Working

This chapter addresses the romanticism with which interviewees recalled the advent of tractors and, surprisingly, of working on Uzbekistan's mass canal-building projects. Many late-in-life evaluations described collective farm labor as a source of reward and pride, as interviewees linked their own efforts to state narratives of progress for the Uzbek nation. They also made clear that good pay was an important element in the ways that they valued their own work experiences. In their unusually lively responses to prompts about tractors or about how they were paid, interviewees imbued material changes in everyday life with meaning, defending the idea that they, the dehqons of Uzbekistan, were rational people who knew how to benefit from challenging but worthwhile changes. Ultimately, the chapter's analysis contrasts the enduring romanticism of canals and tractors with respondents' pragmatic and critical discussions of kolkhoz labor and payment.