Fieldwork Archives - Voices On Cental Asia

Kazakh as an Unwritten Language: The Case of Astrakhan Oblast

September 28, 2023

An ethnically diverse region that abuts the Caspian Sea in southwestern Russia, Astrakhan Oblast is home to the country’s largest Kazakh community. Almost 150,000 people, or 18 percent of the…

View Post

10 min

What Can Golden Horde Fabrics Tell Us About Histories of Kazakhstan and Ukraine?

September 23, 2022

Tatiana Krupa, a Ukrainian archaeologist, historian, and restorer, has extensive experience studying fragments of fabrics that date back to the Golden Horde era. She has done work on fabrics that…

View Post

12 min

Women, Kinship, and Property in Central Asia

June 16, 2022

Author Aksana Ismailbekova Aksana Ismailbekova is a research fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum-Moderner Orient (ZMO). Ismailbekova completed her PhD dissertation at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in…

View Post

11 min

Rural Women in Kyrgyzstan: “Ayalzattyn tagdyry: mezgil kүүsүndө” (Women’s Fates Don’t Choose Times). An Interview with Cholpon Koichumanova

May 6, 2022

For the last few years, Professor Cholpon Koichumanova has been working on a project studying the role and place of women in modern Kyrgyzstan. The project has been implemented with…

View Post

12 min

Social Mobilization in the Absence of Infrastructure and Services on the Urban Margins: Toward “Societal Infrastructures”

November 15, 2021

How do communities deal with the decay, failure or complete absence of infrastructure? In the fourth decade after the collapse of the Soviet and other Socialist states, this question is…

View Post

7 min

Fieldwork

How the Soviet State’s Promises of Water Were First Fulfilled and then Failed

October 19, 2021

The Soviet state invested heavily in water infrastructure in arid Central Asia. These investments produced transformations with significant social impact. They also created memories that many anthropological studies have tried…

“Fruit from the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat”. An Interview with Robert Spengler

16 minute read

View Post

10 min

Fieldwork

Law and Custom in Central Asia: An Interview with Judith Beyer

July 24, 2020

Prof. Dr. Judith Beyer specializes in political and legal anthropology. She conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan where she studied the practices of retraditionalization – how the concept of traditions…

View Post

17 min

Panjikent, the Central Asian Pompeii. An Interview with Pavel Lurje

May 7, 2020

Interview with Pavel Lurje Head of the Sector of Central Asia, Caucasus and Crimea, Senior Research Fellow of the Oriental Department of the State Hermitage Museum, head of the Panjikent Expedition.Dr.…

View Post

7 min

Fieldwork

The Image of the Snow Leopard in the Archaeological Records of Kazakhstan and its Instrumentalization in Modern-Day Political Agendas

April 24, 2020

This article examines the connection between how archaeological remains were excavated in the past to how such remains are dealt with in present day Kazakhstan. Special attention is given to…

View Post

8 min

Nomads and Soviet Rule: Central Asia under Lenin and Stalin. An Interview with an Author

March 10, 2020

In his book, Nomads and Soviet Rule: Central Asia under Lenin and Stalin (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Alun Thomas examines the experiences of Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads in the NEP (New…

View Post

9 min

The Mystery of Kyrk-Kyz: From 40 Women-Warriors to the Warriors of Light

January 16, 2020

A mysterious castle in Uzbekistan’s Surhandarya bears the name of Kyrk-Kyz, meaning “40 girls.” Was this a sanctuary of legendary women-warriors, or was it home to a group of Sufi…

View Post

6 min

Humans of the Polygon: Travel Notes from the Land of Abai. Karaul, Znamenka (Kokentau), Sarzhal

October 8, 2019

“We are scared for the future of our kids.”A family in KaraulThe lake created in 1963 on the Polygon as a result of an explosion that used 20 tons of…