Illegal settlements are often framed as existing on the margins of society, as a result of social desperation, poverty and lawlessness. But this understates their connection to the juridical system. Illegal settlements are shaped by social relationships of rights, responsibilities and power between the illegal settlers and the courts.
Drawing upon research and interviews with Supreme Court and city court judges in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, I argue that the courts are responsible for constructing a socio-spatial space in which many thousands of internal rural migrants struggle to live without proper access to shelter, education and medical care. Although the judges position themselves as impartial actors operating within the law and outside of the sphere of politics, they have played a key role in the neoliberalisation of Central Asian societies.
Property rights over human rights
Illegal settlements arise because many poor rural migrants are unable to find suitable cheap accommodation. The migrants often explain that the state has failed in its social obligation under the constitution to provide them with housing, and out of desperation, they are forced to erect adobe houses on derelict and unused land on the outskirts of the city.
