CASCACENTRE FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES ON CENTRAL ASIA II [Ed. Aida Aaly Alymbaeva] FOOD AND IDENTITY IN CENTRAL ASIA HALLE (SAALE) 2017 MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY DEPartment ‘IntegraTION AND CONFLICt’ FIELD NOTES AND RESEARCH PROJECTS XIX MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMent ‘IntegraTION AND CONFLICT’ FIELD NOTES AND RESEARCH PROJECTS XIX CASCA – Centre for Anthropological Studies on Central Asia II: Food and Identity in Central Asia http://www.eth.mpg.de/pubs/series_fieldnotes/vol0019.html Published by Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) P. O. Box 11 03 51 D - 06017 Halle /Saale (Germany) Phone +49 (0) 345 2927 0 http://www.eth.mpg.de ISSN 2193-987X Editor: Aida Aaly Alymbaeva I Series Editor: Günther Schlee Assisted by: Viktoria Zeng and Robert Dobslaw Cover Photo: How to eat tandyr samsa (Osh City, Kyrgyzstan), 2015 © Baktygul Karimova (U. Abdrashitov) Printed 2017 by Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) © 2017 Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology TaBLE OF CONTENTS Series Editor’s Preface (Günther Schlee) .................................................... iv Foreword (Bettina Mann) ............................................................................ v Introduction (Aida Aaly Alymbaeva) ......................................................... vii MINORITIES’ CUISINE AND DIFFERENTIATING PROCESSES IN MULTICULTURAL SETTINGS Internationalism on the Table: Dining Ethnicity in One’s Homeland Kazakhstan (Rita Sanders) ........................................................................... 1 “We do not eat their stuff!” White Food and Identity in Inner Mongolia (Merle Schatz) ........................................................................................... 14 When Food Talks: Insights from Southern Kazakhstan (Indira Alibayeva) ..................................................................................... 21 Food as Marker of Identity in Chelpek, Kyrgyzstan (Aida Aaly Alymbaeva) ............................................................................ 31 “The only organ which has nothing to do with politics is the stomach”: Kyrgyz and Uzbeks Negotiate their Food as Markers of Identifications (Baktygul Karimova) ................................................................................ 49 Eating and Body Practices among Contemporary Dungans in Kazakhstan (Soledad Jiménez-Tovar) .......................................................................... 61 SMALL AND BIG SCALE RITUAL FOOD SHARING The Nexus of Cuisine and Social Life among Rural Uzbeks of the Ferghana Valley (Russell Zanca) .............................................................. 71 The Role of Food in Identification Process: Examples from CentralAsia (Rano Turaeva) .......................................................................................... 93 The Ritual Economy of Bread and Women’s Identity in Southern Kyrgyzstan (Louise Bechtold) ................................................................ 103 Sharing Food in Southern Tajikistan (Wolfgang Holzwarth) .................. 117 Meat Distribution Rules and Significance of Radial Bone kar( zhilik) in Kyrgyz Traditional Knowledge (Amantour Japarov) ............................. 127 ‘trAdition’, CHANGE, And ‘inVention’ OF FOOD HABITS Changing Food Habits in Western Mongolia (Peter Finke) .................... 141 The Career of a ‘Healthy Drink’ Aktyk in Today’s Kyrgyzstan: Meanings and Uses of Tradition (Danuta Penkala-Gawęcka) ................................. 155 Index ......................................................................................................... 171 Other Volumes in the Series ...................................................................... 176 Book Publications .................................................................................... 178 SERIES EDITor’S PREFACE (GÜNTHER SCHLEE) ABOUT THE SERIES This series of Field Notes and Research Projects does not aim to compete with high-impact, peer-reviewed books and journal articles, which are the main am bition of scholars seeking to publish their research. Rather, contribu- tions to this series complement such publications. They serve a number of different purposes. In recent decades, anthropological publications have often been purely dis- cursive – that is, they have consisted only of words. Often, pictures, tables, and maps have not found their way into them. In this series, we want to devote more space to visual aspects of our data. Data are often referred to in publications without being presented systemati- cally. Here, we want to make the paths we take in proceeding from data to con- clusions more transparent by devoting sufficient space to the documentation of data. In addition to facilitating critical evaluation of our work by members of the scholarly community, stimulating comparative research within the institute and beyond, and providing citable references for books and articles in which only a limited amount of data can be presented, these volumes serve an important func- tion in retaining connections to field sites and in maintaining the involvement of the people living there in the research process. Those who have helped us to collect data and provided us with information can be given these books and booklets as small tokens of our gratitude and as tangible evidence of their cooperation with us. When the results of our research are sown in the field, new discussions and fresh perspectives might sprout. Especially in their electronic form, these volumes can also be used in the production of power points for teaching; and, as they are open-access and free of charge, they can serve an important public outreach function by arousing interest in our research among members of a wider audience. iv Series Editor’s Preface FOREWORD (BETTINA MANN) Nobody, not even anthropologists or other researchers, can go without food, and it should be obvious that food is somehow part of any attempt to understand social life and relationships. (Coleman 2011:1) Taking part in food sharing was one form of participant observation. Learning the etiquette of food consumption and ideas related to food offerings was a way of understanding culture and people beyond the special research topics the authors have pursued in their fields. (Alymbaeva in her introduction to this volume, p. viii) The confrontation with a whole new and unknown universe of food, rules of hospitality and etiquette, taboos and dietary regimes can be one of the first challenges of the ethnographic encounter that takes place during fieldwork. It is a central element of participant observation and interaction with the people in the field. Even anthropologists require their daily bread – or functional equivalents – and it is usually necessary to adapt to the local culinary condi- tions. At the same time, commensality and food sharing are central parts of hospitality; they integrate the researcher as an accepted guest in the local social world and open up pathways for further communication and exchange. By incorporating local food, the researcher is bodily and socially incorpo- rated in his/her field site, learning how eating and cooking is organized along the lines of gender, age, social hierarchies, and sharing practices. What is the daily diet, where does the food come from, what social, econom- ic, symbolic, and ritual contexts are alimentary practices embedded in, and how do food practices change over time? For many regions of the world, there is still even little knowledge regarding the basic question of what people eat. In recent decades, more and more ethnographic research has been dedicated to answering these questions. Whereas there is a growing body of empirical studies on foodways in European countries and to a lesser extent in Africa and some parts of Asia, systematic anthropological research on culinary cultures of Central Asia that considers the dimensions of time and space is still rare. The collection of fieldwork-based contributions presented in this volume therefore provides excellent insight into food and foodways of an ethnically diverse re- gion which has historically been a cultural and social crossroad, exposed to Chinese, Iranian, Arabic, Indian, Mongol, Ottoman, and Russian influences and encompassing nomadic and sedentary lifestyles, and Islamic heritage and practices. Historical processes of diffusion, migration, trade, and economic and political change are reflected in food habits and preferences. CASCA II v In addition to describing food items – colourfully depicted in numerous pictures – as part of the material culture, the authors point to the social func- tions of food in processes of identification. They show how food is used as identity marker in drawing group boundaries, and what role it plays in the context of hospitality and feasting. With its focus on food and identity the volume shows how certain dishes and rituals become a material and sym- bolic expression for ethnic or village identities in a multicultural setting and how ‘traditions’ are reinterpreted in the face of political restructuring and economic transitions. But the ethnographic insights presented here also dem- onstrate that processes of differentiation and appropriation often take place within the frame of a shared culinary idiom. I hope that this collection of essays, which arose from projects that did not necessarily start out with food as a central research question, will stimulate not only further research and a deeper