American University of Central Asia - AUCA - Relations of culture and ideology

Research Topic:

Relations of culture and ideology: State affiliated cultural elites of Dushanbe and their activities

by Davlatbegim Mamadshoeva, Senior Student, Department of Sociology

Research supervisor: Galina Gorborukova,  Associate Professor, Department of Sociology

The current research is attempting to problematize the issue of interplay between culture and ideology. Namely, this project aims to understand the relationship between the dominant ideology of Tajikistan and representatives of state employed cultural elites.

Therefore, the main question of the study is: How are the representatives of the cultural elites (state employed) of Dushanbe and their products interacting with the dominant ideology of Tajikistan? Are they ignoring/reproducing/opposing/creating ideological messages and how is it all being done?

It is important to study the nature of the relationship between culture and ideology because it provides another insight into the way authoritative states can maintain their power and foster compliance with the status quo by ‘soft’/’invisible’ means.

The presentation will also attempt to refer to some part of vast academic knowledge on the above mentioned topic, address some methodological issues as well as cover the section of preliminary findings which is based on the results of 6 interviews with representatives of cultural elites during the fieldwork in Dushanbe.

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