Like the Circassians and other groups I wrote about in a previous blog post, the Russian campaigns in the Caucasus in the 1800s resulted in over half of the Abkhaz population leaving their historical homeland on the northwest shore of the Black Sea for Turkey, in what Abkhaz historian Stanislav Lakoba called an “ethnic catastrophe” […]
2015
Two States, One Nation: Creating Ottoman and Vedic Empires Through Azeri and Roma Diaspora Networks
Engaging one’s diaspora to spread nationalist ideology and gain support for conservative political reforms is clearly popular across the world. The methods for doing so, whether it be by bolstering religious organizations or engaging youth through activism, are usually easy to observe as countries target those in their own communities. Unfortunately, not every diaspora member […]
Experiences of Abortion in Central Asia (Turkey, Georgia, and Kazakhstan)
While my last blog post focused primarily on migrant women’s experience with reproductive health facilities in the United States and Russia, I wanted to focus my last post on reproductive healthcare, specifically abortion, in Central Asia. Unfortunately, some countries in Central Asia had a huge gap in information regarding abortion, but I was still able […]
Do refugees want to return to South Sudan?
In South Sudan, since a tentative peace deal was signed with the help of the international community that seems to be holding, many people seem to be evaluating what to do next. As of October 2020, UNHCR has made an official statement regarding South Sudanese refugees returning home in the current climate. “In recent years, […]
A Place in Armenian History: The Contributions of Women Impossible to Overlook
Armenian history has a strong influence on its development today especially for the evolving role of women in their society. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, Armenia found itself, along with several other neighboring nations in the droves of Russian occupation until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Whether under the thumb of Turkey […]
Migrant Lives – Cheap and Disposable in the глаза of Russia
Since the Fall of the Soviet Union, ethnonationalism in Russia has been on the rise. While demographic data points to a labor shortage in Russia, ethnonationalist policies make it extremely difficult for labor migrants from places such as Central Asia to fill labor shortages. Millions of Central Asian migrants from CIS countries have moved to […]
“Coming Home”: Motherland and Mother Language in Kazakhstan’s ‘Oralman’ Policies
What role does an imagined homeland have in influencing one’s sense of belonging? This summer, I had a rather odd experience with this exact dynamic. My younger sister, an avid Tik Tok user, showed me a short clip on the platform of a Ghanaian official speaking out against racial injustice in the US and instructing […]
A culture of mobility and lost transcendence of the Greater Central Asia
By the time I moved to the United States of America, I had lived through poverty, famine and war, yet I consider myself one of the most privileged individuals in the world. The society in which I was raised had just begun learning to stand on its own when I was presented with the opportunity […]
A Comparison of Interethnic Marriage and Migration in Korea and Russia
While I do not have a lot of outside knowledge on migration, I do know that one feature of migration results in multicultural and multiethnic marriages. Outside of Central Asia, one region I know well is that of the Korean Peninsula. One similarity between South Korea and Russia is that they are both going through […]
Neoclassical migration theory, NELM, and migration out of Uzbekistan
I have enjoyed reading about the various theories of labor migration that we’ve looked at over the last few weeks. The application of economic theory to real world labor markets is quite interesting, particularly as we look at labor migration through the lens of neoclassical economic theory to more contemporary sociological frames such as through […]