Blood Ties and the Native Son: Poetics of Patronage in Kyrgyzstan

An anthropologist explores the politics and society of Kyrgyzstan through a study of one influential man's life.

A pioneering study of kinship, patronage, and politics in Central Asia, Blood Ties and the Native Son tells the story of the rise and fall of a man called Rahim, an influential and powerful patron in rural northern Kyrgyzstan, and of how his relations with clients and kin shaped the economic and social life of the region. Many observers of politics in post-Soviet Central Asia hav...