Loud Rebels: Politics Of ‘Revolutionary Women' In Kyrgyzstan

Drawing upon Bourdieusian class analysis and Andrew Sayer’s ideas on social class and lay normativity, this paper explores how class, emotions and moral worth shape everyday politics in southern Kyrgyzstan. The research paper focuses on so-called ‘revolutionary women’ (also derogatively referred to as OBON - Otryad Bab Osobogo Naznachenia [Women Units for Special Purposes]), who have emerged as a visible and vocal political group, often engaging in protests and sit-ins. The study shows how this group of stigmatized women capitalizes on their limited symbolic capital as ‘elderly mothers’, class emotions (such as shame, anger and resentment) and moral worth and egalitarianism to counter the neoliberal policies and domination in all spheres of life. The paper argues that class and moral sentiments are an important part of human subjectivities that cannot be reduced to power or social conventions. The paper draws upon fieldwork data collected in southern Kyrgyzstan that includes 65 interviews with ethnic Kyrgyz rural migrants and urban middle class ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz residents during summer 2011 and spring 2013.