Research Questions and Goals Within my upcoming three blog posts, my aim is to present two narratives of exile present in folk oral traditions in Inner Asia. After discussing the Urkun in my previous post, I realized that I had largely forgotten the issue of individual agency within such significant historical circumstances. To rectify this […]
2020
Clinking Glasses Over Central Asia’s Hardship
The 2020 Covid-19 global pandemic has exacerbated social and economic struggles in Central Asia while strengthening Russia and China’s grasp over the region. While stronger relations with Russia and China can help the five governments of Central Asia appear more legitimate, little progress will be gained for the people of Central Asia. Migrant laborers will […]
Stories of the new ‘forgotten generation’ in South Sudan
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long and bloody civil war. Only two years after that South Sudan fell into another long and bloody civil war that started in 2013. In 2016 it was estimated that 50,000 people had been killed and 1.6 million displaced. In 2017 the number of displaced […]
Importing Nationalism: An Introduction to Diaspora Politics in India and Turkey
I was a high school freshman when Narendra Modi won the election as India’s prime minister in 2014. I had little to no knowledge of Indian politics, having never lived there nor understood the intricacies of the policies each political party pursued. However, my parents, grandparents, and community around me were ecstatic with the election […]
Making Sense of Meskhetian Turk Migrations
You can’t undo a deportation. Jonathan Shapiro For my last three blog posts, I have decided to look at the history of Meskhetian Turks from their deportation in 1944 to the modern day. In this blog post, I am going to do my best to familiarize the reader with the Meskhetian Turks and how forced […]
Room for Growth: The Place of Armenian Women within a Patriarchal Society
The Workforce The struggle for gender equality is a familiar foe of Armenian women. Since the fall of the soviet Union in 1991 when the female unemployment rate was a mere 2.19%, women in Armenia have struggled to maintain their place in the workforce (World Bank, 1991). Let’s talk more numbers. Armenia first […]
Assimilation and Belonging: Identity in Migrant Accounts
In our very first class, we discussed why migration tends to elicit such big emotions. Why is the topic of migration, for example, such an emotive political issue in the United States? De Haas says that migration is contentious and emotive because it conjures up themes of belonging and identity, both of which are very […]
China’s “Belt and Road” Initiative and Labor Migration in Eurasia
For my final blogs, I will be discussing China’s “Belt and Road” Initiative (BRI) and its impact on labor migration. In our class, we had a brief discussion on Chinese companies doing construction works overseas and bringing Chinese workers as a common business practice. However, such practice has fueled clashes and dismay among countries that […]
The Urkun and Kyrgyz-Russian Race Relations
On August 7th of this year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of approximately 30 people gathered in Bishkek to commemorate the 104th anniversary of the Urkun with readings from the Quran.1 Despite the dangers currently associated with public gatherings, many people in Kyrgyzstan clearly feel a strong sense of importance in […]
Development of Afghan Migration to Iran
For hundreds of years, Afghans have migrated to Iran in order to improve their livelihoods. In the 20th century, the first major wave of Afghan migration to Iran came with the monumental upswing of the Iranian oil industry. Through recruitment by the Iranian government, thousands of Afghan laborers came to Iran.3 The workers enjoyed better […]