Postcolonial theory in the analysis of post-Soviet feminism: The dilemmas of application

The article is based around the observation that the current gender policies as well as writing about gender in Central Asia is structured around and stresses the various poles of the Orientalist dichotomy of Self versus Other. The explanations for the peculiarity of gender relations, as well as of the feminist movement, are based to a great extent on the uncritical celebration of difference and search for the traditional Muslim gender order (or, by implication, indigenous feminist opposition to it). The recovery of the primordial feminist identity is impossible and might not be necessary to claim a separate voice for Central Asian feminism. Instead, the identity of the current feminist movement should be analyzed in the spirit of Central Asian feminism's inclusion in postcolonial theory as strategically constituted within and between different discourses on gender. The article starts by summarizing the arguments from the fields of political science and anthropology on development aid vis-a-vis the imperial nature of relationships between the republics of Central Asia on the one hand, and USSR and USA on the other hand, thus providing the rational for the application of postcolonial theory. Even though the relationships between these entities could not be considered imperial in the conventional sense, the insights of postcolonial theory concerning the issue of otherness are still applicable, and are especially valuable in the analysis of the role gender plays in the constitution of nation and empire. It is exactly this contest over the gender order between nation and empire that does not allow the simplistic reduction of feminist identity to some primordial cultural essence. Further arguments can be derived from the logical impossibility of sustaining the sharp boundary between Self and Other, local and global, Western and Oriental in the face of the evidence that proves the boundaries are porous and difficult to maintain. The final part of the article argues for the use of the model of identity building that stresses the hybrid and intersected nature of identity.