Contesting danger: a new agenda for policy and scholarship on Central Asia

Abstract

Western geopolitical discourse misrepresents and constructs Central Asia as an inherently and essentially dangerous place. This pervasive ‘discourse of danger’ obscures knowledge of the region, deforms scholarship and, because it has policy implications, actually endangers Central Asia. This article identifies how the region is made knowable to a US–UK audience through three mutually reinforcing dimensions of endangerment: Central Asia as obscure, oriental, and fractious. This is evidenced in the writings of conflict resolution and security analysts, the practices of governments, the activities of international aid agencies and numerous lurid films, documentaries and novels. The article first establishes the tradition of inscribing danger to Central Asia, in both academic and policy discourse, from the colonial experience of the nineteenth century through to the post‐Soviet transition and subsequent considerations of the region in terms of the war on terror. It considers several examples of this discourse of danger including the popular US TV drama about presidential politics, The West Wing, the policy texts of ‘Washingtonian security analysis’ and accounts of danger, insecurity and urban violence in the Ferghana Valley. It is argued that popular policy and academic texts are relatively consistent across the three dimensions of endangerment. This argument is demonstrated through a discussion of how policy‐making and practice is informed by this discourse of danger and of how the discourse of danger is contested within the region. The example of urban violence in Osh, Kyrgyzstan and Jalalabad, Afghanistan in 2010 demonstrates how opportunities to mitigate conflict may have been lost due to the distortions of this discourse of danger. It concludes by raising the challenge to policy‐makers, journalists and academics to contest this western geopolitical discourse and provide better accounts of how danger is experienced by Central Asians.

Bottom-up peacekeeping in southern Kyrgyzstan: how local actors managed to prevent the spread of violence from Osh/Jalal-Abad to Aravan, June 2010

“…Such research is important in itself. But beyond that, as John Heathershaw and Nick Megoran observe, Central Asia has long been painted by international political, cultural, and academic practices as inherently prone to ethnic conflict and thus in need of external rescue from the dangers it poses to itself and others (Heathershaw and Megoran 2011). Research that uncovers internal mechanisms for preventing violence is thus of crucial value to correcting the "discourse of danger."…”

De-securitizing the “Silk Road”: Uzbekistan’s cooperation agenda with Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea in the post-Karimov era

“…199–213). Thus, for the most part, the securitization of discourse leads to the creation of the attitude in which these states are placed at the bottom of the hierarchy of relations with other states (for critical analysis of securitization of discourse, see Heathershaw & Megoran, 2011, pp. 589–612).…”

Studying Peace in and with Central Eurasia: Starting from Local and Trans-Local Perspectives

“…Area studies experts have been debating such discourses of danger for over a decade. They view Western threat perceptions mainly as projections of fear of destabilization, deplore a lack of understanding of non-Western differences and have called for the deconstruction of corresponding interests (Heathershaw and Megoran 2011). Between 2005 and 2007, a debate on the range of real conflict in Central Asia unfolded in area studies journals such as Central Asia Survey (Heathershaw and Thompson 2005;Jackson 2005;MacFarlane and Torjesen 2005) and the Journal for Communist and Post-Communist Studies (Korostelina 2007; Sandole 2007).…”