgies or of being involved in
activities that are against the law. They would never release them until they paid
bribes. According to Husan, these conversations always start with a policeman
asking what he and his people do and why they were in Tashkent. Husan said that
the money used for the bribe after they were stopped in the street represented a
serious financial problem for him and his team. The money paid was the only
money they had left for buying necessary materials for their work. Husan
sounded very angry about it and indicated that he showed his anger to the police
at the end of the encounter saying that he told the police that what they did is
wrong since he and his team were poor men trying to make ends meet.
Most working teams are better organised, with official connections for organ
ising propiska and other legal requirements connected with registration and
employment. Their headmen have many contacts among the police but they also
have to pay bribes each month. Husan represents a lower level of organisation,
with a small working team and fewer contacts. Husan does not get very big deals.
The jobs he takes on are mostly small; if he is lucky he may find a job that is a
bigger deal that requires more work and more workers involved. Then he hires
more people and earns more money. In his small team there is usually one
foreman who is paid from 100 to 300 USD a month and two or three workers who
get around 40 to 70 USD depending on the workload. Accommodation, propiska

and food are provided by him. Husan earns an average of 700 USD per contract
which can be for up to several thousand USD in total, and is used for paying for
wages, accommodation and other expenses. His job is to organise eveiything and
to check the work, and if necessary to work himself.
The case illustrates the difficulties that 'Uzbek citizens' can encounter while

moving within their own country. In the following section I will describe
propiska regulations and their meanings for ordinary people, which lie at the
heart of the above outlined negative encounter of internal migrants with the
Uzbek state.
MIGRANT NETWORKS IN TASHKENT
As I described above, if the propiska is difficultand often impossible to obtain,

migrants in Tashkent are illegal and thereforedeprived of the basic rightsas citi
zens to be employed and enjoy medical and schooling benefits. There is another
option formigrantswho are to seek help within theirkinship or regional networks
that they come to know beforehand in their home town or a village. The contacts
are established through existing acquaintances before travelling. Networks of
support are crucial when arriving and becoming established in Tashkent as the
state support is absent for people in these circumstances. Mostly the networks are
constitutedon the basis of regional or kinship belonging. These networks support

their members and even propiska is sometimes obtained via 'brothers' within the
networks, so that not everybody has to get involved with police. Among the
informants interviewed for the study there was not a single case where a migrant
had not used his or her networks, particularly in the case of obtaining a propiska.
Another pattern that I discovered during my fieldwork was that a migrant would
always arrange his accommodation through relatives, friends and acquaintances

before he leaves home for Tashkent.
In an interview with workers in one of the teams, another foreman, that I shall
call Hudayor, entered with a set of passports and gave them to the members of his
team. I asked about this and Hudayor said that he had gone to obtain propiska for
the whole team.
Families are at the centre of these networks. One of the reasons for this is the
fact that family ties are the firstprioritywhen maintaining contacts. The second
choice for establishing contact is some other kinship tie, followed by neighbour
hood, village and finally regional ties. Migrants tend not to leave their networks
when looking for help or socialising. Network privileges give incentives for
staying within the group and even for marrying within these networks, that have
in effectcreated isolated spaces with their own internal rules and hierarchies in
which members are able to feel very comfortable.
Many of my informants stated that 'ozlarimiznikilar yahshi chujoylarga

ishonch yok' (Our people are better, the outsiders cannot be trusted) when rea
soning their unwillingness to have anything in common with the non-members of
their networks. One can say that such a network provides a kind of security
the 'cruel' world outside which requires a great deal more by way of
against
resources to survive in, and that some members cannot simply afford. In other
words migrants actively belong to these types of networks and avoid any contact
with the state. Ethnic and regional identities are constructed and reinforced in this

318 GULIATIR HOJ AQIZI
context, and these challenge overarching concepts of Uzbek national identity as

well as the sense of belonging to a common group called citizens. It would not be
true to say that belonging to these networks is rationally preferred to attachment
to the overarching national identity, simply because the former provides and the
latter fails to do so. In addition to the survival strategies described there are emo
tional attachments of group solidarity and kinship ties involved when making
decisions as to who to identifywith. One can only add thatthe political and social
conditions in which citizens find themselves lead them to challenge the idea of a
citizen and a nationality as primary structures of belonging.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper provides an example of the examination of citizenship 'from below',

based on the 'citizen's' everyday life experiences vis-à-vis the Uzbek state. I have
shown thatUzbek citizens do not necessarily enjoy the citizenship rightsoutlined
in the constitution. Post-Soviet Uzbek politics have given rise to a paradoxical
Uzbek nationalistic policy which fosters the fragmentation of the Uzbek nation
rather than promoting the desired unification. The differences between regional
and ethnic groups subsumed under the term 'Uzbek' become particularly obvious
in Tashkent. On the level of identity politics, local policies and the retreat of
migrants into ethnic enclaves have resulted in the reassertion and strengthening
of ethnic/regional identities that were once unified under an overarching Uzbek
identity.Examining the notion of citizenship frombelow sheds light on the 'prac
tices' of citizenship taking place at the level of ordinary people's everyday
encounters.
My theoretical arguments support the approach that Kabeer et al. (2005) took
in analysing citizenship from below focusing on citizens' experiences and prac
tices of citizenship as defined by Turner (1993). Moreover I argued that
citizenship should not be studied in isolation from its local context which sup
ports views stated by Desforges (2005) who suggested studying the geographies
and spaces of citizenship.
I hope that the situation described in this paper and the issues I have touched
upon may prompt further discussions and debate on the new dimensions of
power relations and internal politics, network formation and identity politics that
are closely connected with the notion and perception of citizenship; and may con
tribute to ongoing theoretical debates on the in
understanding citizenship
complex non-Western societies.
Acknowledgements
My gratitude and acknowledgements go to the institutions that have supported

my scientific work and supervision. I would like to thank anonymous reviewers
whose comments were constructive and helpful for final reworking of this paper.

Many of my colleagues have contributed while discussing the initial versions of

this paper but my special thanks go to Robert Freedman who has contributed not
only with proof reading the text but also with his valuable comments on the con
tent of the paper. I am also grateful to my informants and those who assisted me
in the field.
NOTES
1 The
adjective 'ethnic' is used in this paper for a group which is culturally and tradition
ally different from other groups within an overarching Uzbek nation. The difference is not
analytically defined but rather stressed by the group itself. 'Ethnic' in this context can also
be synonymous with regional group as these groups come from different regions; how
ever, a clear-cut distinction is not possible in this context, while in certain cases several
regional groups can represent one ethnic or culturally and historically distinct group.
2
See Edward Schatz (2000) for study of similar issues in Kazakhstan.
3 See Louise
Shelly (1990) for more detailed study on the state control system of soviet
militia during the Soviet Union.
4
This term refers to the old Soviet policy of registration of residents and the control of
mobility. After Uzbekistan gained its independence these policies remained in place and
even gained in rigidity through amendments and new regulations. Propiska will be dis
cussed in detail later in the paper.
s For a detailed of the origin and development of Russian and Soviet
retrospective account
passport regimes seeMervyn 1993.
6 This
phrasing is from the brochure of internal regulations.
7 See Johan
Rasanayagam (2003) for more theoretical insights on the informal markets in
Uzbekistan. He discusses in detail the concept of 'duality' shedding light on formal and
informal sectors of economy in Uzbekistan.
8 There are several some of
groups that are coming from different regions of Uzbekistan,
the groups are culturally more different than others and some assimilate to the local popu
lation and some have mainly endogamous life trying not to intermany with other groups.
The group that I have studied is more culturally distinct than other groups and endoga
mous. For the sake of anonymity 1 will not name the group I studied and further in the
paper 1 will use simply general term 'migrants'.

9 is a name of the place.
Qamishkapa
10
Hoja is a name of the noble tribe or clan and in this context it might have been used as
-
nobility as opposed to faqir poor/ordinary people by the author of the dictionary where
the example is taken from.
11This and similar statements were made in interviews about difficulties and incentives for
leaving home town or village.

12 For a detailed and internal passport in other Soviet countries
study ofpropiska policies
see Cynthia Buckley ( 1995).
131 would like to thank one of the anonymous reviewers who has prompted this phrasing.
14A mahalla is a traditional of two to three thousand people. Each mahalla
neighbourhood
has its mahalla committee.
15 track where the biggest bazaar for clothes) in
Ippodrom is a former race (mainly

Tashkent is located and where private buses, small vans and taxis gather to take up
passengers.
16This is used as uzbekchilikpolicy in Western scholarly work on Uzbekistan which
policy
is misleading and a mistaken term. Uzbekchilik can be translated as uzbekness and can
also be found in the state discourse in the meaning of uzbekness but it is not the name of
national state ideology that scholars wanted to describe. The national ideology of
Uzbekistan that is meant by the term uzbekchilik is Uzbek Milliiy Goyasi from Uzbek
means Uzbek National Ideology.
17 and Finke &
See Finke (2006) Sancak (2002) for a detailed and insightful study of
'Uzbek national identity'.
18
'If' is used in the ironic sense and it is pronounced with a special tone meaning 'what is
'
thisif...
19
Rizq is from the Qoran and is often translated as sustenance or food, but people use this
word in the meaning of any form of earnings, material things or even abstractions like hap
piness, joy, etc.

20
The personal names that appear in the paper are changed to protect the anonymity of
those concerned.
21
The very 'famous' reason to stop people in the streets, metro stations or make check ups
even at private homes which is a person/s 'looked suspicious' to policemen. Police and
officials of other force structures have used and misused the recent developments against
Islamic terrorists and discourses around it as tools to detain and interrogate people.
22 to regulations, people have a right to stay in a place without being registered
According
for not more than three days, which is also the rule for foreigners, who are also given three
days to register upon arrival.

23 Police
usually ask for passports without introducing themselves first despite the fact that
this is prescribed by law. Usually people do not ask policemen to introduce themselves and
show their IDs, but even if they do so, the policemen take it as a threat and become angry
with them. However there is a possibility that the police might believe that the person
asking for his ID

either has contacts that could get him (the policeman) into trouble or
knows his rights and knows how to officially make a complaint about him (policeman). A
person could try it but if he has no luck there is a risk that in this case the police realizes
that neither of the above are true or will assume so then the policeman may become angry
and cause more trouble than they would have caused, had they not been asked for their
(policemen's) ID. The chances are like the game ofPrisoner's Dilemma
24
There is a law against trafficking people, which can result in several years of imprison
ment.
25 Hukumat means
government in Uzbek but is used in the meaning of power an analogy to
the people's understanding of power as the power of the state. It is understood that the
power is in the state while the people remain powerless.
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Citizenship and Ethnicity: Old Propiska and New Citizenship in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan

Author(s): GULIATIR HOJAQIZI

This content downloaded from 195.37.16.155 on Thu, 29 Jan 2015 09:34:50 AM

ways of perceiving oneself as an Uzbek citizen. It is of crucial importance to con

everyday lives of people in Uzbekistan. I will make use of contemporary

approaches to the studies of citizenship that focus on the experiences of citizens

Key words: citizenship, ethnic networks, nationalism,propiska

lenges building an independent state. The Uzbek government system remains a

mirror image of its predecessor and is arguably a continuation of the soviet

'actually existing socialism' was a deeply pervasive phenomenon, existing not

dominant political practice from Lenin.

InnerAsia 10 (2008): 305-22

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certain minimal guarantees in provisioning its citizens. In contemporary

allocates a disproportionate amount of investment to the capital city of Tashkent,

of businesses and international organisations are concentrated in the capital city.

prompted out-migration from various regions with people mainly moving to

Registration requirements forbid the free movement of people within

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CITIZENS AND 'CITIZENS': THEORETICAL DEBATES AND THEIR

collapse. Recent theoretical approaches to citizenship 'from below' analyse citi

She states in her edited volume Inclusive Citizenship that:

[...] theoretical debate about citizenship is taking place in an 'empirical void',

This content downloaded from 195.37.16.155 on Thu, 29 Jan 2015 09:34:50 AM

standing of being citizens and belonging to a state as well as expectations of the

quence of political [or social] struggles' (ibid.). To my mind it is fruitfulto define

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tradictsto the ideals of citizenship envisioned by the state.

the etymology of the word fuqaro. To be a Soviet citizen meant to be entitled to

The concept of citizenship imported to the region by Soviets was successfully

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registration(propiska). Whenever they starttravelling outside of their region of

become limited if not the same as non-citizens.

'THE PROPISKA IS THE FIRST THING TO DO AND ORGANISE

Article 28 of the Constitution of Uzbekistan says 'Any citizen of the Republic

presently official practice is to grant short-termpropiskas for no more than three

employment, sickness, family reasons, etc. It is possible to obtain short-term

propiska by paying an amount equal to two average monthly salaries in cases

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migrants must provide proof of employment, recommendations from local

registration. By agreeing to 'accommodate' a person in his/her private house or

to be de-registered. All of this described registering and deregistering in private

residence place is not a 'closed' city such as Tashkent. It becomes problematic

To apply for a city propiska in Tashkent an applicant must go to a special

can there are two of registration or propiska - the

The whole of applying for propiska is a long one. An applicant must

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continuously cancelled. The frustration and disappointment as a result of an

long application process described above.

migration as inherentlysuspicious, just as it perceives international migration as

larly such as Independence Day on the first of September. A week before

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CITIZENSHIP AND NATIONALISM IN UZBEKISTAN

Citizenship is a necessary element of 'civil society' according to Western models

opment of modernity, which implies some heterogeneity by its inclusive

Uzbekistan, including non-Uzbeks, as defined in the Constitution. What has been

This policy is formally implemented by means of promotion of Uzbek

retically, therefore,all Uzbeks should at least enjoy basic rights of citizenship.

I argue thatcitizenship and citizenship rightsare limited to the locale of 'per

During conversations with migrants about their lives in Tashkent, many of

finding an alternative refuge within other structures of belonging. One way to

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citizenship rights and the strengthening of regional or kinship networks when

leaving the locale of permanent residency.