Strengthening academia: embracing an open dialogue on fieldwork in the authoritarian states of Central Asia

Anna Jordanova

Central Asian Survey, 2024, vol. 43, issue 3, 429-436

Abstract: Students embarking on fieldwork across Eurasia, Africa and Latin America will encounter various political practices of regimes and conflicts involving varying levels of open violence. Although they leave their universities equipped with often stunning theoretical and methodological knowledge, surprisingly little attention is paid to practical preparation for uneasy situations. Fieldwork handbooks do exist, but they rarely offer positionality-sensitive guidelines and cannot provide ongoing mentoring during fieldwork or debriefing upon return. Drawing on previous scholarship initiatives and my experiences conducting field research in authoritarian Central Asia, I call for an open academic debate on fieldwork in challenging contexts and increased peer-to-peer solidarity at all academic levels. Addressing teaching professionals, advanced PhD students and anyone else involved in teaching and training newcomers in research and learning, I offer specific examples of what such a cooperation and support leading to a more resilient community may look like in everyday academic and research practice.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02634937.2024.2382161 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ccasxx:v:43:y:2024:i:3:p:429-436

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ccas20

DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2024.2382161

Access Statistics for this article

Central Asian Survey is currently edited by Raphael Jacquet

More articles in Central Asian Survey from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().