Paper long abstract:

Central Asian women who are scholars, public actors, artists and academic workers, come together to examine structural, institutional and epistemological challenges and struggles we experience by living in and being from Central Asia in the times of underemployment, funding cuts, political backlash. We will discuss tokenism and representational regime in institutional academia and civil society, commodification and alienation of research labour, intellectual harassment and appropriation, institutional exploitation and structural gaze. We will explore how those outcomes of neoliberalism shaпe our engagement in civil society, public sector and academia, however does not disempower or inhibits our commitment to rigorous intellectual inquiry, critical imagination and meaningful contribution to public thought and social justice cause. How do we enact our capacities and resourcefulness to act, work, live and dream in Central Asia? What are the realities of researching, teaching and engaging politically in issues of sexuality, gender and body in Central Asia?

My contribution will focus on discussing the "in and out" of development, academia and management in producing local knowledge and promoting it within various audiences.