Culture on Trial II: Everyday ‘Crime’ in Central Asia. The Imperial, Soviet and Post-Soviet States Dealing with Bride Kidnapping and the Payment of Bride Price, 1860–Present
The second research project, “Culture on Trial II: Everyday ‘Crime’ in Central Asia. The Imperial, Soviet and Post-Soviet States Dealing with Bride Kidnapping and the Payment of Bride Price, 1860–Present”, shifts the focus to the sociocultural practice of bride kidnapping and the payment of bride price in Central Asia, surveying their implications from the tsarist era through the Soviet period and into contemporary times. This research will examine how these practices, at times outlawed as “traditional crimes”, have been variously contested, accommodated and ultimately revived in modern society, providing a lens through which to analyze their endurance and transformation over time.