Introduction: Kinship and Urbanization in Inner Asia

Abstract

The relation between kinship and the conceptualization of urban spaces has been little touched upon in academic literature concerned whith Inner Asia. This double issue addresses this gap, emphasizing the relationship between the migration of ex-nomads and the suburban spaces of Inner Asian metropolises.1 Our issue does not aim to provide yet another theory of kinship, but rather, while taking into account a range of representations and conceptions of kinship, to document how urbanization works in Inner Asia. Unlike the prevalent approach to kinship in which is understood as traditional heritage and basic (but disappearing) social structure, here kinship will be seen as an instrument for the ‘taking over’ of urban space and basic instrument of a post-socialist fight for urban rights in this area. This pro-active reading of the kinship system provides an opportunity for practices through which new and old representations of kinship are incorporated into the creation of new forms of “family, private property and the state” in the conditions of peripheral capitalism in the region (Brown 1998). By emphasizing representation, we consciously expand the field of application of the term kinship to all forms of argumentation related to national or family origin, used for the development of the city. This makes it possible to weaken the strength of the standard modern-traditional juxtaposition in the study of mass migration to the city. Moreover, we aim to show how the ideas of modernity and tradition are constantly changing and adapting to the strategies of urban development.