Skip to main content

Eurasianet

Main Menu

  • Regions
  • Topics
  • Media
  • About
  • Search
  • Newsletter
  • русский
  • Support us
X

Caucasus

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia

Central Asia

Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Conflict Zones

Abkhazia
Nagorno Karabakh
South Ossetia

Eastern Europe

Belarus
Moldova
Russia
The Baltics
Ukraine

Eurasian Fringe

Afghanistan
China
EU
Iran
Mongolia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
X

Environment

Economy

Politics

Kazakhstan's Bloody January 2022
Kyrgyzstan 2020 unrest

Security

Society

American diplomats in Central Asia
Arts and Culture
Coronavirus
Student spotlight
X

Visual Stories

Podcast
Video

Blogs

Tamada Tales
The Bug Pit

Podcasts

EurasiaChat
Expert Opinions
The Central Asianist
X
You can search using keywords to narrow down the list.
Kyrgyzstan

The Central Asianist Podcast: Of politics and patronage in Kyrgyzstan

Aksana Ismailbekova's book is a close and empathetic reading of kinship and patron-client relationships in Kyrgyzstan.

Nate Schenkkan Apr 5, 2018
Sooronbai Jeenbekov addresses an audience at the opening of a kindergarten in the southern Osh province on June 12, 2017. Sooronbai Jeenbekov (right), now president of Kyrgyzstan, addresses an audience at the opening of a kindergarten in Osh province on June 12, 2017. (Government of Kyrgyzstan)

In episode 25, Nate Schenkkan talks with Aksana Ismailbekova about her book Blood Ties and the Native Son: Poetics of Patronage in Kyrgyzstan, published by Indiana University Press.

Blood Ties and the Native Son is an ethnographic study of patronage, kinship relations, and political practice in Kyrgyzstan, centered on the figure of Rahim, who in the late 2000s became an important businessman and an influential figure in the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, or SDPK, before meeting an untimely end in 2008. The book guides the reader through the networks of kinship, geographical relations, and economic clientelism as they are constructed and reconstructed in Rahim’s native village in the Chui Valley in northern Kyrgyzstan. It takes us up close to Rahim’s businesses, his political performance, and local election-day practices. With its extremely close and empathetic reading of kinship and patron-client relationships, the book provides an insightful corrective to simplified narratives of corruption and patronage in Central Asia.

Nate Schenkkan is the Project Director for Nations in Transit at Freedom House and a veteran host of The Central Asianist Podcast. 

Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.

Related

China filling void left by USAID’s dismantling
United States has image problem in Central Asia
Ukraine complicates Central Asian leaders’ presence at Victory Day celebration in Moscow

Popular

Georgian government’s ‘deep state’ bromance with Trump remains unrequited
Irakli Machaidze
China filling void left by USAID’s dismantling
Georgia: Watchdog groups document systematic government abuses
Irakli Machaidze

Eurasianet

  • About
  • Team
  • Contribute
  • Republishing
  • Privacy Policy
  • Corrections
  • Contact
Eurasianet © 2025