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In the past decade, large-scale urban reconstruction has been ongoing in Dushanbe, Tajikistan's capital city. In this process, the city's Soviet architecture is being demolished and replaced by Dubai-inspired high-rises. This transformation of public space is a manifestation of the process of silent de-Sovietization that has taken place in Tajikistan. Unlike what has been seen in other post-Soviet countries, this form of de-Sovietization does not result from rethinking the country's Soviet past and deliberately departing from it. Rather, it is a casual by-product of Tajikistan's capitalist transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical methodologies in International Political Sociology (IPS) and its intersecting fields and research traditions have increasingly coalesced around the idea that research should be done in dialogue, and possibly cooperation, with people rather than only about them. Drawing together research under this theme and wider debates on participatory, activist, and action research, alongside our own research experience, this article proposes the notion of cooperative research to capture and further develop this research agenda. In the context of neoliberal academia and its narrow insurance-based conception of research ethics and safety, we argue that cooperative and ethical research can be done and developed further both in the cracks and margins of the system, and in a gradual reform process within it. Starting with a survey of existing traditions and recent advances towards cooperative research, we proceed to unpack what cooperative research looks like in practice and how it benefits the involved parties. The article then explores structural and epistemic obstacles that cooperative research faces within the current institutional, body, and geo-politics of knowledge production. It also reflects on future avenues to productively deal with the inherent contradictions of cooperative research, not only by embracing the "ethos of critique", but also by trying to make (even small) changes within the Western knowledge production system by promoting, and rendering more legitimate, alternative forms of knowledge and storytelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores post-Soviet power hierarchies which constitute a unique system of vertical stratification in world politics. It does so by analysing relations between two former Soviet states, Tajikistan and Russia, in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The article investigates the underlying reasons for power asymmetries between the two countries, the ways hierarchies are sustained and enforced, as well as perceived and navigated at political and social levels. It is argued that Tajikistan's relations with Russia are explicitly postcolonial without clear-cut colonial precedents in Soviet times. Postcolonialism did not automatically result from the Soviet breakdown. Rather, it has gradually emerged because of the two countries' very different paths of integration into the global capitalist economy, which subordinated Tajikistan to Russia. In this way, new economic asymmetries exacerbated Soviet-era legacies and reinvented them in a new, hierarchical manner. Overall, the article contributes to the debate on the nature of post-Soviet legacies and what it means to be post-Soviet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine has stimulated a debate on Russia’s relations with states which were part of the Soviet Union. Our article contributes to this discussion by focusing on Russia’s two ‘strategic partners’, Belarus and Tajikistan, and exploring these countries’ perspectives. We develop a critical geopolitics framework which accounts for time, multi-level power dynamics and culture. The article provides a new understanding of the dynamics of geopolitical knowledge beyond the West, analysing how Belarusian and Tajik political elites’ decision-making towards Russia has evolved from the late Soviet period until now. While both governments appear to be dependent on Russia and, consequently, generally supportive of its politics in the global arena, the article argues that this alignment has been highly strategic. Throughout the years, Belarusian and Tajik decision makers have skilfully navigated power and economic asymmetries with Russia by using their geographical location and Russia’s neo-imperial mindset to their benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Mothers, Families, or Children? Family Policy in Poland, Hungary, and Romania, 1945–2020" offers a comprehensive analysis of the history of family policymaking in these three countries. The authors explore the constant negotiations and transformations that family-related programs underwent over the course of 70 years, influenced by demographic, political, ideational, and economic pressures. The book highlights the distinct foci of family policy in each country, with Poland prioritizing maternal protection, Hungary focusing on families as a whole, and Romania emphasizing children. The analysis incorporates a historical institutionalist approach, interviews with policymakers, archival research, and an intersectional perspective that considers class, gender, and race. While the book lacks broader conclusions about state-citizen relations and does not extensively address fathers, it provides valuable insights into the evolution of state approaches to family in Eastern Europe. [Extracted from the article]

This article analyzes why and how women's sex work is securitized in Tajikistan. It argues that state actors view sex work as a threat to the nation in the context of two simultaneous processes: nation-building, centered around the family unit, and the fight against HIV/AIDS. The article explores the narratives, laws, and practices that are deployed to limit sex work. It also analyzes how security frameworks are experienced and navigated by women sex workers on a very local level. Three coping strategies are identified: hiding techniques, developing networks and befriending influential clients, and seeking companionship with other sex workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article scrutinizes and reconceptualizes covert research in social science. Surveying recent literature about this research method, we reflect on the ethical and safety implications stemming from the widespread, even if well-intended, lack of transparency characterizing many research projects, especially ones conducted in difficult research contexts. While the standard definition of covert research holds that researchers deliberately do not declare to research subjects that academic research is taking place, we argue that the remoteness of Western academia from most researched contexts often a priori renders field research at least partially covert, irrespective of the researcher's intentions. This is because its aims, utility, and expected outputs are hard to understand for research participants unrelated to academia. We illustrate this argument by analyzing our own fieldwork experiences in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In conclusion, we emphasize the need to critically reflect on the de facto use of covert techniques by social researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tajikistan is one of the main migrant origin countries in the post-Soviet world, with about one million labour migrants living and working in Russia. It is also one of the world's most remittance-dependent economies. By exploring how and why the Tajik government has engaged with labour migrants since 1991, this article analyses the development of emigration policy in Tajikistan. In doing so, the article de-reifies the state and illustrates the complexity of policy processes: many actors are directly and indirectly involved in policymaking and implementation. Four aspects are analysed: shifts in emigration policymaking over time and the influence of different domestic actors; the assistance offered to labour migrants; the impact of Russia as the main host country; and the influence of international organisations in the context of the nascent global governance of migration. This article argues that Tajikistan's emigration policy has gradually moved from a laissez-faire phase, through a proactive, then a "messy", to a reactive one. It shows that Tajik authorities have followed often contradictory pathways of (non)involvement with labour migrants and thereby illustrates how declared policies can be distinguished from informal practices performed by the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on previous work on the securitisation of HIV/AIDS, studies of framings, and the Copenhagen and Paris schools of security studies, this essay explores how policy framings of HIV/AIDS have shifted from the late Soviet period through to present-day Tajikistan. Pointing to both continuity and change, it shows how, under the influence of international actors and in accordance with nation-building priorities, Soviet-era medical and societal security framings gradually transformed into state security, demography and family-oriented framings. It also examines the resulting policy responses and practices that influence the everyday life of social groups who become identified as a public health concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the nexus between art and its ideological function, both discursively and in practice, in the Soviet socialist republics. Scrutinizing the case of visual monumental art in Soviet Tajikistan in the 1970s and 1980s, it can be seen that the geographical and cultural distance from Moscow, in addition to complex multi-actor and multi-level policy implementation channels, allowed for non-conventional artistic practices to develop in the Soviet periphery. The article highlights the role of local officials and, in particular, artists in re-appropriating the official identity formation process with specific ideas of "nationhood," religion, and gender relations, while at the same time aspiring to comply with the dominant socialist realism doctrine. It is argued that, contrary to the prominent slogan "socialist in content, national in form," artworks produced in the Soviet periphery were often socialist in form and "national" in content. While the artists skillfully worked within the monumental art tradition promoted by the state, thus relying on a socialist form, not infrequently the meaning of their works distorted, or even contradicted, the official ideology. Often this subversion was non-deliberate. Ultimately, however, the artworks ended up strengthening an autonomous local agency that policy-makers in Moscow sought to eradicate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses localisation of the migration and development paradigm, promoted worldwide by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), by unpacking transformations that this approach undergoes in aid-receiving countries assisted by this organisation. Drawing on insights from International Relations and the anthropology of development, and taking the case of a specific policy transfer initiated by IOM in post-Soviet Tajikistan, which involved setting up a local state-operated labour recruitment system for industries abroad, the article advances three arguments. First, the crucial relevance of actors in the field, namely brokers who arrange and navigate IOM's collaborations with various actors on the ground, reveals that the authority of IOM in Tajikistan is personalised and relational, rather than institutional. Second, the existence of brokers points to an ideological heterogeneity within IOM, which on the surface seems united in its pursuit of the migration and development agenda. Third, this article problematises the role of IOM in Tajikistan, showing that the organisation interferes in state-citizens relations and that its rhetoric of migration and development justifies a market-tailored export of local labour, serving the global capitalist economy. The article contributes to research on IOM, as well as global-local interactions and international organisations in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contrasts the World Bank's policy-oriented, standardized assessment of the business climate and small business in Tajikistan with an alternative, bottom-up reading of local entrepreneurship focused on the life stories and business experiences of the young Tajik business community. It shows that the World Bank's business evaluations and rankings, Doing Business and Enterprise Survey, offer a top-down understanding of business in this post-Soviet Central Asian country, which is filtered through an underlying neoliberal policy paradigm. This paradigm promotes economic liberalization, rivalry and individual responsibility for wellbeing at the expense of a welfare state, solidarity and common interest. The article proposes a different account which is centered on the socio-economic, political and moral embeddedness of local business practices. Four aspects of doing business are analyzed: informality, the role of the state in regulating business, bribing, and the relevance of social networks. Such an alternative, ethnographically informed account is needed because this organization's publications are seen by policymakers as an authoritative source of knowledge and, as a result, serve as a powerful global governance tool influencing economic reforms worldwide. These reforms, however, often exercise a negative effect on local economic lifeworlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how global governance frameworks and knowledge claims are translated to fit local contexts. It specifically looks at harm reduction initiatives targeting injection drug users utilising the case of Tajikistan. In the 1990s, this post–Soviet Central Asian country became exposed to an inflow of cheap and easily available heroin from Afghanistan. While Tajikistan mainly became a transit country, some parts of the local population also became addicted. To tackle the negative consequences of heroin addiction, starting from the 1990s international donors proposed the country adopt a range of harm reduction measures, including providing access to opioid substitution therapy and establishing drop-in centres where single-use needles and syringes would be distributed. This article discusses how donor-promoted harm reduction initiatives were localised in Tajikistan, why and with what outcomes. It argues that instead of a full acceptance or rejection of knowledge promoted by international actors, a complex translation process can be observed on the ground. International norms are thus localised by taking into account societal attitudes towards injection drug users, the changing nature of legitimate expertise, evolving national legislation and everyday practices, against the background of other conflicting global governance regimes and local geopolitical priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]