Power and positionality: researching state crime and reputation laundering in Uzbekistan

Studying power in authoritarian environments poses challenges not only because of rampant surveillance but also because of researchers’ positionality. Western scholars have touched on the issue of reputation laundering by individual kleptocrats in Eurasia. However, reputation laundering at the nation-state level is a complex phenomenon involving subtle campaigns of influence and routine events that go beyond public relations or philanthropy, which are primarily built on transactional relationships. Moreover, a different positionality dynamic is at play when scholars of regional origin investigate power because of the precarity of being in the field and political positions. In this note, I reflect on my positionality as an Uzbek scholar investigating elite enablers of kleptocratic reputation laundering in Uzbekistan. My field experiences informed my doctoral research and shaped the obstacles I encountered in accessing elites. It also inspired me to cultivate innovative techniques to counteract these obstacles, including observing elites in their exclusive settings, building elite dossiers and leveraging open-source materials. My findings indicate that a wide coalition of political and technocratic elites helps legitimize the regime's discourse by facilitating its reproduction in grand ceremonies.