Ethnosexual boundaries in the fergana valley: An ethnographic account of interethnic marriages in post-soviet central Asia

This paper develops an ethnographically grounded framework for understanding ethnosexual boundaries in post-Soviet Central Asia. Focus group discussions with 100 Fergana Valley students — from Osh State University, Jalal-Abad State University, and Fergana State University — reveal a proximity paradox: 85% preferred marriage with uzoq xorij partners (South Korea, Turkey, Arab Gulf states) over linguistically and religiously proximate neighbors, citing family and national tradition. Interviews with Soviet-era mixed families reveal a second paradox: children of interethnic unions opposing such marriages for their own children. Drawing on empirical work in the Fergana Valley (Author, 2025), the paper theorizes six mechanisms: boundary maintenance through sexual norms; honor-shame systems; violence-induced fortification from the 1990 and 2010 Osh conflicts; Soviet-Islamic hybrid modernities; transnational flows; and the proximity paradox, whereby boundaries rigidify at cultural overlap. The socialization milieu effect reveals boundary orientation depends less on ethnicity than household culture, producing a normative landscape of distinct orientations.