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Papers by Aisalkyn Botoeva
Sociology of Islam, 2020
Attending to the rise of halal economy and particularly halal certification initiatives in the re... more Attending to the rise of halal economy and particularly halal certification initiatives in the region and globally, this paper asks why and how third-party certifiers would gain credibility and authority, and what does authority have to do with the work of entrepreneurs in the sector. Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2015, and interviews with entrepreneurs and a private halal certification agency in Kyrgyzstan as well as their accreditors in Kazakhstan, I pay close attention to the collective meaning-making deliberations that revolve around questions of what makes goods and services halal and also what makes one a 'good Muslim'. Certifiers and entrepreneurs come to form what I call a valuation circuit. In these circuits, they construct shared understandings of ethical and behavioral norms for market actors, create and reinforce binaries around halal and haram, and rely on the transnational network of religious authority as they attempt to valuate and measure compliance to halal standards.
Why has the Islamic economy, as a model of socioeconomic development, gained traction as a viable... more Why has the Islamic economy, as a model of socioeconomic development, gained traction as a viable option? The existing literature suggests that the Islamic economy has been popularized by a combination of factors, including anticolonial movements, a global renewal of religiosity, and the activities of new social strata who merge piety with capitalist orientations. These approaches, however, tend to homogenize social actors, subsuming them under the overarching label of Islamism. In contrast, this article employs the lens of " intra-hegemonic struggles " to identify three competing orientations of Islamism and their manifestation in the economy. Drawing on eighteen months of fieldwork in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, it argues that this contestation motivates diverse segments of the society to create and engage in the Islamic economy, rather than any single state-driven or identity-based movement. The article synthesizes three otherwise isolated bodies of work: the political sociology of articulation, new theories of Islamism, and the concept of imaginaries from economic sociology.
Theory and Society, 2011
This article examines individuals' lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin... more This article examines individuals' lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin members. Moral sentiments and practical judgments are important in shaping kinship responsibilities. The article discusses how judgments on requests of support can be reflexive and critical, taking into account many factors, including merit, social proximity, a history of personal encounters, overlapping commitments, and moral identity in the family. In so doing, we argue that moral responsibilities are contextual and relational. We also analyze how class, gender, and capabilities affect how individuals imagine, expect and discuss care responsibilities. We also offer a critique of social capital theory of families, suggesting that their versions of morality are instrumental, alienated, and restrictive. Although Bourdieu's concept of habitus overlaps with our proposed moral sentiments approach, the former does not adequately address moral concerns, commitments, and evaluations. The article aims to contribute to a better understanding of everyday morality by drawing upon different literatures in sociology, moral philosophy, postcommunism, and development studies.
This article adopts a political economy approach with insights from the political geography liter... more This article adopts a political economy approach with insights from the
political geography literature to illuminate how the apparel manufacturing
sector in Kyrgyzstan has thrived in a region known for significant challenges in electricity access and availability. In contrast to studies that have analyzed the role of state policies and informal relations in promoting industrialization, we focus on how myriad shop owners gain access to elite-controlled, privatized urban infrastructure through owner–tenant relations in a new market economy. Drawing upon original interviews with Bishkek-based shop owners, we find that despite the challenges associated working in these spaces, including poor infrastructure and exploitative relationships
with owners, they remain due to the constant provision of electricity and
convenient location. We contribute to understanding how everyday shop
owners make sense of and grapple with production challenges in a new
market context, against the backdrop of Soviet infrastructural legacies and
post-Soviet privatization processes.
The paper examines individuals’ lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin me... more The paper examines individuals’ lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin members. Moral sentiments and practical judgements are important in shaping kinship responsibilities. The paper discusses how judgements on requests of support can be reflexive and critical, taking into account many factors, including merit, social proximity, a history of personal encounters, overlapping commitments and moral identity in the family. In so doing, we argue that moral responsibilities are contextual and relational. We also analyse how class, gender and capabilities affect how individuals imagine, expect and discuss care responsibilities. We also offer a critique of social capital theory of families, suggesting that their versions of morality are instrumental, alienated and restrictive. Although Bourdieu’s concept of habitus overlaps with our proposed moral sentiments approach, the former does not adequately address moral concerns, commitments and evaluations. The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of everyday morality by drawing upon different literatures in sociology, moral philosophy, postcommunism and development studies.
This paper examines how children relate to birth parents after separation and reunion that often ... more This paper examines how children relate to birth parents after separation and reunion that often produce negative emotions and distort family support in adolescence and adulthood. Attachment theory is employed to understand and explain how under informal kinship caregiving in Kyrgyzstan children can have varying emotional bonds with birth parents that affect social relationships later in life. The paper aims to contribute towards an understanding of the dynamics of emotions in family relationships.
This article focuses on the reassembling of apparel production in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. We cont... more This article focuses on the reassembling of apparel production in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. We contribute to this special issue on well-being in Central Asia by examining how individual craft-based apparel producers (a subset of producers in the apparel industry) describe the process through which they built upon their Soviet past and reoriented their professional trajectories in a new competitive market environment. These producers locate professional satisfaction in their ability to draw upon and creatively re-employ local knowledge and experience learned in Soviet institutions, ultimately – as they articulate and perceive – deriving pride and well-being from the process of selling highly regarded ethnically inspired apparel products both at home and abroad.
Teaching Documents by Aisalkyn Botoeva
Debates on market regulation often focus on the division between the state and the " invisible ha... more Debates on market regulation often focus on the division between the state and the " invisible hand " of the market. This course aims to go beyond this dichotomous view, and explores different sets of actors and forces that come to shape social norms and general behavioral patterns within the market in contemporary global capitalism. Moreover, the course offers sociological explanations of how production, distribution and consumption are organized and governed.
The course consists of three major parts: I) the history of capitalism and the market economy, II) the construction and operation of contemporary markets, and III) unconventional regulators of the market. The course will begin with the historical analysis of how capitalism was established as an economic system. Drawing from classics Max Weber and Polanyi, we will attend to the socio-political and cultural processes that facilitated the rise of capitalism as the predominant economic system. We will also discuss the major camps of economic thought pioneered by Keynes, Hayek and Friedman. In the second part of the course, we will move to alternative explanations of how market niches and products are created. We will examine how the profit-seeking and opportunism prevalent among entrepreneurs and corporations are often restrained by structures of control and customary relations. We will also explore how money and prices are more than simple media of exchange, and that they communicate a range of cognitive and cultural meanings for market actors. Finally, in the third and final section, we will explore a wide array of unconventional regulators of markets that have emerged and gained in force starting from the mid-twentieth century. These range from certification and labeling initiatives, to social movements, religious groups and the general body of consumers. The course will feature short lectures, but will mostly be seminar-based, aiming to develop students' skills in presenting, debating and writing on these significant contemporary topics. The key experiential learning tool for this course will be case studies of real companies based in Providence, RI and beyond. Students will be expected to examine a specific process within the business model, such as product development, branding, pricing, and distribution, through the lens of the theoretical knowledge they will gain throughout the semester.
Book Reviews by Aisalkyn Botoeva
Sociology of Islam, 2020
Attending to the rise of halal economy and particularly halal certification initiatives in the re... more Attending to the rise of halal economy and particularly halal certification initiatives in the region and globally, this paper asks why and how third-party certifiers would gain credibility and authority, and what does authority have to do with the work of entrepreneurs in the sector. Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2015, and interviews with entrepreneurs and a private halal certification agency in Kyrgyzstan as well as their accreditors in Kazakhstan, I pay close attention to the collective meaning-making deliberations that revolve around questions of what makes goods and services halal and also what makes one a 'good Muslim'. Certifiers and entrepreneurs come to form what I call a valuation circuit. In these circuits, they construct shared understandings of ethical and behavioral norms for market actors, create and reinforce binaries around halal and haram, and rely on the transnational network of religious authority as they attempt to valuate and measure compliance to halal standards.
Why has the Islamic economy, as a model of socioeconomic development, gained traction as a viable... more Why has the Islamic economy, as a model of socioeconomic development, gained traction as a viable option? The existing literature suggests that the Islamic economy has been popularized by a combination of factors, including anticolonial movements, a global renewal of religiosity, and the activities of new social strata who merge piety with capitalist orientations. These approaches, however, tend to homogenize social actors, subsuming them under the overarching label of Islamism. In contrast, this article employs the lens of " intra-hegemonic struggles " to identify three competing orientations of Islamism and their manifestation in the economy. Drawing on eighteen months of fieldwork in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, it argues that this contestation motivates diverse segments of the society to create and engage in the Islamic economy, rather than any single state-driven or identity-based movement. The article synthesizes three otherwise isolated bodies of work: the political sociology of articulation, new theories of Islamism, and the concept of imaginaries from economic sociology.
Theory and Society, 2011
This article examines individuals' lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin... more This article examines individuals' lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin members. Moral sentiments and practical judgments are important in shaping kinship responsibilities. The article discusses how judgments on requests of support can be reflexive and critical, taking into account many factors, including merit, social proximity, a history of personal encounters, overlapping commitments, and moral identity in the family. In so doing, we argue that moral responsibilities are contextual and relational. We also analyze how class, gender, and capabilities affect how individuals imagine, expect and discuss care responsibilities. We also offer a critique of social capital theory of families, suggesting that their versions of morality are instrumental, alienated, and restrictive. Although Bourdieu's concept of habitus overlaps with our proposed moral sentiments approach, the former does not adequately address moral concerns, commitments, and evaluations. The article aims to contribute to a better understanding of everyday morality by drawing upon different literatures in sociology, moral philosophy, postcommunism, and development studies.
This article adopts a political economy approach with insights from the political geography liter... more This article adopts a political economy approach with insights from the
political geography literature to illuminate how the apparel manufacturing
sector in Kyrgyzstan has thrived in a region known for significant challenges in electricity access and availability. In contrast to studies that have analyzed the role of state policies and informal relations in promoting industrialization, we focus on how myriad shop owners gain access to elite-controlled, privatized urban infrastructure through owner–tenant relations in a new market economy. Drawing upon original interviews with Bishkek-based shop owners, we find that despite the challenges associated working in these spaces, including poor infrastructure and exploitative relationships
with owners, they remain due to the constant provision of electricity and
convenient location. We contribute to understanding how everyday shop
owners make sense of and grapple with production challenges in a new
market context, against the backdrop of Soviet infrastructural legacies and
post-Soviet privatization processes.
The paper examines individuals’ lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin me... more The paper examines individuals’ lay understandings of moral responsibilities between adult kin members. Moral sentiments and practical judgements are important in shaping kinship responsibilities. The paper discusses how judgements on requests of support can be reflexive and critical, taking into account many factors, including merit, social proximity, a history of personal encounters, overlapping commitments and moral identity in the family. In so doing, we argue that moral responsibilities are contextual and relational. We also analyse how class, gender and capabilities affect how individuals imagine, expect and discuss care responsibilities. We also offer a critique of social capital theory of families, suggesting that their versions of morality are instrumental, alienated and restrictive. Although Bourdieu’s concept of habitus overlaps with our proposed moral sentiments approach, the former does not adequately address moral concerns, commitments and evaluations. The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of everyday morality by drawing upon different literatures in sociology, moral philosophy, postcommunism and development studies.
This paper examines how children relate to birth parents after separation and reunion that often ... more This paper examines how children relate to birth parents after separation and reunion that often produce negative emotions and distort family support in adolescence and adulthood. Attachment theory is employed to understand and explain how under informal kinship caregiving in Kyrgyzstan children can have varying emotional bonds with birth parents that affect social relationships later in life. The paper aims to contribute towards an understanding of the dynamics of emotions in family relationships.
This article focuses on the reassembling of apparel production in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. We cont... more This article focuses on the reassembling of apparel production in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. We contribute to this special issue on well-being in Central Asia by examining how individual craft-based apparel producers (a subset of producers in the apparel industry) describe the process through which they built upon their Soviet past and reoriented their professional trajectories in a new competitive market environment. These producers locate professional satisfaction in their ability to draw upon and creatively re-employ local knowledge and experience learned in Soviet institutions, ultimately – as they articulate and perceive – deriving pride and well-being from the process of selling highly regarded ethnically inspired apparel products both at home and abroad.
Debates on market regulation often focus on the division between the state and the " invisible ha... more Debates on market regulation often focus on the division between the state and the " invisible hand " of the market. This course aims to go beyond this dichotomous view, and explores different sets of actors and forces that come to shape social norms and general behavioral patterns within the market in contemporary global capitalism. Moreover, the course offers sociological explanations of how production, distribution and consumption are organized and governed.
The course consists of three major parts: I) the history of capitalism and the market economy, II) the construction and operation of contemporary markets, and III) unconventional regulators of the market. The course will begin with the historical analysis of how capitalism was established as an economic system. Drawing from classics Max Weber and Polanyi, we will attend to the socio-political and cultural processes that facilitated the rise of capitalism as the predominant economic system. We will also discuss the major camps of economic thought pioneered by Keynes, Hayek and Friedman. In the second part of the course, we will move to alternative explanations of how market niches and products are created. We will examine how the profit-seeking and opportunism prevalent among entrepreneurs and corporations are often restrained by structures of control and customary relations. We will also explore how money and prices are more than simple media of exchange, and that they communicate a range of cognitive and cultural meanings for market actors. Finally, in the third and final section, we will explore a wide array of unconventional regulators of markets that have emerged and gained in force starting from the mid-twentieth century. These range from certification and labeling initiatives, to social movements, religious groups and the general body of consumers. The course will feature short lectures, but will mostly be seminar-based, aiming to develop students' skills in presenting, debating and writing on these significant contemporary topics. The key experiential learning tool for this course will be case studies of real companies based in Providence, RI and beyond. Students will be expected to examine a specific process within the business model, such as product development, branding, pricing, and distribution, through the lens of the theoretical knowledge they will gain throughout the semester.