Pub Date : 2023-12-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10038
Aksana Zakirova, Henryk Alff, Matthias Schmidt
This article reviews the Soviet legacy in relation to contemporary cotton production in south-western Tajikistan and asks why farmers are still locked in to Soviet cotton production policies and practices despite post-Soviet regulatory, societal and environmental changes. With hindsight on Soviet agricultural production policies in Central Asia, this contribution scrutinises the perception of smallholder dehkhan farmers towards continued cotton production as a primary crop choice, which continues to occupy most of the irrigated land in the Khatlon region. For the analyses of the post-Soviet agricultural developments, the paper applies a path dependence conceptual framework by positing the significance of historical and social contexts in policymaking and socio-economic development in cotton production. Fieldwork data collected in two districts of Khatlon region are used to explain that despite post-independence land reforms and the abolishment of Soviet authority over cotton production, smallholder dehkhan farmers are still cultivating cotton as a primary crop under deteriorating land and irrigation conditions.
{"title":"Is the New Path a Modified Old Path?","authors":"Aksana Zakirova, Henryk Alff, Matthias Schmidt","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10038","url":null,"abstract":"This article reviews the Soviet legacy in relation to contemporary cotton production in south-western Tajikistan and asks why farmers are still locked in to Soviet cotton production policies and practices despite post-Soviet regulatory, societal and environmental changes. With hindsight on Soviet agricultural production policies in Central Asia, this contribution scrutinises the perception of smallholder dehkhan farmers towards continued cotton production as a primary crop choice, which continues to occupy most of the irrigated land in the Khatlon region. For the analyses of the post-Soviet agricultural developments, the paper applies a path dependence conceptual framework by positing the significance of historical and social contexts in policymaking and socio-economic development in cotton production. Fieldwork data collected in two districts of Khatlon region are used to explain that despite post-independence land reforms and the abolishment of Soviet authority over cotton production, smallholder dehkhan farmers are still cultivating cotton as a primary crop under deteriorating land and irrigation conditions.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139149278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-12340026
Timur Dadabaev
{"title":"Central Asian International Relations in Decolonial Age","authors":"Timur Dadabaev","doi":"10.30965/22142290-12340026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-12340026","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"32 16","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139148100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-12340023
A. Tutumlu
{"title":"Decolonising Actors and Vocabulary in International Relations of Central Asia","authors":"A. Tutumlu","doi":"10.30965/22142290-12340023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-12340023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"34 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139149865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10039
M. Spies, Henryk Alff, S. Missall, M. Welp
Across Central Asia, agricultural and agroforestry practices have been shaped by a high-modernist approach since about the 1950s, with the aim of overcoming ecological limitations. Negative repercussions of this approach still affect local developments, but a shift towards resource-conserving production systems faces constraints—many of which relate to so-called ‘path dependencies’, i.e. historically-evolved institutions constraining the current practices, policies and local imaginaries of (un-)sustainable land use in various ways. Drawing on case studies from agriculture and agroforestry developments in Xinjiang (China), Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the paper explores these mechanisms and reveals a modernisation paradigm as a major source of path dependency. Moreover, the paper highlights aspects that are sometimes overlooked in the path dependency literature on Central Asia: first, path dependency should not be confused with Soviet legacies, and second, not all agricultural policies in the past were environmentally detrimental; in fact, reviving some aspects could actually be beneficial.
{"title":"Path Dependencies of (Un-)sustainable Land Use in Central Asia","authors":"M. Spies, Henryk Alff, S. Missall, M. Welp","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10039","url":null,"abstract":"Across Central Asia, agricultural and agroforestry practices have been shaped by a high-modernist approach since about the 1950s, with the aim of overcoming ecological limitations. Negative repercussions of this approach still affect local developments, but a shift towards resource-conserving production systems faces constraints—many of which relate to so-called ‘path dependencies’, i.e. historically-evolved institutions constraining the current practices, policies and local imaginaries of (un-)sustainable land use in various ways. Drawing on case studies from agriculture and agroforestry developments in Xinjiang (China), Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the paper explores these mechanisms and reveals a modernisation paradigm as a major source of path dependency. Moreover, the paper highlights aspects that are sometimes overlooked in the path dependency literature on Central Asia: first, path dependency should not be confused with Soviet legacies, and second, not all agricultural policies in the past were environmentally detrimental; in fact, reviving some aspects could actually be beneficial.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"330 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139152336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-12340025
Karolina Kluczewska
{"title":"Decolonial Central Asia, or a Post-liberal One?","authors":"Karolina Kluczewska","doi":"10.30965/22142290-12340025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-12340025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"30 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139151576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-12340024
M. Rakhimov
{"title":"Timur Dadabaev’s Decolonizing Central Asian International Relations as Interdisciplinary Study","authors":"M. Rakhimov","doi":"10.30965/22142290-12340024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-12340024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"28 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139151634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-28DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10040
Henryk Alff
Based on qualitative and ethnographic field research in the Panfilov District of Almaty Region, Kazakhstan, and selected supportive quantitative data, this contribution explores the dynamics of agricultural transformation along the former Sino-Soviet border since the mid-1990s. It particularly scrutinises path dependency, as well as friction, in cultivation patterns navigated by local agricultural actors in the face of changing irrigation water and infrastructural access, commodification schemes and alternative employment opportunities that are produced by emerging transborder (and increasingly globalised) infrastructures. Therefore, how do agricultural actors in Panfilov District make sense of and negotiate past and current agricultural development at the local level? The article aims to provide a reflection of what the analytical ‘post-Soviet’ category might still mean from an everyday life perspective in a borderland context affected by socio-political neglect and newly evolving connections alike.
{"title":"Maize-farming Forever?","authors":"Henryk Alff","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10040","url":null,"abstract":"Based on qualitative and ethnographic field research in the Panfilov District of Almaty Region, Kazakhstan, and selected supportive quantitative data, this contribution explores the dynamics of agricultural transformation along the former Sino-Soviet border since the mid-1990s. It particularly scrutinises path dependency, as well as friction, in cultivation patterns navigated by local agricultural actors in the face of changing irrigation water and infrastructural access, commodification schemes and alternative employment opportunities that are produced by emerging transborder (and increasingly globalised) infrastructures. Therefore, how do agricultural actors in Panfilov District make sense of and negotiate past and current agricultural development at the local level? The article aims to provide a reflection of what the analytical ‘post-Soviet’ category might still mean from an everyday life perspective in a borderland context affected by socio-political neglect and newly evolving connections alike.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"12 16","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139148360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-21DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10048
Alexander Kim, M. Surzhik, Aleksei Mamychev
According to the opinion of many scholars in Soviet Union and Russia, period of the end of 1920s. to the 1930s. was the most contradictory and tragic in the history of Soviet State. A great place in it takes process, named after repressions, which were held for different reasons and had different slogans. The most tragic of them is persecution based on nationality, which, in its essence, went completely against the claims of Soviet authorities regarding equality among nations. Repercussions of that drama have reached to present day, and besides, still have an influence on politics and ethnic questions in modern Russia.
{"title":"To the Question of Economic and Material Data during the 1st Year of Deportation 1937 in Kazakhstan and It Affected Korean Material Life","authors":"Alexander Kim, M. Surzhik, Aleksei Mamychev","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10048","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000According to the opinion of many scholars in Soviet Union and Russia, period of the end of 1920s. to the 1930s. was the most contradictory and tragic in the history of Soviet State. A great place in it takes process, named after repressions, which were held for different reasons and had different slogans. The most tragic of them is persecution based on nationality, which, in its essence, went completely against the claims of Soviet authorities regarding equality among nations. Repercussions of that drama have reached to present day, and besides, still have an influence on politics and ethnic questions in modern Russia.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"27 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138948633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-21DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10051
Alisher Latypov
This article explores the trajectories of the encounter of Soviet state and its ‘modern,’ ‘scientific’ medicine with Islamic tibb in Central Asia, providing an overview of the different facets and manifestations of these pathways throughout the lifespan of the Soviet Union. The survey elucidates how the initial expansion of Soviet medicine followed by a later erosion of the Soviet healthcare system came into play to underline the complex relationships of Soviet health workers and indigenous medical practitioners as well as their rivalry and negotiations for legitimacy and authority across different settings and contexts. It argues that by virtue of castigating tibb as a remnant of the ‘backward past’ as well as demonising and suppressing tabibs, Soviet medical authorities eventually appropriated the traditional medical knowledge of the region and denigrated Central Asian indigenous medicine to the realm of ‘non-traditional’ by the end of the Soviet era.
{"title":"Islamic Tibb and Soviet Medicine: Trajectories, Resiliency and Appeal of Indigenous Medical Practitioners in Central Asia, 1921–1991","authors":"Alisher Latypov","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10051","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article explores the trajectories of the encounter of Soviet state and its ‘modern,’ ‘scientific’ medicine with Islamic tibb in Central Asia, providing an overview of the different facets and manifestations of these pathways throughout the lifespan of the Soviet Union. The survey elucidates how the initial expansion of Soviet medicine followed by a later erosion of the Soviet healthcare system came into play to underline the complex relationships of Soviet health workers and indigenous medical practitioners as well as their rivalry and negotiations for legitimacy and authority across different settings and contexts. It argues that by virtue of castigating tibb as a remnant of the ‘backward past’ as well as demonising and suppressing tabibs, Soviet medical authorities eventually appropriated the traditional medical knowledge of the region and denigrated Central Asian indigenous medicine to the realm of ‘non-traditional’ by the end of the Soviet era.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"57 31","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138949552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-02DOI: 10.30965/22142290-bja10043
Andrei Dörre
This paper uses food as a prism to examine society and the impacts of social change at different scales, ranging from the scale of the region, through the scale of the local community, to the scale of the household. It applies an approach that combines materials gained from archival studies, a literature review, and empirical research conducted in the Western Pamirs of Tajikistan to reconstruct socio-historically and spatio-environmentally situated food-related arrangements (foodscapes) in the study region. The main characteristics addressed include rootedness, richness, scarcity, and remoteness. It makes visible both continuities and shifts that have occurred to these arrangements in the course of social transformations. The study joins the canon of ethnographic food studies, and, by presenting a regional focus on the Tajik Pamirs, complements the emerging body of food-related socio-scientific research in and on Central Asia.
{"title":"Shifting Foodscapes in the Pamirs of Tajikistan","authors":"Andrei Dörre","doi":"10.30965/22142290-bja10043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/22142290-bja10043","url":null,"abstract":"This paper uses food as a prism to examine society and the impacts of social change at different scales, ranging from the scale of the region, through the scale of the local community, to the scale of the household. It applies an approach that combines materials gained from archival studies, a literature review, and empirical research conducted in the Western Pamirs of Tajikistan to reconstruct socio-historically and spatio-environmentally situated food-related arrangements (foodscapes) in the study region. The main characteristics addressed include rootedness, richness, scarcity, and remoteness. It makes visible both continuities and shifts that have occurred to these arrangements in the course of social transformations. The study joins the canon of ethnographic food studies, and, by presenting a regional focus on the Tajik Pamirs, complements the emerging body of food-related socio-scientific research in and on Central Asia.","PeriodicalId":351033,"journal":{"name":"Central Asian Affairs","volume":"89 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126221243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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