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This open access book explores some of the struggles and challenges that researchers and practitioners face when conducting research in the Central Asian research setting. Written for scholars still in the planning stages of their research, it addresses key questions, including: How shall we problematize and reconceptualize the concept of positionality through lenses of local voices from the region? How does practitioners' and scholars' positionality contribute to their experiences of inclusion, exclusion, and access to the field? How do scholars navigate issues of personal safety and mental well-being in the more closely monitored societies of Central Asia?
The book includes contributors from both Central Asia and Western countries, paying particular attention to the ways researchers' subjectivity shape how they are received in the region, which, in turn, influences how they write about and disseminate their research. In featuring an even greater variety of voices, this book fills an important gap in the literature on field research and knowledge production in and on Central Asia.
List of contents
Chapter 1. The Central Asian Research Setting. An Introduction (Jasmin Dall'Agnola).- Part I. Epistemic and Methodological Uncertainty.- Chapter 2. Making Sense of Central Asia: Sources of Epistemic Uncertainty (Aziz Elmuradov).- Chapter 3. Pitfalls and Promise for Public Opinion Research in Central Asia (Kasiet Ysmanova).- Chapter 4. 'Swiping Right' - The Ethics of Using Tinder as a Recruitment Tool in the Field (Paolo Sorbello).- Part II. Beyond 'Outsiders' and 'Locals'.- Chapter 5. The Power of a Multi-layered Identity in Central Asian Research (Gulzhanat Gafu).- Chapter 6. Being Afghani, French and not Soviet, Along the Border Between Tajikistan and Afghanistan (Mélanie Sadozaï).- Chapter 7. A Stranger in the Village: Anti-Blackness in the Field (Alexa Kurmanov).- Part III. Doing Research in Closed Contexts.- Chapter 8. Safety, Security, and Self-Censorship as Survival Strategies (Aijan Sharshenova).- Chapter 9. Navigating AcademicRepression in Central Asia (Ruslan Norov).- Chapter 10. Performative Heterosexuality: A Gay Researcher Doing Fieldwork in Central Asia (Marius Honig).- Chapter 11. From Romantic Advances to Cyberstalking in the Field (Jasmin Dall'Agnola).
About the author
Jasmin Dall'Agnola is a postdoctoral researcher at the George Washington University's Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES), Washington D.C., USA. Her research focuses on the relationship between human security and surveillance in authoritarian societies. Her research has been published by numerous peer-reviewed journals and publishing houses, including
Europe-Asia Studies,
Central Asian Affairs,
Central Asian Survey and
Routledge.Aijan Sharshenova is a postdoctoral research fellow at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Dr. Sharshenova holds a Ph.D. in Politics awarded at the University of Leeds, UK. Prior to joining the OSCE Academy, Dr. Sharshenova has worked at the UN and UNDP country offices in the Middle East.
