From coal to cool: Reordering nature in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan

Nature-based tourism development in Kyrgyzstan

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 had dramatic consequences for Kyrgyzstan. The GDP fell by 50 percent in the period from 1991 to 1996, and, by the end of the 1990s, 64 percent of the population was living in poverty (World Bank, 2009). Due to the structural dependency between Moscow and the Soviet periphery, the disintegration of the Soviet Union had great impact on states such as Kyrgyzstan (Spoor, 1999). One of the main priorities of Kyrgyzstan’s first president, Askar Akaev, during the 1990s, was to establish an attractive foreign investment climate to promote economic reform. In this period, and as part of a transition toward a market economy, Kyrgyzstan managed to attract the attention of foreign aid organizations, realizing the potential of Kyrgyzstan as a nature-based tourism destination. With its beautiful nature, rich fauna, and mountainous topography, Kyrgyzstan was soon promoted as a tourist destination of adventure, nature, and ecotourism (Allen, 2006; Palmer, 2006). This development strategy reflected global policy papers, such as Agenda 21 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992) and the call from the UN Summit in Johannesburg in 2002, encouraging international donors to provide technical assistance to developing countries and transition economies to support tourism business development (UN, 2002: 26). Although contested, nature-based tourism ² and ecotourism ³ are often viewed as non-extractive alternatives to industry (WTTC, 2010) and promoted as strategies toward sustainable development.

Today, more than 20 years after independence, the Kyrgyz government regards tourism development as one of the main steps for the sustainable development of rural areas and job creation in Kyrgyzstan (National Council for Sustainable Development in the Kyrgyz Republic (NCSDK), 2013). Similarly, the UN report Assessing Development strategies to achieve the MDG ⁴ in The Kyrgyz Republic highlights tourism as a driver of economic growth in the country (Mogilevsky and Omorova, 2011). With this global and national context in mind, I now turn to Shakhta Jyrgalan.

Nature-based tourism in Shakhta Jyrgalan/Jyrgalan Valley ⁵

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shakhta Jyrgalan experienced a fast decline, similar to many other rural areas in Kyrgyzstan (Spoor, 1999). Mining specialists who had come to Shakhta Jyrgalan for work from all over the former Union, moved back to their home countries or to other more profitable mining areas. The remaining people were left more or less to themselves, with no governmental support. ⁶ Due to frequent emergencies, floods, and collapses, the mines have been closed for extended periods in recent years, leaving the families of the village without a steady income (Alimbekova, 2014).

In 2014, a Kyrgyz entrepreneurial couple, who also runs a guesthouse in the regional capital of Karakol, arrived at the mountain village. They decided to buy an abandoned house and rebuild it as a guesthouse. The following year, the couple won a bid for funding through the USAID driven program Business Growth Initiative in 2015 (USAID, 2015). A requirement for funding was the involvement of more than one partner, upon which the entrepreneurs invited village families as well as the village administration to join the project. ⁷ The initiative, implemented by the consultancy company Deloitte, resulted in the establishment of the Destination Management Organization (DMO) Destination Jyrgalan, with a clear aim to develop the village into the year-round tourist destination Jyrgalan Valley. ⁸ In September 2017, Jyrgalan Valley won several awards during the Kyrgyz Tourism Awards, including prizes for The best innovative tourism project in Kyrgyzstan and Second best Destination in Kyrgyzstan (Sabirova, 2017). As shown in the introduction, media and the Internet have played a major role in the tourism development of Jyrgalan Valley. During the last two years, around 20 bloggers have found their way to the village, many personally invited and funded by USAID to write about the village. This has increased the popularization of the village accordingly, or as one of the bloggers revisiting the village in 2017 writes:

Hidden away in the far-eastern part of the country, close to the border of Kazakhstan and only an hour from Karakol, is the captivating Jyrgalan Valley. Snowmelt rivers carve their way between jagged peaks and alpine lakes sit calmly amongst undulating pastures. […]. From being an obscure village that didn’t even feature on Google Maps, to being the next up-and-coming adventure destination in the country, Jyrgalan is a town on the rise. We have seen firsthand the benefits that sustainable tourism can bring to a small village. (NOMADasaurus, 2017)

The above quote illustrates well the new story of the village. More than that, the quote also shows how the natural features of the village connect to the discourse of sustainable tourism as well as global technology networks. Hence, the quote indicates that in order to understand the ongoing process of nature-based tourism development in Shakhta Jyrgalan, it could be useful to draw upon a conceptual framework that is able to describe the process seen from various scales.

Conceptual framework

A recent involvement of tourism scholars in the research field of political ecology has raised questions as to how nature “ought to look” in order to attract tourists. Much of this research explores the link between ecological concerns and neoliberalism, a link that underpins the rationale of many nature-based tourism initiatives (Cater, 2006; Duffy, 2008; Mostafanezhad et al., 2016; Nepal and Saarinen, 2016; Regmi and Walter, 2016). Inspired by Foucault’s (1980, 1983) work on power-knowledge, many of these studies see a connection between discursive constructions of nature and on-the-ground practices. Jamal and Stronza (2009: 317) critically examine how an ecotourism project initiated in the Peruvian Amazonas is tightly connected to the global discourse of ecological modernization. This discourse holds that the economy can benefit from environmentalism and that science and technology can solve problems (for a critical discussion of the discourse see Dryzek, 2013; Hajer, 1996). Jamal and Stronza argue that the impacts of the macro-level international conservation policies are negotiated in the realm of the material and cultural practices at the local level and conclude that the locals change their cultural practices related to nature, as conservation knowledge arrives. This resembles the process of environmentality, a Foucault-inspired term coined by Agrawal (2005) which refers to how knowledge, politics, institutions, and subjectivities become linked together, and where new knowledge of nature shape practices and human subjectivities in relation to the environment. Yet, and as pointed out by Jamal and Stronza (2009: 316), discourses such as that of ecological modernization “appear as universalized meta-narratives imposed on the local, with little understanding of how reproduction, change and struggle […] occur in relation to these global influences.”

Studies showing that global discourses influence local practices and knowledge production demonstrate that knowledge of nature is socially constructed. In this respect, political ecology offers a useful critical lens to deconstruct this knowledge with particular attention to power structures. However, in an attempt to avoid using global discourses and capitalist structures as a priori explanatory factors, I am also interested in studying how a particular discourse becomes powerful within certain historical and geographical contexts.

While understanding nature-based tourism initiatives as resting upon on the rationale of the ecological modernization discourse, I attempt to show how understandings and knowledge about nature are also negotiated in a material context by various actors, both human and non-human. I find much inspiration in researchers such as Van der Duim (2005, 2007; Van der Duim et al., 2013), Ren (2009, 2011), Jóhannesson et al. (2015), and Rodger et al. (2009). Many of these researchers follow up on Bruno Latour’s ANT by questioning the binary construction of nature and society and an ontological understanding that denies that there is a “true world of realities” that can be discovered (Latour, 2010: 475). They rather study reality through a relational approach where human and non-human actors become what they are as a result of their relationships with other entities (Law, 1999). An actor, also defined as an actant by Latour (1996: 373) is in this sense “something that acts, or to which activity is granted by another” while agency refers to the actors’ ability to connect to, affect, and engage with other actors (Ren, 2011). Through such a relational approach, tourism becomes a way of ordering reality in certain, rather than other ways (Franklin, 2004; Jóhannesson et al., 2015). The question is then, how does this ordering of reality take place?

Van der Duim (2005, 2007) explains this as complex process of translation where people and things become entangled to one another into relational networks, or what he labels tourismscapes. According to Van der Duim (2007: 964–965), tourismscapes include three main constituents: (1) bodies, (2) objects and spaces, and (3) information and media. The latter, as I see it, can be thought of as inscription devices, described by Latour and Woolgar (1986) as an instrument or technology contributing to producing particular realities. In other words, information and media can be understood as devices that contribute to the translation process where people and things are brought together, “converting relations from non-trace-like to trace-like form” (Law, 2004: 29).

The concept of translation is often associated with Callon (1986) and his study of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay in France. In his study, Callon uses the example of a scientific and economic controversy around scallop conservation and the attempts by three marine biologists to impose themselves and their definition of the situation on others. Callon explains the translation process through four phases: the first phase, problematisation, is where problems are identified and the network initiator frames an opportunity and persuades other actors to devote resources to developing a solution to the problem. In this phase, other actors are given new roles that will contribute to solving the problem. The network initiator establishes himself or herself as an obligatory passage point (OPP) in the network of relationships he or she is building and makes all the other actors pass through this point. The second phase, interessement, is where the problematisation is confirmed and other actors become interested in the proposed solution. This creates the conditions for the third phase of actor-network formation, enrollment. This involves the definition of roles for the actors in the newly created actor network, and involves a set of strategies where the initiators seek to convince other actors to be part of the whole project. This leads us to the last phase, mobilization, where the actor-network becomes durable and the relations between actors become irreversible. If mobilization is achieved, the representatives function as the spokespersons for others, either as elected representatives, or by claiming to represent others. If the translation is successful, a reality where certain things are possible and legitimate, while others are not, have been created (Korsgaard, 2011). This is what Latour (1987) has defined as the “black box.”

While drawing upon both political ecology–oriented studies and concepts and methods from ANT, I am aware of the recent debates questioning if it is possible to combine political ecology with ANT, where proponents of the first claim that there is an incompatibility between ANT and the core commitments of political ecology. Lave (2015) for instance, warns that efforts to synthesize the two approaches might lead to “watering political ecology and ANT down to compatible forms.” The latter is not the purpose of my article, nor do I believe that ANT leads to an “abandoning […] focus on justice” (Lave, 2015: 221). I find that the two approaches offer insights that, rather than watering each other down, are able to raise questions and attention to processes, and more importantly follow the actors of the processes, which might otherwise have been neglected. I will demonstrate this in my analysis where I will show how certain actors, such as coal and snow, are reordered in relation to other actors, as well as how this reordering relates to a broader global process.

Methodological reflections and methods

In line with the relational approach to my research field I acknowledge that I as a researcher, I am part of my own research field and that I “cannot step outside the world to obtain an overall ‘view from nowhere’” (Law, 2004: 8). As a European researcher, from a country where the idea of “untouched” nature is highly valued and whose relation to nature arguably can be said to rest upon the modern binary of society/nature, my background necessarily influences the way I experience and interact with my field. The section below is therefore an attempt to highlight my position as a researcher in the field and the methods used to assemble and understand the empirical material that I am using.

My research builds upon two separate field stays in Shakhta Jyrgalan/Jyrgalan Valley. Although my research interest in Kyrgyzstan goes back to 2005, with several shorter and longer stays in the country, I had not been in Shakhta Jyrgalan prior to my first visit in June 2016. My knowledge of the village was therefore limited, as was (at that time) the information available on the Internet. During the first stay, I stayed in the guesthouse of the entrepreneurial couple and was therefore first acquainted with their story. As I was living in the guesthouse, this posed a challenge to me as a researcher in exploring stories, realities, and relations to nature other than the story presented from the perspective of the tourism entrepreneurs. Staying at the guesthouse probably also contributed to positioning me as a tourist and might have led other villagers to think of me as “teamed up” with the tourist developers. This feeling was somewhat overcome during my second and longer field research, from April to June 2017. Together with my husband and two children, I then rented a private house located away from the tourism entrepreneurs. During this period, I frequently socialized with people not directly involved in tourism, many who presently worked or had previously worked in the mines, and took part in various social and everyday events in the village. I was able to communicate with the villagers in Russian, which, together with Kyrgyz language, is the official language.

To understand my research question, how nature-based tourism development reorders nature, I also wanted to get insight into the relation between nature and society among local inhabitants that were not directly involved in tourism. Asking direct questions about this complex issue did not seem like an option. I therefore chose an open narrative approach where I strived to gain insight into local stories of the village through qualitative interviews, informal conversations, and participant observation. A total of 31 interviews were carried out altogether, with lengths ranging from 20 to 100 minutes.

Conscious of the fact that many of the village people thought of me as being a tourist, or as part of the tourism development initiative, I would rarely initiate questions about tourism. I rather followed an open-ended interview structure, focusing on three main topics: (1) past history of the village, (2) present situation in the village, and (3) thoughts and hopes for the future. I asked open questions in order to allow the informants to develop their own stories, and occasionally followed up with my own questions as suggested by Kvale and Brinkman (2015). Using this narrative approach in tourism studies, I follow up on Deery et al.’s, 2012) call for a new research agenda on the impacts of tourism where “impacts […] need to be examined in greater depth through methods such as storytelling, narratives, and observation.” For the analysis of my material, I have used a narrative coding inspired by Svarstad (2009) and Birkeland (2015). By narrative, I follow Svarstad’s definition that sees narratives as stories containing a course of action, involving one or more actors, that provide specific perspectives on issues, and is produced by one or more persons. Birkeland’s (2015) writings of place narratives of the past, being constructed in the present, and thereby producing visions and ideas of the future has also guided the analysis. I have used an abductive analytical approach, going back and forth between the empirical material and conceptual framework. In the following section, I present the results and discuss them in the theoretical and analytical framework outlined above. In this, I have chosen to use many direct quotes (most of them translated from Russian to English) in order to stay close to the data (Messner et al., 2017).

The black past: submerging minescapes

I begin my analysis with an object repeatedly occurring in my empirical material: coal.

As in other industrial countries, coal also played an important role in the Soviet Union. In an article published in The World Today in 1951, it was noted that “The increase of coal production, [reflects] the progress of industry as a whole in the USSR since 1928” (S, 1951: 518).

Geologist K.I. Argentov, one of the first explorers of coal in Kyrgyzstan (Sidorenko, 1972), is mentioned as the first to describe the coal deposits of Shakhta Jyrgalan in 1911 (Makarov, n.d.). The first extraction started in 1932, led by geologist Sikstel, while the building of the mines started in 1943 (Makarov, n.d.). Prior to the coal extraction, there was no permanent settlement or road access in the area, which until then had been used as pastureland for nomadic herders. ⁹ Up until the mid-1990s, the Jyrgalan coal mine was recognized as one of the main coal mines in Kyrgyzstan (Bogdetsky et al., 2001) with an annual production up to 100,000 tons per year and about 300–500 employees. The mine remained state-owned until 2006, when it was registered as an open joint-stock company (Makarov, n.d.).

In interviews and informal conversations with local inhabitants, the coal and the mines were frequently mentioned, as was the past glory of the coal-mining town. Many of the interviewees pointed to the good living standard that they used to have, ¹⁰ the supplies from Moscow, ¹¹ the steady jobs and salaries, ¹² the multicultural population, ¹³ and the shops and services ¹⁴ that used to operate during the Soviet Union. An older man, a former miner, explained,

When the mine worked, we had supplies, the shops were open; we had deliveries [from Moscow]. Our village is situated high in the mountains, but because of the mines, we had better supplies than vnizy. ¹⁵ We had more products, food, and also better assortments. They even came from vnizy to buy things here. That was how our position used to be. And now … [laughs loudly] now, they have forgotten about us. That, I guess, is how the story goes. In one moment you can live and in the next … it’s nothing. ¹⁶

Many village inhabitants explained that the coal in this area was “the second best in the Soviet Union.” ¹⁷ Through interviews, informal conversation, and observation, I also learnt that the miners were much respected and that they were considered to be brave and “honorable.” ¹⁸ An example of this is found at the school in the village, also named after a local miner, Temirkasi Asanbaev. According to a large information poster on the school wall, Asanbaev, who started to work in the Jyrgalan mine in 1961, managed to dig out more than 150 percent of his intended coal quota, and “was an example to be followed by many Kyrgyz miners” (Figure 2). ¹⁹

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

School wall poster (photo by author).

It should be mentioned here that mining was not only seen as a heroic occupation in this part of the Soviet Union. Coal miners were venerated as socialist heroes in the whole USSR, especially through the Stakhanovite Movement (named after the coal miner Aleksei Grigyrivich Stakhanov) a campaign established to encourage miners to work more than their intended quota (Newman, 2015). There was, in other words, a strong association between being a good miner and being a good, socialist citizen. Moreover, coal miners were among the best-paid industrial workers in the Soviet era, adding to the status of this occupation (Bogdetsky, et al., 2001; Heinberg, 2009). Many of the old miners in Shakhta Jyrgalan were very proud of their identity as miners. The village still celebrates Coal Miners Day on the last Sunday in August every year, ²⁰ a holiday introduced in USSR in honor of Stakhanov and to demonstrate the prestige of the profession (Heinberg, 2009).

In light of this, it is reasonable to argue that during the Soviet Union a discourse was developed, strongly relating the coal and the mines to political (socialist) beliefs and economic processes. The empirical material moreover indicates that this discourse ordered the way of life and social practices in the coal-mining village of Shakhta Jyrgalan. However, from the above mentioned, I also draw that coal was not only part of a discourse of being a good miner and citizen, but also that coal was a focal non-human actor. By that, I mean that coal has a non-human agency that, due to political and economic structures in the given period, allowed it to be entangled with human actors in a relational network. Was it not for the coal, and the Soviet political and economic incentives to support the extractions, the village of Shakhta Jyrgalan would most likely never have existed, people would not have settled there, and the place would have remained a remote mountain area with no housing and access by road. Without this infrastructure, tourism would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, to develop because great investments would have been needed. This is food for thought, similar to Jönsson’s (2015: 309) reflections on the missing “hands, hooves and struggles historically shaping this landscape” yet not visible to visitors of the golf club Bro Hof Slott, the site of Jönsson’s study.

For further analytical comparison, I use the term minescapes to capture the relational network presented above. In the next section, I will show that minescapes now seem to be submerged by another order of nature, that of tourismscapes. I will moreover show how this new ordering relates to another discourse, that of ecological modernization, where ecological concerns are integrated into products and policies, while “straightforward exploitation of nature […] is seen as illegitimate” (Hajer, 1996: 250) leaving no room for coal mining heroes. This must be seen in relation to a global political acknowledgment that coal accounts for a high percentage of the greenhouse gas emission, which has led to the ratification of the Paris Agreement by 179 Parties, Kyrgyzstan included (UNFCCC, 2016), and to an expected disinvestment in coal power (Bauer et al., 2018).

The white future: emerging tourismscapes

In the following section, I seek to understand how the process of reordering nature, that is, how non-humans and humans relate with one another in novel ways, takes place. For this part of my analysis, I find support in Callon’s (1986) concept of translation, which I believe is able to shed light on negotiations at the local level through both discursive and material articulations.

The problematisation phase can be a helpful concept when describing the situation in Shakhta Jyrgalan/Jyrgalan Valley. The success of this phase depends on the principal actor defining a problem in such a compelling way that it ensures the acceptance of other actors (Callon, 1986; Woods, 1997). The entrepreneurial couple, here understood as the principal actor, is framing their tourism development initiative as a solution to the problem of unemployment and outmigration in the village. One of the entrepreneurs explains,

[…] two years ago, when we came here and started to build, people of Jyrgalan were moving away. You have seen the foundations of where there used to be houses, right? They were tearing down the material from their houses and took it with them. But since last year, the local people, they stopped moving away. On the contrary, they started to come and bought these empty lots, and started to improve the conditions for tourists. There is progress in tourism as people have started to realize that tourism is a really good thing. ²¹

The aforementioned quote illustrates well a story line, where nature-based tourism is clearly presented as “the solution” to a common problem. As part of this story line, the entrepreneurial couple moreover position themselves as an OPP, making themselves indispensable in the development process. All plans related to tourism development pass through the couple and the DMO Destination Jyrgalan, an organization that I will return to later in this section. Their position as an OPP is moreover physically reinforced with their guesthouse being the central meeting place for all tourism related activities in the village, such as workshops and trainings. It is also the place all foreigners automatically are directed to when they arrive at the village, either by the local mini bus or by local taxi drivers.

The problematisation phase, as Callon (1986) describes it, is moreover about identifying actors that can take an active part in solving the problem. In the Jyrgalan Valley, there are several human actors involved: the local population, tourism entrepreneurs, international organizations, bloggers, and of course the tourists. Returning to Van der Duim’s (2007) concept of tourismscapes, however, it makes sense not just to look at the bodies, but also at objects and spaces, the non-human actors, and how they “acquire their attributes as a result of their relationships with other entities”(Law, 1999: 3). The tourism entrepreneur illustrates well the importance of objects and spaces in the tourismscapes, listing up the places of interest around the village:

There are many beautiful places here. It is like a Klondike […]: there is a waterfall, there are mountain lakes, Tamerlane’s rock ²² […]. Around here are also many beautiful canyons like Turgen, Tyop, Chemindisan. There is the river Karkara […] and there is a place called Dzarkydyk, which is a very famous place.

What is interesting is that also other local inhabitants, not directly involved in tourism, refer to several of the objects and spaces as places to visit for tourists, illustrated in the quotes below (marked in bold):

Unfortunately, many people are without work here now, since the mines are not working. And because of this, we have decided to try to attract tourists, because the nature here is very nice, and there are a lot of interesting places, like the waterfalls, you have been there, right? […] And further you have the Jyrgalan Lake, have you been there? […]. So, there is potential here to develop tourism. ²³

There is a very big potential [for tourism]. Very big! Also for winter tourism. We have six months of winter here. We have good snow, and much snow. And in summer the nature here is beautiful, fresh air, clean water. […] ²⁴

As shown in the last quote, snow is mentioned as something good. This is interesting since the long and harsh winters were something many of the village residents mentioned as a problem. They explained that frost and snow make growing cereals and vegetables difficult, and it makes it hard to keep livestock, since they have to store enough fodder for the long winter season. ²⁵ Through interviews, I moreover learnt that the difficult living conditions in the mountain village is acknowledged by the government, which has provided the inhabitants higher pensions and the right to earlier retirement than people in villages further down. One middle-aged woman explained,

[Here in the] highland one receive pension earlier. Women starts at 45 if she has high seniority and men at 50. I have been at pension for 12 years already. ²⁶

The snow and the geographical location, previously assumed disadvantages that needed to be compensated with social benefits, now seem to have been re-ordered as an important non-human actor in the new emerging tourismscapes. The tourism developers were eager to point out the favorable conditions and that “snow can be guaranteed.” ²⁷ A man working in the local administration also mentioned that the village has “winter from October to May […] it makes the conditions for developing winter tourism in the Jyrgalan very favorable.” ²⁸ Hence, similar to coal in the minescapes, which was the reason for the settlement of Shakhta Jyrgalan, snow becomes an actor that brings other actors together. Through interviews, I gained the impression that an increasing number of the villagers saw the potential in snow for attracting tourists for skiing, although two women in their early 40s pointed out that “skiing was too expensive for them” ²⁹ when asked if they went skiing themselves.

In what Callon (1986) refers to as the interessement phase, the focal actor reinforces the identities and associations identified in the problematisation phase. Here the actor seeks alliances with other actors and attempts to convince them that their solution is the way forward. Yet, my empirical material from Shakhta Jyrgalan/Jyrgalan Valley shows how new associations of human and non-human actors are facilitated in new social arenas, such as an annual winter festival (the opening of the skiing-season) and various tourism development trainings. One young woman explained about a training seminar she had attended:

We made a poster for the wall were where we drew all the sightseeing of Jyrgalan, the Tulpar Tash, Turnaluu-Kol, ³⁰ the water fall, the Jyrgalan River. We have many interesting places where the tourists can visit. There we made a presentation […]. There were many places where I even have not been myself […]. After the presentation they asked us how we can save these places, improve the services here and also how we can use the nature in alternative ways. ³¹

The quote above shows that these arenas are not only contributing to reordering nature and entangling certain human and non-human actors but also to knowledge production about ecology and nature. One of the entrepreneurs explained that this was also the intent of the festival:

In 2015, we had the first winter festival, which was fully financed by USAID. [USAID] invited international bloggers who came with our journalists from Bishkek and Karakol. And we carried out the first celebration, winter celebration, in the village, so that the local population also could see that this is a good thing, that this tourism, it does not ruin the ecology, that if we develop tourism, people can receive additional income. ³²

In this quote, the role of information and media in the tourismscapes is once again mentioned. The bloggers and journalists invited to the festival, who later would write about the village, the event, and the tourism initiative, can all be seen to have contributed to assert new realities, “pin these down, fix them” (Law, 2004: 28) into the tourismscapes, through inscription devices, the blogs, and photos.

But what has guided this reordering of nature into a new reality? Why do some practices related to nature appear as “a good thing,” as suggested in the quote above? To explain this, I will once more return to the discourse of ecological modernization. Similar to the findings of Jamal and Stronza (2009), I would argue that the events and training, financed through the USAID-program, ³³ become new social practices where the impacts of the macro-level international conservation policies emerge through a process of environmentality (Agrawal, 2005). The process of environmentality shapes the knowledge and the actors in relations to nature in adherence to the discourse of ecological modernization, where nature is seen as an object of conservation. This becomes very evident in the following quote taken from an interview with an older woman who participated in the winter festival:

Related to this, and similar to West and Carrier (2004: 485) who in their studies from Jamaica and Papua New Guineas found that eco-tourists tend to spread the modern, dualist view on nature, I found traces of similar tendencies. Invited by a member of the local administration in Shakhta Jyrgalan to talk about tourism development, I was told,

Development of winter tourism would be very profitable. But then […] the tourists themselves suggested to us: Let this place stay in an early stage, in its original form […]. We do not need noise. And this nature we do not want to spoil. Let it stay like that and invite tourists […] Not like Chourchevel, but just like, just clean nature. People who come skiing, look around, go skiing and leave again. And not noise, commotion and music—they do not want that. And we also want this slow development. ³⁵

According to Callon (1986: 10), “interessement achieves enrolment if it is successful.” In the case of Shakhta Jyrgalan/Jyrgalan Valley, the success of interessement can be seen through the enrolment in the DMO, Destination Jyrgalan, as explained by this informant:

They made a proposal and NN invited us. If we wanted to, we could join in the organization (Destination Jyrgalan). Then it was created […]. Everyone was told about this, when there was a meeting in our village. […]They made advertisement, I guess one could describe it like that … but people did not understand or like … I do not know. In the end, it was only five of us who signed up. ³⁶

The quote above is interesting, not only because it explains the process of the creation and enrolment into the organization Destination Jyrgalan but also because it describes an initial reluctance to the idea of tourism. This reluctance was confirmed by one of the participating USAID-workers who explained,

We had a public meeting, you know, we invited them, and, you know, we faced this situation, that really people were afraid: “What is this tourism, why do we need to do this, you know, so all this suspicion, you know, came up, and only five guesthouses … four guest houses raised their hands, and they said we want to help.” ³⁷

What the empirical material indicates here is that in the enrolment phase the focal actors encountered some initial challenges in recruiting members to their network. This, however, seems to be a situation that has later changed, shown through the next quote, from the same USAID worker:

[And] we saw that people are waiting for this involvement. They started realizing, and now they will contribute for themselves, [make] investments, and they will do their houses as guest- houses. Because they are watching the tourists coming. Before there were no tourists. Now in wintertime they received 300 people, during summer time, there is a movement going on, it is happening, it is real, they start understanding that it is not… let’s say a lie. ³⁸

The mobilization phase is the phase where the focal actor of the network assumes the role of representing the others, by talking on behalf of others. Although the tourism development initiative in the Shakhta Jyrgalan is relatively new, this mobilization seems to be an ongoing process in the village, helped by various inscription devices (Law, 2004: 29).

The new sign set up in the village entrance, mentioned in the introduction of this article, can be seen as such an inscription device. The new sign contributes to both a discursive and material construction of a new reality, with a “new” name, distancing the village from the mining history. Another example of such an inscription device is the newly created webpage www.jyrgalan.com, launched in the second half of 2017, with the front page stating that “the residents invite you to immerse in Kyrgyz hospitality and cultural traditions preserved for generations.” The various newspaper interviews, blogs and feature articles, add to this outward representation. The following quote is an example from a recent interview published in online magazine, carried out with the entrepreneurial couple, who gives an interview about the tourism development in Jyrgalan:

I believe that we gradually acknowledge how important ecology is for all citizens. The mines clearly harmed the ecology, because there are still disfigured excavated quarries and dumps with waste rock. I am sure that if tourism will be developed, then the ecology of the village will benefit as well as the villagers who can start to make real money and do not have to risk their health and life in the mines. (Saralaeva, 2017)

By these various means, the focal actors are representing the village on behalf of other local inhabitants, and by that contributing to strengthening the reordering of Jyrgalan from minescapes to tourismscapes, as well as actively spreading this vision to a wider audience.

Based on the empirical material presented above, I argue that there is an ongoing translation process where coal, “untouched” nature, fresh air, white snow, and other non-human actors of Shakhta Jyrgalan are reordered in new emergent tourismscapes in Jyrgalan. Similar to what Ren (2011) showed with the Polish goat cheese, the above demonstrate how the agency of the non-human actors of Shakhta Jyrgalan, in other words their ability to connect to, affect and engage with other actors, change as they are enrolled into (or excluded from) changeable and mutable realities.

Tempting as it might be to stop the analysis after having described an ongoing process of translation from a black past to a white future, this would mean ignoring a multiple understanding of nature, which I will turn to in the next section. I will moreover return to reflections on my position as a European researcher and conclude with some thoughts on how my analytical approach has led to new insight into the transformation of this mining town specifically, but also to some aspects of social research more generally.

The gray present: multiple natures, reflections, and conclusions

How the nature-based tourism initiative in Shakhta Jyrgalan has reordered nature in certain ways rather than others (Franklin, 2004) soon appeared to me as “a story to tell” as a researcher. A story where I, from a political ecology point of view, could have chosen explanatory factors, such as neoliberal structures, to explain the ordering and look for resistance toward tourism. And yes, some of the villagers did express a reluctance to tourism, believing it to be “only a fairy tale” ³⁹ and even criticized the tourism entrepreneurs “working only for themselves,” ⁴⁰ interesting controversies that would be worth looking at in a separate research paper.

What I did not get, however, was an impression that the locals who were not involved in tourism, considered that the tourism initiative was in conflict with their stories, their realties or their way of ordering nature. This despite, as I have shown above, that the tourism developers wish to remove themselves and the village of Shakhta Jyrgalan from the mining history.

In other words, whereas co-existence between tourism and mining did not seem to “fit” in a tourism reality, it did not seem to be contradicted by the local inhabitants. Through interviews and informal conversations, I was several times met with comments similar to the one below, taken from an interview with a middle-aged woman:

Shakhta ⁴¹ is a very beautiful place. You have probably seen it yourself. It is clean air, and you can relax from the city bustle […]. I believe that tourists are welcomed with proudness. But, it would not hurt if the mine worked. If the mine worked, life here would be easier. Because that is where our miners work. This is a miner’s town. ⁴²

When I at this point in the interview I was tempted to ask a direct, and somewhat leading question, about whether she believed it would be possible for the village to develop both coal mining and tourism, she replied,

Yes, yes, yes, [the mines and tourism] do not interfere with one another. […] the mines do not work all the time, and [the miners] could work partly with tourism. ⁴³

While my leading question is a reminder of how my own European research approach “habitually distinguishes between the social on the one hand and the natural on the other” (Law, 2004: 132), this question nevertheless brings attention to an important point. The answer to my question indicates an understanding of nature that does not see “touched” nature (the mines) as a contradiction to “untouched” nature. It is therefore a reminder of “multiple natures” (Cater, 2006) and how nature based tourism realities, based on the modern binary of society/nature, where “untouched” nature is the ideal, is merely one particular way of ordering nature. Hence, while some orderings of nature appear to be representing reality, it does not necessarily rule out other understandings of how nature “ought to look” or be used. However, while untouched and wild nature has become the hegemonic ideal and romanticized version of nature in western society (Cronon, 1996), sites where nature is exploited by man, such as the coal mines of Shakhta Jyrgalan, still continue to have significance, although considered a much less idealized version of nature. Here it could be useful to draw upon Foucault’s (1967) concept of heterotopia, as sites of “a different ordering” which come to represent something in “contrast to other sites” (Hetherington, 1997: 8). In this sense, the coalmines of Shakhta Jyrgalan come to represent something in contrast to the “untouched” Jyrgalan Valley and vice versa. The fact that the latter version has become more visible through tourism development does not mean that the former version has ceased to exist. Whether tourism development is just another way of exploiting nature, is, however, a question for debate beyond the scope of this article.

In this article, I have attempted to show that a political ecology approach has been helpful in supporting my analysis and envisage how nature-based tourism is embedded within global discourses, such as that of ecological modernization. This approach has moreover been useful when showing how the ordering of nature is related to knowledge production, where some practices related to nature are deemed good while others are harmful.

While ANT would disapprove of metanarratives as explanation factors, I have attempted to show, however, that the discourse of ecological modernization also can be viewed as an actor in tourismscapes. Instead of accepting the transformation of Shakhta Jyrgalan as an outcome of global discourses and neoliberal power structures, the ANT-concepts has been helpful in understanding how this discourse has led to certain material and discursive articulations at the local scale. ANT has moreover contributed to questioning the society/nature binary of the discourse and has shed light on how the nature of Shakhta Jyrgalan has been reordered by this binary. Likewise, the concept of translation has contributed to envisage how other ways of ordering that does not fit this view, such as the minescapes, is hidden. Moreover, inspired by ANT I have been able to reveal my own society/nature binary, and by that allowed the multiple natures to come forward in my empirical material.

While acknowledging that a complex process such as the one I have studied in this article exceed my capacity to fully understand it, and that my insight therefore is limited by default, I might at least have contributed with some spots of gray to the “black box” (Latour, 1987).