Is marriage everything? Understanding shame and culture through bridal kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract: 'Can it ever be okay to kidnap a wife?’ This thesis combined fieldwork observations with narrative interviews from twenty-two kidnapped women from an ethnographic four- month research stay in Kyrgyzstan. From a starting point, the thesis took a normative framework, understanding that everyone has the right to equal rights. The framework relied on the global monitor mechanisms, CEDAW and CAT, which claim that Ala Kachuu (bride kidnapping) is harmful. The thesis aims to demonstrate how shame- anxiety, through Ala Kachuu, influences the locals' lives and how marriage life is perceived in Kyrgyzstan, where marriage is the ruler of freedom and burdens simultaneously. The thesis questions notions of victimisation on a local and global level to understand how their lives are not static in victimhood. The thesis indicates how the global monitor mechanisms need to understand the lives of the locals and understand that life is different everywhere across the globe. These differences are what make choices and possibilities different everywhere. The thesis concludes that kidnapping a wife is never acceptable due to global human rights standards. However, when feelings of shame are more substantial than anything else, it is not only the notion of Ala Kachuu which needs adjusting, but the reasons underneath it.