Patriots, Pensioners and Ordinary Mongolians: Deregulation and Conspiracy in Mongolia

TY - JOUR

T1 - Patriots, Pensioners and Ordinary Mongolians: Deregulation and Conspiracy in Mongolia

AU - Højer, Lars

PY - 2020/8/7

Y1 - 2020/8/7

N2 - This article links the heavily deregulated Mongolian post-socialist economy with the emergence of highly patriotic-nationalist movements and narratives of conspiracy and suspicion. It is argued that an extreme alienability of value in the new Mongolian market economy goes hand-in-hand with a nationalist and xenophobic perception of the extreme inalienability of Mongolian values and the Mongolian nation state. This creates a prevalent ‘moral economy’ in which values are radically uncertain, while at the same time fervently protected, and where the extremes of uncertainty/suspicion and certainty, liberal flows and nationalist cuts, co-exist. In this Mongolian moral economy, the middle-ground has thus been marginalised, leaving little room for moderate voices, ambiguity and alternative ‘tempered’ responses, and the jump from one certainty to the next is often as short and hasty as the leap from radical certainty to radical uncertainty and full-blown, all-embracing and endless suspicion.

AB - This article links the heavily deregulated Mongolian post-socialist economy with the emergence of highly patriotic-nationalist movements and narratives of conspiracy and suspicion. It is argued that an extreme alienability of value in the new Mongolian market economy goes hand-in-hand with a nationalist and xenophobic perception of the extreme inalienability of Mongolian values and the Mongolian nation state. This creates a prevalent ‘moral economy’ in which values are radically uncertain, while at the same time fervently protected, and where the extremes of uncertainty/suspicion and certainty, liberal flows and nationalist cuts, co-exist. In this Mongolian moral economy, the middle-ground has thus been marginalised, leaving little room for moderate voices, ambiguity and alternative ‘tempered’ responses, and the jump from one certainty to the next is often as short and hasty as the leap from radical certainty to radical uncertainty and full-blown, all-embracing and endless suspicion.

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0014-1844

JO - Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology

JF - Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology

ER -