Central Asia WG • The Moral Dilemmas of Being Rich, Powerful, and Uzbek Today

Uzbeks in independent Uzbekistan often say that the younger generation do not value learning or traditions but only making money. But those who do succeed in wealth find that there are heavy moral demands placed on them by the community. This talk is about the different kinds of obligations that local rich and powerful Uzbeks have, and what those obligations tell us about Uzbek society today.

Morgan Y. Liu is a cultural anthropologist studying the globalization of financial and economic elites in Central Eurasia; Islamic ideas of social justice in former socialist states; the agency and emergent complexity of informal social networks, corporations, states, and non-state actors. He is the Chair of the Department of Near Eastern & South Asian Languages and Associate Professor in Anthropology at the Ohio State University. He is the author of Under Solomon’s Throne: Uzbek Visions of Renewal in Osh (Pittsburgh UP, 2012).

The event is presented by the UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies, the UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, the UNC Russian Flagship Program, and the Department of Political Science.