Everyday disasters, stagnation and the normalcy of non-development: Roghun Dam, a flood, and campaigns of forced taxation in southern Tajikistan

Ibanez-Tirado, Diana (2015) Everyday disasters, stagnation and the normalcy of non-development: Roghun Dam, a flood, and campaigns of forced taxation in southern Tajikistan. Central Asian Survey. ISSN 0263-4937

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Abstract

This article conducts a comparative analysis of a catastrophic flood that hit the Kulob region of
southern Tajikistan in 2010, and the government of Tajikistan’s campaign to gather money to
build the Roghun dam and hydropower station. It advances the notion of ‘everyday disasters’ in
order to explain the imprecise boundaries between major catastrophic events and more
mundane dimensions of the everyday as experienced by residents of Kulob. The article
seeks to shed light, firstly, on the processes that underpin both Kulob residents’ experiences
of stagnation and the normalization of non-development, and, secondly, on the ways in
which Kulob residents joke and ‘do’ cunning/cheating whilst dealing with disastrous events
in order to cultivate an everydayness that is worth living

Item Type: Article
Keywords: disaster; event; everyday life; joking; cunning; Roghun; Tajikistan
Schools and Departments: School of Global Studies > Anthropology
Subjects: G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology > GN301 Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology
Depositing User: Diana Ibanez-Tirado
Date Deposited: 09 Nov 2015 13:30
Last Modified: 13 Mar 2017 20:40
URI: http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/57797

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