Feminist principles in research emphasize acknowledging differences to address power imbalances. Taken at face value, discussions on positionality tend to prioritize differences, often turning into...

Covert repression techniques, such as the use of digital technologies in surveillance, censorship and disinformation, have become a pervasive tool of autocracies worldwide. This research note discu...

This paper analyses Jalil Mammadquluzadeh’s drama, The Book of My Mother (Anamın Kitabı), to understand Azerbaijani nationalism in the early twentieth century. Under the repression of industrializa...

This paper mainly explores the intricate dynamics of the feminization of migration from Uzbekistan to Turkey. The implementation of neoliberal policies in Uzbekistan since the early 2000s has resul...

Existing research indicates that political stability is a prerequisite for good governance and economic development in Central Asia. All five countries in the region are authoritarian regimes but i...

This article examines the impact of armed conflict on the education system in Afghanistan between 2001–2021. Using critical ethnography as its main research approach, the article draws on the perce...

The Russian word Imperskost’, which can be translated into English as ‘imperiality’, is a useful theoretical concept for scholarly writing in English that addresses individuals’ and countries’ impe...

Studies on Muslim self-conception within Central Asia have flourished over the past twenty years in post-Soviet Central Asia as they did in the 1960s and 1970s within Afghanistan. This research pro...

How does the use of the internet by citizens affect their trust in government and political participation? Previous research has yielded conflicting results. We hypothesize that in authoritarian co...

Why do dictators ‘indigenize’ democracy? This article analyses discourses on democracy in a consolidated authoritarian regime to show how it assists in authoritarian regime-building. The article sh...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Ahead of Print, 2024)

During the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2001–2021), the expected representation of Afghan women in leadership and executive roles was not achieved. This study examines factors contributing to t...

Using a national opinion survey conducted in 2009 in Kyrgyzstan, we focused on responses from ethnic Kyrgyz respondents in the south where major riots between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks occurred in 1990 and...

This study undertakes a comprehensive examination of female academic success in Azerbaijan, with a particular emphasis on general education and higher education, against the backdrop of global effo...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Ahead of Print, 2024)

Students embarking on fieldwork across Eurasia, Africa and Latin America will encounter various political practices of regimes and conflicts involving varying levels of open violence. Although they...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Ahead of Print, 2024)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 3, 2024)

This article re-evaluates a failed large irrigation enterprise and agricultural plantation in the Khanate of Khiva, an Imperial Russian protectorate in contemporary Uzbekistan, during the 1910s. Co...

Central Asia is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. There is, however, a lack of research on how local businesses, political elites and the general public perceive the need for comp...

Researchers conducting politically sensitive studies in the authoritarian region of Central Asia face significant obstacles beyond government control over knowledge production. These challenges inc...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 3, 2024)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 3, 2024)

This article considers the social and symbolic work of Hisor as a site of Tajikistan’s cultural heritage. Hisor carries with it an array of meanings and represents a convergence of multiple spheres...

The idea for this research note emerged in the aftermath of a survey that we conducted with Kazakhstani experts about their perceptions of the Western and Russian vectors in Kazakhstan’s foreign po...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2024)

This article traces an ethnography-based analysis of the historical Poti port as it has been socially imagined through the lenses of ideological transformations. Situated at a nexus of Black Sea tr...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 3, 2024)

This paper follows the traces of Tajik and Judeo-Tajik literature in the early Soviet period and compares some prominent works and biographies of Tajik and Bukharan Jewish writers. In the 1920s and...

Daughters-in-law (or kelins1 in the Kyrgyz language) have traditionally been portrayed in Kyrgyz society as holding a low social status, and are commonly subject to oppressive and negative practice...

Focusing on aspects of mobility and daily life, this paper aims to highlight the history of nineteenth century Persian Jews as one of interconnectedness, but also separation. Various forms of inter...

Examinations of WWII-era Jewish evacuation to Central Asia traditionally focus either on the elite or the common people, subsequently concluding that the locale either fostered interethnic harmony ...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2024)

This research note is a contribution to the growing body of literature discussing the methodological, ethical and personal questions of researching queer issues in Central Asia. Through reflective ...

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan put forward elaborate initiatives to address gender segregation in the labour market. However, female professionals are still heavily underreprese...

In January 2022, a massive power blackout hit Central Asia, and especially the southern region of Kazakhstan after months of a huge rise in electricity consumption in the country and a few days aft...

Despite the growing literature on higher education internationalization in Central Asia, such literature remains unexamined for its criticality. Our systematic integrative literature review helps a...

This paper explores the implementation of Soviet religious policy among the Ismaili Muslim population of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) of Soviet Tajikistan. By means of oral intervi...

The idea for this collection of papers emerged from a desire to showcase queer scholarship in and on the region, following a panel discussion about the visibility of queer communities in the post-S...

The queer (in)visibility regime in Azerbaijan has been historically structured through centralizing powers and the coloniality of knowledge(s) in their Russian/Soviet and contemporary Western manif...

This article examines public discussions on Kazakh and Russian in post-Soviet Kazakhstan between 1989 and 2019 by using the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse. It focuses on how conflicti...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2024)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2024)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2024)

The modern phase of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has lasted for over three decades. Since the independent republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan emerged in 1991, the st...

This article analyses the Kutaisi Trial (1878–80), a little-known case of blood libel in the Caucasus, in which nine Jewish men stood accused of involvement in the killing of a Georgian girl. All d...

While the rights of LGBTQ+ people are improving in many regions of the world, the protections and freedoms of the queer community in Uzbekistan are stagnating. In this research note, I share some o...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2024)

Postage stamps, despite being somewhat cloaked over time by both obscurity and sheer ubiquity, are important official, primary source state documents. The iconography and visual data on the stamp h...

Researchers researching and belonging to a marginalized community often must take additional measures to protect their research participants and themselves from verbal and physical harm. These are ...

This article explores contexts where homosexuality is criminalized and looks at the methods which scholars use to study LGBT+ experiences there. It is based on an extensive literature review which ...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2024)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 42, No. 4, 2023)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 42, No. 4, 2023)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 42, No. 4, 2023)

Although mental health concerns among university populations are on the rise, discussions of academia-related trauma rarely occur in published outlets. They are usually limited to informal talks an...

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 42, No. 4, 2023)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 42, No. 4, 2023)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 42, No. 4, 2023)

Published in Central Asian Survey (Vol. 42, No. 4, 2023)