The Myth of Mankurt and a Conceptual Framework for Digital Food Identity and Data Sovereignty in Kyrgyzstan

This paper introduces the concept of digital food identity, in which Ch. Aitmatov’s rethought myth of mankurt serves as an analytical lens to criticise digital food regimes and processes of digital mankurtisation. Using Kyrgyzstan as an illustrative documentary case, the paper examines how policy, service, and media materials frame data governance, local knowledge, and food-cultural diversity in agrifood digitalisation. The analysis identifies a potential representational and governance gap: efficiency, traceability, registries, and administrative integration are more visible in the analysed corpus than farmer data rights, local knowledge, and food-cultural practices. This finding concerns documentary representation and institutional framing; it does not demonstrate the loss of local practices or the experiences of farmers and consumers. We developed a typology of digital mankurtisation levels (epistemological, regulatory, infrastructural, and political-economic). We introduced the “field scout of data” institute as an element of humanistic digital food policy, aimed at strengthening food sovereignty and the cultural diversity of food in the digital age.