【Workshop（10/10）】Colonial and Postcolonial in Recent History of Central Asia

Politics and History

Date & Time： 10 October 2023 (Tue), 15:30–19:20 (GMT+9)

Venue： Room 403, Slavic-Eurasian Research Center (SRC), Hokkaido University, and online via Zoom

Abstract：The ongoing Russia’s war against Ukraine echoed in re-discovery of postcolonial debate in the studies of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Albeit the focus of this reassessment predominantly falls onto Russo-centric and (post)socialist patterns of power, there is a call for broader comparisons of postcolonial. Central Asia in particular appears as an area of various intercrossing colonial projections. This Workshop invites scholars to rethink (post)colonial in Central Asia during the socialist period (starting since the 1960s) and its aftermath. We would like to analyse how imperial and colonial relationships within the USSR formed the realm of ideas about (socialist) modernisation and anti-modernisation in and for Central Asia. To discuss this, the Workshop embraces a wide range of interconnected topics: the Soviet foreign policy and development politics inside Central Asia, socialist plan and resource-dependency, transformation of political and intellectual elite and cultural production.

Program：

　15:30–17:20 (GMT+9) Session 1: Soviet development policies and socialists plan in Central Asia
　　

　　　Irina Morozova, University of Regensburg / SRC
　　　　Diffusion of the Postcolonial: Reform in “Domestic Central Asia” in Relation to Soviet Policy in the

　　　　“Foreign Orient” (the 1970–80s)
　　　

　　　Isaac Scarborough, Leiden University (online)
　　　　Reconsidering and Recalculating Soviet “Subsidies”: Financial Transfers to the Tajik SSR in the

　　　　1970s and 1980s
　　　

　　　Tetsuro Chida, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies
　　　　Scaling Down in Resolving Environmental Problems? The Decline of Gigantomania in the Soviet

　　　　Union and the Aral Sea Crisis
　

　　Discussant: Timothy Nunan, University of Regensburg (online)
　

　　Chair: Norihiro Naganawa, SRC, Hokkaido University, Japan

　17:30–19:20 (GMT+9) Session 2: Cultural production and historical memory in late Soviet and

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　independent Central Asia
　　　

　　　Akira Matsumoto, Hokkaido University
　　　　Was the “Kyrgyz Miracle” a Product of Chance? The Self-Representation of the Kyrgyz in the Film

　　　　Manaschi (1965)
　　

　　　Elmira Nogoibaeva, Center Polis Asia, Esimde Research Platform, Kyrgyzstan (online)
　　　　Memories of Urkun in 1916: De/anti-colonial Echo
　　

　　　Alima Bissenova, Nazarbayev University (online)
　　　　“The Man with the Character of Horse”: The Narratives of the Revival of Horse Herding and Kokpar

　　　　in Kazakhstan
　

　　Discussant: Tomohiko Uyama, SRC, Hokkaido University
　

　　Chair: Yoko Aoshima, SRC, Hokkaido University

Language：English

Registration for online participation：

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYkc-igpz0tGty7S_OGgU1ETea6fNIuJdPY

Organizer： Platform for Explorations in Survival Strategies at the SRC

Conveners： Irina Morozova & Tomohiko Uyama

Contact： Tomohiko Uyama < uyama[at]slav.hokudai.ac.jp >([at] read as @)

Back