AUCA Professor Dr. Mohira Suyarkulova won the Henry Huttenbach prize for the best article

April 25, 2017

Central Asian Studies Institute (CASI) is pleased to report that the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) prize committee have selected article by Dr. Mohira Suyarkulova as the winner of the Henry Huttenbach prize for the best article published in Nationalities Papers journal in 2016. The article is entitled “Fashioning the Nation: Gender and Politics of Dress in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan” and was published as part of a special section in issue 44 (2016) on Gender and Nation in Central Asia, edited by Juliette Cleuziou & Lucia Direnberger. 

Dr. Mohira Suyarkulova is the research coordinator at CASI and Associate Professor at the International and Comparative Politics Department at AUCA. The article recognized by the prize investigates gendered nationalist ideologies and their attendant myths and narratives in present-day Kyrgyzstan through an investigation of clothing items and practices. The main contention of the article is that clothes “speak volumes,” revealing tensions between gendered narratives of nationhood and various interpretations of what “proper” Kyrgyz femininities and masculinities should be. Clothing thus becomes both a sign and a site of the politics of identity, inscribing power relations and individual strategies of Kyrgyz men and women onto their bodies. Individual clothing choices and strategies take place within the general context of discursive struggles over what authentic and appropriate representations of Kyrgyzness should be. Thus, such clothing items as ak kalpak (conical felt hats) and the practice of Muslim women covering their head (hijab) acquire social and political meanings that stand for wider processes of identity contestations in the country.

The selection committee consisted of Myra Waterbury (Professor of Political Science, Ohio University), Michele Commercio (Professor of Political Science, University of Vermont) and Peter Rutland (Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and current editor-in-chief of Nationalities Papers). The prize is named in honor of Henry R. Huttenbach, Professor of History at the City College of New York and a former editor-in-chief of the journal 1987-98. The prize will be awarded at the ASN convention final reception at Columbia University on 6 May. The award includes a cash prize of two hundred dollars.

Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity is the leading journal on nationalism, ethnicity, ethnic conflict, and national identity in Central Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, the Caucasus, the Turkic world and Central Eurasia. Issues covered by contributions in the journal include theories of nationalism, comparative studies of nationalism, and trans- and supranational aspects of interethnic relations and national identity. The journal publishes timely high-quality articles from a variety of disciplines, including history, political science, sociology, anthropology, and literature. Nationalities Papers is the journal of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN), bringing together scholars worldwide working on nationalism and ethnicity, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Eurasia. The ASN holds annual conventions at Columbia University, New York, USA.

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