Keywords

The idea for this volume emerged during a post-COVID-19 lunch gathering in a coffee shop in Bishkek. While exchanging anecdotes about conducting research in and on Central Asia, we both noticed that there were realms of literature on fieldwork in Central Asia (Heathershaw & Mullojonov, 2020; Koch, 2013; Lottholz, 2018; Thibault, 2021; Wood, 2023), but the image they painted of their field did not always mirror our experiences. Of the handful of scholars who have written openly about the unique obstacles that the Central Asian research setting presents to researchers, the advice they gave was only partially applicable in our cases. Previous scholarship has highlighted that field research is an area not yet comprehensively addressed in conversations on diversity and equity in the academic and non-academic profession within Central Asia (Collins et al., 2023; Janenova, 2019; Kudaibergenova, 2019; Marat & Aisarina, 2021; Suyarkulova, 2019). It is the intersectionality of various categories of differences—age, gender, race, sexuality, education, class, parental status and religious practices that not only “shape researchers’ [and practitioners’] access to the field but also how they are received by their informants and the local society” (Dall’Agnola, 2023a, 12). A researcher’s positionality results in different expectations, risks and dilemmas in the field.

While we have learned from, and draw on the recent literature, it still consists largely of individual experiences, placed side by side rather than in conversation with each other. Through the medium of first-hand accounts of field research in and on Central Asia, this edited volume seeks to address this gap in the literature. It discusses the discrepancies between textbook advice and the reality in the field observed by both non- and local scholars and practitioners in Central Asia. As such, the chapters present an honest and reflective selection of accounts of the authors’ personal experience in the Central Asian research setting. Moreover, the scope of this book is not only situated in the range of geographical countries under analysis (e.g. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), but also the contributors represent various disciplines in the industry (e.g. journalism, opinion polling, NGOs), social sciences (e.g. anthropology, political science, education), genders, nationalities, and are affiliated with numerous institutions in different parts of the world. By featuring an even greater variety of academic and non-academic voices, this volume therefore fills an important gap in the literature on fieldwork and knowledge production in and on Central Asia.

A second trigger for writing the book is the growing number of Russophone researchers who, due to the inaccessibility of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine following the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory in February 2022, are drawn to the (former) Russian-speaking countries of Central Asia that are now considered to be more ‘accessible’ and ‘safe’. Both assumptions are uninformed and highly problematic. Access to the different Central Asian countries is anything but straightforward and varies depending on the researcher and practitioner’s positionality, as the personal reflections in this book demonstrate. Furthermore, Russophone scholars’ presumption that the Central Asian research setting is ‘safe’ is deceptive. Scholars and their collaborators, whether local or non-local, suspected of government critique can be monitored, arrested, intimidated and forced out of the country, as the contributions in this edited volume highlight. Moreover, we agree with Marat and Kassymbekova (2023, 10) that “decolonising Central Asian studies involves decentring Russia in understanding the area”. Central Asia may share “a history of Russian occupation”, but we should stop studying the region through a Russian lens. The personal stories presented in this volume outline some of the unique ethical, structural and methodological obstacles that scholars and practitioners from various social and institutional backgrounds face when conducting research in and on Central Asia, obstacles which are often not encountered in other countries formerly occupied by Soviet Russia.

A final consideration for writing this book is the on-going discussion among Central Asian experts around the need to decolonise the knowledge production in and on Central Asia. As is openly and honestly revealed in this collection through personal stories, research in the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, can involve several unexpected dangers and risks for both research participants and fieldworkers. The pitfalls and risks scholars face vary depending on their positionality in the field. Yet, researchers’ identities and relations to the field are a bit more varied than the stereotypical dichotomy of westerners and locals for whom the field is their “home”, “battlefield” and “livelihood” (Kudaibergenova, 2019) would suggest. We appreciate where our authors are living and working, but their identities and lived experiences are a little bit more complex than their passports and institutional affiliations suggest. Half of our authors were born and raised in Central Asia and the other half has spent a significant amount of time living and conducting research in and on the region. And again, others are locals, but a different kind of “local”. The fact that some of our contributors are now affiliated to an institution outside of their home country reflects not only the difficulty of undertaking research into sensitive or taboo topics for academics in authoritarian contexts (Glasius et al., 2018), but also the political economy of academia and academic migration flows more widely (Burlyuk & Rahbari, 2023). This in itself reveals something about local researchers’ knowledge production and lived experiences in the Central Asian research context. Finally, we are convinced that to diversify and enhance the scholarship on fieldwork and positionality in the region, we need contributions from both local and non-local researchers—with discussion of the wider politics of allyship within academia.

The book is composed of 10 in-depth case studies from the Central Asian region. Some chapters are based on contributors’ research experiences in a single Central Asian country, while others are comparative and cut across the region. Each chapter deals with a different topic related to their work in the region. While documenting this subject, the authors engage with their positionality and intersectional identity and offer useful guidance for other scholars and practitioners researching the region. The volume consists of three thematic sections. In the remainder of this introductory chapter, we present the three key themes that emerged from the various personal stories in this volume.

Epistemic and Methodological Uncertainty

Section one (Epistemic and Methodological Uncertainty) presents personal accounts that seek to problematise and reconceptualise the epistemology and methodology researchers use to study Central Asia. As such, the authors propose useful tips and recommendations for companies and scholars that plan to conduct research in and on the region. In his opening chapter, Aziz Elmuradov discusses the role of academic positionality in the context of fast-evolving Central Asian scholarship. He argues that a sense of epistemic uncertainty is a concomitant effect of academic positionality and that it may arise at the cross-roads of various cognitive and affective modes and templates. In Chapter three, Kasiet Ysmanova outlines the methodological and political uncertainty local opinion polling companies are confronted with when collecting public opinion data across the region. She argues that Central Asian authorities’ censorship of survey research is another significant impediment to local scholarship and as such, to hearing Central Asian voices. She finds that the use of phone polls can help survey companies to circumvent respondents’ self-censorship and desirability biases in an authoritarian context. However, it is not only opinion polling centres that increasingly rely on digital technologies to recruit interview participants, as Paolo Sorbello’s account in chapter four suggests. Zooming in on how social media and dating platforms can facilitate participant recruitment in Central Asia, he discusses how Tinder helped him to recruit women working in Kazakhstan’s oil sector, who under less informal circumstances would not have agreed to talk to him. Sorbello concludes that the use of ‘unconventional apps’, such as Tinder, for recruiting sources for research is a possibility that can and should be exploited in contexts where informal contacts are more customary.

Beyond ‘Outsiders’ and ‘Locals’

When reflecting on their fieldwork experiences, scholars tend to fall into thinking in terms of a stereotypical dichotomy: western researchers, who go to visit them, the local scholars, in their field (Glasius et al., 2018). The personal stories in the second part of this volume (Beyond ‘Outsiders’ and ‘Locals’) challenge this stereotypical dichotomy. They show that ‘locals’ are not invariably ‘rooted’ to and Westerners are not invariably ‘detached’ from the soil of the field. In Chapter five, Gulzhanat Gafu reflects on how her studies abroad influenced the way in which she researches her home country’s higher education system, in her case Kazakhstan. Her personal story shows that it is not solely Western researchers, but also local scholars’ class and institutional privileges that influence their access to the field. As such, she refashions our understanding of what it means to be a local to the region where someone conducts research, and who is also a western-educated “inbetweener” (Milligan, 2016, 248). While Gafu’s institutional affiliation marked her out as a ‘privileged’ outsider, Mélanie Sadozaï, ostensibly a ‘westerner’ with her French passport, was identified by her respondents along the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan as an insider thanks to her Afghani roots. In Chapter six, Sadozaï shows how her personal ties to Badakhshan facilitated deep and rich reflections from her interviewees and marked her out not ‘just as a foreigner’. For some scholars, it is not only their passport, but also their physical appearance that makes them an outsider in the eyes of their interlocutors. This is something, Alexa Kurmanov, a black queer scholar researching Kyrgyzstan knows too well. Yet, Kurmanov is not only an outsider in her field side, but also in her home country, the United States. In her chapter (chapter seven), she discusses the ways her black non-binary body becomes fatigued at the intersections of blackness and sexuality in the context of contemporary Kyrgyzstan and her home country. She finds that academic institutions in the United States are still failing to identify ‘Black fatigue’ as an outcome of mundane encounters in fieldwork and Western academia more generally.

Doing Research in Closed Contexts

The final part of this volume (Doing Research in Closed Contexts) homes in on the survival strategies employed by both local and non-local Central Asian scholars when conducting fieldwork in the more closely monitored societies of Central Asia (Dall’Agnola, 2023b). In reflecting on their research experiences in a field under authoritarianism, they offer insights for other researchers on how to maximise their own physical safety and mental well-being prior to, during and after fieldwork. In her piece, Chapter eight, Aijan Sharshenova discusses the intangible fear of every Central Asian political scientist, mainly being prosecuted for writing critically about politics in an increasingly political tense environment. In her contribution, Aijan focusses on tangible threats and intangible fears experienced by political scientists, observers, commenters and others, who have to walk a fine line between doing their job in an open and honest manner, and keeping themselves and their families safe. Likewise, in being honest and transparent about his experiences with the secret service in his former Central Asian home country, Ruslan Norov’s personal account in Chapter nine details how state monitoring can not only affect local scholars’ knowledge production but can also force them to leave their country out of fear of being jailed and prosecuted for being a Western spy. Both Sharshenova and Norov’s accounts emphasise that state shadowing of local academics and practitioners does not necessarily stop when the research project comes to an end. Central Asian governments are known for monitoring both the offline and online realms by means of digital technologies (Dall’Agnola, 2023b).

Likewise, foreign fieldworkers can be the target of wiretapping and malware, and find their own and their respondents’ privacy and anonymity intruded upon (Dall’Agnola, 2023b). As such, digital surveillance has becomes a permanent feature of both local and Western scholars’ life due to their long-lasting involvement in the region. Especially LGBTQ + researchers are forced to silence their sexuality in both their off- and online presence to protect themselves from physical and mental harm, as the personal account of Marius Honig demonstrates. In Chapter ten, he reflects on the limited choices available to LGBTQ + researchers to protect themselves and the limitations of performing a heterosexual male identity in the Central Asian research context. Finally, digital technologies can also be used by respondents to monitor and harass scholars on the Internet and social media long after they have left the field. In her closing chapter, Jasmin Dall’Agnola discusses the implications of unwanted sexual advances and cyberstalking on women scholars’ personal and professional life. She argues that some Central Asian men continued their unwanted advances online through the Internet long after she had returned to her home country. Dall’Agnola’s story illustrates the harmful influence that interlocutors (and especially local men) can have on female fieldworkers. In critically reflecting about both the level of sexual harassment and violence against women in Switzerland and Central Asia, Dall’Agnola asks us to not forget that violence against women is a problem both in the Central Asian and Western context.

Concluding Remarks

Given the rich detail and insightful reflections in this volume, it is our hope that this book will contribute to improving the practice of fieldwork and other research activities in Central Asia, by laying bare some of the dilemmas and trade-offs scholars and practitioners may (or may not) encounter when conducting research in and on the region. Not every researcher will experience the same ethical, personal or methodological challenges as those outlined here. Still, the chapters offer insights into how those concerned adapted when facing adversity and unforeseen dilemmas. We hope this will aid other researchers in thinking about how they might also approach, cope with and even avoid similar situations. As such, we hope that this book will be a useful teaching tool in pre-fieldwork courses.

Furthermore, the personal stories presented in this collection demonstrate that we need more honest reflections on potentially uncomfortable and sensitive themes that are too little discussed, let alone written about in the academic and professional realm: researchers’ fears, insecurities and mistakes during fieldwork, the mental impact it has on the researcher, and the possibility of coming home with little in the way of publishable findings. We hope that the reflections in this book will invite further academic discussion about researchers’ unspoken challenges and issues when conducting research in the region. Finally, beyond the academy, we expect some personal accounts in this book to make useful readings for policymakers, civil society practitioners, businesspeople or journalists who find themselves in the Central Asian research setting or dealing with Central Asian state authorities.