Regional dimension of socio-cultural modernization of the population: results of expeditionary research in Uzbekistan and southern Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

The article attempts a regional measurement of the socio-cultural modernization of the population based on field observations and the results of in-depth interviews with the local population in Uzbekistan and southern Kyrgyzstan. Expedition research route: Osh — Kokand — Tashkent — Samarkand — Bukhara. For the regional measurement of population modernization, the following groups of indicators were used: “characteristics of the cultural landscape” (for example, the layout of settlements, home and space arrangement, land use, etc.) and “social portrait of local residents” (for example, clothing, food preferences, behavior in space, time budget and attitudes of the population). It was revealed that the most conservative and traditional population lives in the regions of the Fergana Valley, the less modernized — in Osh, Samarkand and Bukhara, the most modernized population — in Tashkent, Chirchik and Angren. It is found that regional differences in the socio-cultural modernization of the population correlate with the main provisions of the center-peripheral model. Deviations from it are determined by the nature of settlement, the ethnic structure of the population, the involvement of the population in labor migration, the measure of centrality and the absolute height of the settlement above sea level, etc. Thus, the intra-urban division of most cities into mahalla contributes to the preservation of the traditional community in the east and acts as a barrier to the socio-cultural modernization of the population. In the final part of the article, the national features of the socio-cultural modernization of the population of the studied countries are outlined (for example, the high stability of the national socio-cultural tradition, the multidirectional nature of modernization processes), and brief recommendations are given on the use of the research results in managing the socio-economic development of different regions.