Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Global Positioning Semantics: President Karimov's President Evolving Definitions of the Uzbek Nation's Rightful Place in the World, 1991-2011

McAfee, Shannon Elizabeth

Abstract Details

2011, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Slavic and East European Studies.
“Global Positioning Semantics” is a political communication strategy by which a leader attempts to make his or her personal imagined world map, a person’s understanding of his or her own country’s relationship to the rest of the world, that of the entire nation. By analyzing the President of Uzbekistan’s speeches and interviews spanning the twenty years after the fall of the USSR, I traced Karimov’s description of the future Uzbek nation and other global actors—the USSR, Russia, the United States, Europe, China, Belligerent Islam, Iran, Turkey, Central Asia, and Afghanistan. In this project, in-depth qualitative analysis of the President’s statements is accompanied by charts of the specific values—both traditional and modern—that Karimov assigned to the future Uzbek nation repeatedly changed those that he attached to the other global actors as the utility of association with the actors became more or less advantageous. Like the north and south poles, Karimov’s vision of the world was suspended between the negatively-charged symbolism of the Uzbek nation’s Soviet past and the positively-charged ideal of the nation’s glorious future. Countries and non-state actors that the President positioned near the negatively-charged pole are the recipients of the negative symbols associated with that pole. Actors that he situated near the positively-charged pole, Karimov described as already possessing some of the qualities of the future great Uzbek nation. The close relationship between the countries described with these complementary traits and the Republic of Uzbekistan allegorically advances the nation toward the realization of their destiny. I posit that by ascribing the characteristics of the Uzbek nation to other state and non-state actors, Islam Karimov indicated to the Uzbek people alongside which powers he believed the nation rightfully belonged as they established their post-Soviet national identity.
Morgan Liu (Advisor)
Theodora Dragostinova (Other)

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • McAfee, S. E. (2011). Global Positioning Semantics: President Karimov's President Evolving Definitions of the Uzbek Nation's Rightful Place in the World, 1991-2011 [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306898793

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • McAfee, Shannon. Global Positioning Semantics: President Karimov's President Evolving Definitions of the Uzbek Nation's Rightful Place in the World, 1991-2011. 2011. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306898793.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • McAfee, Shannon. "Global Positioning Semantics: President Karimov's President Evolving Definitions of the Uzbek Nation's Rightful Place in the World, 1991-2011." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306898793

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)