Uncovering the Revolutionaries from Epistemic Injustice: The Politics of Popular Revolts in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

This article introduces readers to the Special Issue on the politics of popular revolts in Kyrgyzstan and outlines the rationale for a renewed empirical and theoretical debate that would focus on more equitable production of knowledge. The existing literature, namely the scholarship on patronage and “color revolutions,” downplays citizens’ agency and neglects the democratic beginnings of Kyrgyzstan’s popular uprisings. These ontological misrepresentations foment epistemic injustice against the tens of thousands of citizens who have participated—and sacrificed their lives—in struggles against dispossession and inequalities. Based on ethnographic material and documented stories, the present article uncovers popular voices with the aim of drawing attention to local idioms of change. It proposes to read popular revolts as disruptions of the constituted order and hence the return of the political. Popular uprisings thus constitute deeply democratic moments, as they seek to destabilize the oligarchic status quo, even if fleetingly.