TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN

Mizuki Sakurama Nakamura

TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN

Abstract

This ethnographic study examines how Tatar diaspora communities in Tashkent, Uzbekistan maintain distinctive ethnic identity despite significant heritage language decline. Based on intermittent ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2013-2024, the research reveals that rather than experiencing straightforward assimilation, Tashkent Tatars engage in processes of cultural identity compensation: strategically investing heightened symbolic significance in culinary practices, personal naming traditions, and adapted festivals as language use diminishes. The study introduces the concept of polycentric authenticity, demonstrating how diaspora communities function as independent centres of cultural authority rather than merely reproducing homeland norms. Through analysis of intergenerational negotiations of authenticity, the research challenges binary frameworks of cultural preservation versus loss, revealing instead dynamic processes of creative adaptation. These findings contest official narratives of ‘voluntary assimilation’ and highlight the agency exercised by minority communities in reconfiguring ethnic identity within post-Soviet Central Asia.

Keywords

Ethical Statement

This study involving human participants has completed and fulfilled the ethical guidelines requirements. The participants provided written informed consent before taking part in the study and were informed about its objectives.

References

Alba, R. (1990). Ethnic identity: The transformation of White America. Yale University Press.
Barth, F. (1969). Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of culture difference. Little, Brown.
Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Applied Psychology, 46(1), 5–34.
Bhabha, H. K. (1996). Unsatisfied: Notes on vernacular cosmopolitanism. In L. Garcia-Moreno & P. C. Pfeiffer (Eds.), Text and nation: Cross-disciplinary essays on cultural and national identities (pp. 191–207). Camden House.
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge University Press.
Blommaert, J., & Varis, P. (2013). Enough is enough: The heuristics of authenticity in superdiversity. In J. Duarte & I. Gogolin (Eds.), Linguistic superdiversity in urban areas: Research approaches (pp. 143–159). John Benjamins.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Polity Press.
Brubaker, R. (2004). Ethnicity without groups. Harvard University Press.

Brubaker, R., & Cooper, F. (2000). Beyond “identity”. Theory and Society, 29(1), 1–47.
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), 585–614.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Sage.
Clifford, J. (1994). Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology, 9(3), 302–338.
Coupland, N. (2003). Sociolinguistic authenticities. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(3), 417–431.
Edgar, A. (2004). Tribal nation: The making of Soviet Turkmenistan. Princeton University Press.
Finke, P. (2014). Variations on Uzbek identity: Strategic choices, cognitive schemas and political constraints in identification processes. Berghahn Books.
Fishman, J. A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Multilingual Matters.
Gabdraxmanova, G., & Sagdieva, E. (2019). Tatary sovremennogo Taškenta: ètničeskaja identičnostʹ v kontekste socialʹnyx transformacij. Ètnografičeskoe obozrenie, 1, 79–96.
Gal, S. (1979). Language shift: Social determinants of linguistic change in bilingual Austria. Academic Press.
Gal, S., & Irvine, J. (1995). The boundaries of languages and disciplines: How ideologies construct difference. Social Research, 62(4), 967–1001.
Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs identity? In S. Hall & P. du Gay (Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 1–17). Sage.
Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in practice (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Handler, R. (1986). Authenticity. Anthropology Today, 2(1), 2–4.
Hobsbawm, E., & Ranger, T. (Eds.). (1983). The invention of tradition. Cambridge University Press.
Jenkins, R. (2008). Rethinking ethnicity (2nd ed.). Sage.
Khalid, A. (2007). Islam after communism: Religion and politics in Central Asia. University of California Press.
Lockwood, W., & Lockwood, Y. (2000). Continuity and adaptation in Arab American foodways. In N. Abraham & A. Shryock (Eds.), Arab Detroit: From margin to mainstream (pp. 515–549). Wayne State University Press.
Mannheim, K. (1952). The problem of generations. In P. Kecskemeti (Ed.), Essays on the sociology of knowledge (pp. 276–322). Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Martin, T. (2001). The affirmative action empire: Nations and nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Cornell University Press.
Meek, B. A. (2010). We are our language: An ethnography of language revitalization in a Northern Athabaskan community. University of Arizona Press.
Mintz, S. W., & Du Bois, C. M. (2002). The anthropology of food and eating. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 99–119.
Okamura, J. (1981). Situational ethnicity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4(4), 452–465.
Omelicheva, M. (2011). Islam in Kazakhstan: A survey of contemporary trends and sources of securitization. Central Asian Survey, 30(2), 243–256.
Sakurama-Nakamura, M. (2024a). La compensation identitaire culturelle: Le cas des Tatars de Tachkent dans l’Ouzbékistan post-soviétique. Melius: Journal of Narrative and Language Studies, 3(1), 1–9.
Sakurama-Nakamura, M. (2024b). Redefining home: Adaptive transnationalism in the migration of Tatar women from Russia to Kazakhstan. Journal of Migration and Political Studies, 2(2), 97–122.
Sakurama-Nakamura, M. (2025). Negotiating polycentric authenticity: Dynamics of language and cultural inheritance in the Tatar community in Uzbekistan. Gengo Seisaku [Language Policy], 21(1), 1–20. [Originally written in Japanese: 櫻間瑞希. (2025). 多中心的真正性の交渉―ウズベキスタンのタタール人コミュニティにおける言語・文化継承の動態. 『言語政策』, 21(1), 1–20.]
Shaw, R., & Stewart, C. (1994). Introduction: Problematizing syncretism. In Syncretism/anti-syncretism: The politics of religious synthesis (pp. 1–26).
Silverstein, M. (1998). Contemporary transformations of local linguistic communities. Annual Review of Anthropology, 27, 401–426.
Smolicz, J. (1981). Core values and cultural identity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4(1), 75–90.
Sutton, D. (2001). Remembrance of repasts: An anthropology of food and memory. Berg.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Brooks/Cole.
Urazmanova, R. (2001). Sovremennye obriady tatarskogo naroda: Istoriko-ėtnograficheskoe issledovanie. Tatarskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo.
Vertovec, S. (1999). Conceiving and researching transnationalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2), 447–462.
Waters, M. (1990). Ethnic options: Choosing identities in America. University of California Press.
Werbner, P. (2002). The place which is diaspora: Citizenship, religion and gender in the making of chaordic transnationalism. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 28(1), 119–133.
Woolard, K. A. (2016). Singular and plural: Ideologies of linguistic authority in 21st century Catalonia. Oxford University Press.

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Studies of the Turkic World

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Mizuki Sakurama Nakamura ^*
0009-0007-9843-8308
Japan

Publication Date

July 30, 2025

Submission Date

May 23, 2025

Acceptance Date

July 14, 2025

Published in Issue

Year 2025 Volume: 7 Number: 3

IZ

https://izlik.org/JA29AD76XY

Cite

RIS / Bibtex

APA

Sakurama Nakamura, M. (2025). TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN. Eurasian Research Journal, 7(3), 298-321. https://izlik.org/JA29AD76XY

AMA

1.Sakurama Nakamura M. TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN. ERJ. 2025;7(3):298-321. https://izlik.org/JA29AD76XY

Chicago

Sakurama Nakamura, Mizuki. 2025. “TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN”. Eurasian Research Journal 7 (3): 298-321. https://izlik.org/JA29AD76XY.

EndNote

Sakurama Nakamura M (July 1, 2025) TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN. Eurasian Research Journal 7 3 298–321.

IEEE

[1]M. Sakurama Nakamura, “TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN”, ERJ, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 298–321, July 2025, [Online]. Available: https://izlik.org/JA29AD76XY

ISNAD

Sakurama Nakamura, Mizuki. “TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN”. Eurasian Research Journal 7/3 (July 1, 2025): 298-321. https://izlik.org/JA29AD76XY.

JAMA

1.Sakurama Nakamura M. TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN. ERJ. 2025;7:298–321.

MLA

Sakurama Nakamura, Mizuki. “TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN”. Eurasian Research Journal, vol. 7, no. 3, July 2025, pp. 298-21, https://izlik.org/JA29AD76XY.

Vancouver

1.Mizuki Sakurama Nakamura. TATAR ENOUGH: CULTURAL IDENTITY COMPENSATION STRATEGIES AMONGST TATARS IN TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN. ERJ [Internet]. 2025 Jul. 1;7(3):298-321. Available from: https://izlik.org/JA29AD76XY