Moving metaphors we live by: water and flow in the social sciences and around hydroelectric dams in Kyrgyzstan

Féaux de la Croix, Jeanne (2011). Moving metaphors we live by: water and flow in the social sciences and around hydroelectric dams in Kyrgyzstan. Central Asian survey, 30(3-4), pp. 487-502. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 10.1080/02634937.2011.614097

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Based on anthropological fieldwork between 2006 and 2008, this article compares how people in the Toktogul region of Kyrgyzstan understand and interact with water in three highly significant places: mountain pastures (jailoos), the Toktogul hydroelectric dam that controls the flow of the Naryn and sacred sites (mazars). Sidelining the vast standing waters of Toktogul Reservoir, valley residents instead highlight the positive qualities of flowing water at mazars, pastures and the working dam. Contrasting how metaphors of running water are put to use conceptually by Toktogul residents and social scientists opens up a critique of current academic and policy-oriented descriptions of the world as ‘flow’. Attention to a particular kind of movement (flowing water) highlights some of the silent assumptions in current depictions of a mobile world ‘in flux’.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Social Anthropology
UniBE Contributor:	Féaux de la Croix, Jeanne Eileen
Subjects:	300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
ISSN:	0263-4937
Publisher:	Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Language:	English
Submitter:	Jana Samira Lamatsch
Date Deposited:	03 Jan 2024 16:58
Last Modified:	03 Jan 2024 16:58
Publisher DOI:	10.1080/02634937.2011.614097
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/191014