Disability and citizenship in post-Soviet Uzbekistan: the role of disabled people’s organisations, mahalla and Islam

The very existence of disabled people in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) challenged the utopian ideals of the Soviet citizen which emphasised the ability to work and contribute to building a socialist society. In the context of the authoritarian state and constrained space for independent civil society, it was mainly deaf and blind people who could engage in the Soviet citizenship project. They did so by utilising their working capacities through public associations and specialised production enterprises strictly controlled by the Soviet government. Such a productivist approach to achieving Soviet citizenship excluded disabled people who were deemed to be ‘not fit for work’, particularly those with physical, intellectual, and/or mental impairments. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 proved that the utopian experiment of constructing the ‘new Soviet men and women’ failed. This thesis explores how disabled people are enacting their citizenship in the context of post-socialist political, economic, social, and cultural transformations in Uzbekistan. Applying an emancipatory disability research approach that involves qualitative and elite interviews, participatory video, and critical ethnography with different groups of disabled and non-disabled people in Tashkent city, this critical study explores the complex nexus between disability and citizenship in post-Soviet Uzbekistan. Building on the existing conceptualisations of disability and citizenship in other post-socialist contexts, I show that disabled people in Uzbekistan are struggling to assert their citizenship due to the Soviet legacies of i) authoritarian control, and ii) the focus on labour contribution as a fundamental criterion for being recognised as citizens. I further demonstrate how the Soviet disability policies of segregation resulted in new ways ofenacting citizenship by disabled people at the community (mahalla) level. Lastly, I examine how pious disabled Muslims in Tashkent are reconceptualising disability through Islamic cultural norms and practices. They are constructing so-called ‘spiritual citizenship’ which conflicts with the Soviet institutional and conceptual legacies. The main contribution and the focus of the thesis is the way it explores the working and politics of an emerging disability movement in Uzbekistan around a number of vocal disabled activists and grassroots disabled people’s organisations. This study provides a deeper understanding of ‘disability’ and ‘citizenship’ in complex post-socialist contexts such as Uzbekistan. It develops a conceptual framework to critically analyse various visible and invisible barriers that disabled people are facing in their endeavours to achieve citizenship.