Search

This paper reviews the perceptions of the CA states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) towards the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and conceptualises the CA states' motivations and concerns in engaging in cooperation within the SCOvis-à-visChina. The message that this paper aims to deliver is that, for the majority of the CA leadership and public, China within the SCO represents the CA states' ‘other’, with decolonising but increasingly dominating features. These perceptions of China in the CA region elucidate the ways in which China's involvement in Central Asia has a paradoxical and contradictory impact on the potential for the SCO to move beyond functionalism and towards the creation of a broader SCO identity. Consequently, the future of the SCO may be more limited than the West fears and Central Asia hopes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: This study uses a quasi-experimental evaluation of national surveys in post-Soviet Central Asia to quantify the impact of children''s enrollment into childcare programs on the quality of parent–child interactions. The main finding is that the presence of childcare for a family is positively and significantly associated with an increase in the quality of parent–child interactions in every country under investigation. In Kyrgyzstan, enrollment in childcare is associated with a 5.6 unit increase in the index of quality of parent–child interactions. Similarly, in Tajikistan childcare enrollment is associated with a 6.5 unit increase in the index, while in Uzbekistan with a 3.2 unit increase. Several other variables are also important in explaining parent–child interaction. Living in rural areas increases the quality of parent–child interactions in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, while an increase in the number of children under 14 in the household has an opposite effect. Being a Russian-speaker is associated with an increase in the quality of parent–child interactions in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Lastly, an increase in the mother''s and children''s ages is associated with lower levels of interaction quality in Tajikistan, but the magnitude of this effect is relatively small. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Thanks to increasing globalization, both West and Islamic ideas are finding new adherents among young people in Central Asia, though an "Asian" identity is not developing, at least not yet. The changes are happening so quickly, it is hard to say whether one set of ideas will prevail or if the result will be a new amalgam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the discipline of Central Asia studies as of Spring 2012. He attempts to shed light upon the contested foundation of aspects of Central Asia Studies. The author states that the discipline is characterized by research on state building, identity politics, and linear historical studies. The author also argues that the field omits various subjects, particularly social class relations and structured oligarchy within Central Asia. The author cites the omission of scholarship on the post-Soviet condition of working class women's rights in education as an example.

This article explores the relationship between continuity and change in Central Asian domestic felt textile production. In order to set this in the context of a pastoralist perspective, the paper draws on regional practices such as oral poetry and movement through landscape, as well as human–environment relations in order to reveal the dynamic and creative improvisatory process through which local textile production can be understood. In so doing, it examines whether Euro-American anthropology's rejection of a ‘static’ notion of ‘tradition’ for one of hybridity (reflecting a critique of its own nostalgia), has inadvertently moved us away from a focus on the historical narratives of those we study, which is often at odds with their own concerns. The author argues that for ‘moving people’, it is the dynamics of orality, human–environment relations and the practice (rather than the evidence) of material culture that elucidates our understanding of the relationship between continuity and change. The power of felt is thus reflected in the apparently ephemeral, non-enduring, aspects of these practices, which are what makes them endure, continuously bringing the past into being for new cultural futures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the former Soviet republics of central Asia, ethnic Russians have exhibited higher adult mortality than native ethnic groups (e.g., Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek) in spite of the higher socioeconomic status of ethnic Russians. The mortality disadvantage of ethnic Russians at adult ages appears to have even increased since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The most common explanation for this "Russian mortality paradox," is that deaths are better reported among ethnic Russians. In this study, we use detailed mortality data from Kyrgyzstan between 1959 and 1999 to evaluate various explanations for the Russian mortality paradox: data artifacts, migration effects, and cultural effects. We find that the most plausible explanation is the cultural hypothesis because the personal behaviors that appear to generate a large part of the observed mortality differences (alcohol consumption, in particular) seem to be closely tied to cultural practices. We examine the implications of this finding for understanding the health crisis in post-Soviet states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the implications of the social, political and economic conditions in North African states to five Central Asian states including Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It mentions the situations of Egypt and Tunisia which are experiencing regime change motivated by political unrest and violence in 2011. It discusses the rankings of the five states in terms of relevant indicators including Human Development Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, and Freedom House indices.

This article argues that Central Asian youth share more commonalities than differences vis-a-vis young people in other ex-Communist countries. The common features include high rates of unemployment and under-employment, associated poverty and a propensity to become pendulum migrants. Meanwhile, as elsewhere, rates of participation in higher education have risen spectacularly in parts of Central Asia. Central Asia has been part of a global trend towards later marriages and lower rates of fertility, although the region's young people still tend to marry earlier and parent more children than in other parts of the ex-USSR. As elsewhere, Central Asian youth have lost most of the provisions for leisure activities formerly offered by state and Communist Party organizations. These have been replaced by relatively patchy provisions by NGOs, and commercial facilities that are beyond the means of most young people. The article argues that the most distinctive feature of youth in Central Asia is citizenship in newly independent states with no prior history of statehood, hence their difficulties in achieving a collective identity. This has created a metaphorical market place in identities. What young people share with youth throughout East-Central Europe and Eurasia is a dominant personal aspiration; namely, to join their countries' new middle classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of HIV-infection and AIDS in the central Asian republics is studied through the example of Uzbekistan. How, despite similarities, does this phenomenon in countries that used to belong to the USSR differ from what is observed in other parts of the world, in particular southern Africa? The principal differences are explained in order to examine how countries tackle and manage this infection: prevention policies, treatments, psychological support, NGOs, associations, etc. This analysis focuses on how political authorities adopt a rhetoric that inexorably reproduces the Soviet norm by stigmatizing and discrediting the infected, who are classified as "deviants" and considered to be "socially unproductive". Various written sources (official statistics, public and internal reports, prevalence surveys from Uzbek centers for disease control) are used along with oral sources (interviews conducted in 1997-1998 and 2004 in Uzbekistan). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay discusses the legacy of Soviet Union government policy concerning language, with a particular focus on language use in the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Emphasis is given to such aspects of linguistics as alphabet, orthography, vocabulary, and language status. The enforcement of language policy regarding the teaching and speaking of the Russian language throughout the Soviet Union is analyzed.

The article discusses the challenges faced by people who live in Central Asia in 2009. The author examines the region's migrant trend that started with Russia's economic upswing in the early 2000s and ended with the global financial crisis. During that period, the author states, Russia invested heavily on buildings and infrastructure, providing many men in Central Asia with jobs. Other topics include falling energy prices and Central Asian countries that will have to absorb a returning influx of unemployed workers. Also provided are photographs of life in Central Asia that indicate life during the financial crisis.

The article reports on journalism education programs in the post-communism period in Central Asia. Topics include: media objectivity, occupational prestige, and journalism's low pay; the curricula shift to and undergraduates' interest in public relations education; government control of the press with "state service orders" in Kazakhstan; six problems in Tajikistan that contribute to the lack of professionalism such as self-censorship; the continuation of Soviet-style teaching methods; and the characteristics of several schools including the Tajik National University's College of Journalism and Translation, the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics, and Strategic Research, and the American University of Central Asia.

This article examines how the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) seeks to undermine democratisation in Central Asia. Prior studies of the interplay between international organisations and democracy have tended to examine only one half of this relationship: whether, how, and under what circumstances do international organisations promote democracy? However, the opposite has been largely ignored: how do international organisations sustain autocracy? Authoritarian governments are increasingly adopting policies aimed at preserving their political power and the SCO represents an additional strategy in this regard: utilising multilateral cooperation to defend themselves against regional or global democratic trends. As such, the 'Shanghai Spirit' may be a sign of things to come as autocratic leaders become more bold in their rejection of democratic norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the current social and economic conditions in the countries of Central Asia. Performance of the economy of Afghanistan which has significant incomes from oil fields in the Caspian Sea; Problems of unemployment, economic instability and political unrest in Central Asian countries; Vulnerability of the Central Asian countries towards a number of societal tensions.