Constructing Security, Construing Novostroiki: Bishkek’s Informal Settlements as a Discursive Object in the Performance State

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the novostroiki in Kyrgyzstan, and their presence as both a discursive object and sites of lived experiences. Looking across slum theory, securitization discourse and ideas of the performance state the novostroiki are considered as sites of difference. Through presented interviews, voices from the novostroiki speak the possibilities the novostroiki contain and through this speaking and listening, the novostroiki as heterotopic space is explored.