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- Convenors:
-
Mary Bernadette Conde
(American University of Central Asia)
Aida Aidarova (American University of Central Asia)
Zulfiya Imyarova (NARXOZ University)
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- Discussants:
-
Ravshan Shamsitdinov
(Andijan State University)
Alisher Sabirov (International Institute for Central Asia)
Aijamal Sarybaeva (American University of Central Asia)
- Format:
- Roundtable
- Theme:
- Education
- Location:
- William Pitt Union (WPU): room 538
- Sessions:
- Friday 20 October, -
Time zone: America/New_York
Abstract:
Aimed at catalyzing key conversations about shared commitment to rethink and enrich the discourse on the transformative character of teaching and research in Central Asian universities, this roundtable seeks to examine current issues, and insights from the networked educational practices, innovative research methodologies in history and other liberal arts disciplines, and pedagogical strategies that continue to engage educators, historians, and scholars alike. Participants will highlight the expansive, interdisciplinarity, and exploratory nature of courses in a liberal arts education that promotes, not only the creation of diverse critical narratives and perspectives but also skill-building strategies, and enlightening and self-discovery approaches to research and teaching. Some will discuss on how a collaborative networked project generates research-oriented opportunities and pedagogical tools that cater even beyond the Central Asian context. While one will focus on how oral history in the region, while in its infancy especially in Kyrgyzstan, can serve as a way to decolonize and decenter Soviet Kyrgyz history, another will emphasize that the field of Humanities in some Central Asian universities have only just mastered oral history as a direction and a method of research, while already having its own specific and functional possibilities in the formation of a common regional history of Central Asia. Others will argue how recent archival research presents challenges and critical insights in Central Asian modern historiography and historical narratives.
Finally, it will discuss strategies and future research agenda and pedagogical prospects and directions for engaging these dialogues in meaningful and inclusive ways while being open to catalysts that redefine and rethink Central Asian education, research, and scholarship or decolonize knowledge production in the region.
Accepted contributions:
Session 1 Friday 20 October, 2023, -Contribution abstract:
This presentation describes the experience and challenges of teaching “development” and “aid” to students in aid-recipient, specifically post-Soviet countries. The Development Aid and Politics course aims to provide students with an overview of contemporary development aid and political aspects of it. At the start of the course, students are asked to give their definitions of “development” and share their opinion on the level of development of their countries. Responses from students with post-Soviet educational experience show that students define “development” in terms of their countries’ historical backgrounds. Responses often romanticize Soviet Union and Russian invasion to the region of Central Asia as bringing “development” and “civilization” to savage peoples. They often use terms as “modernization”, “industrialization” and “literacy” to describe the process of Russian/Soviet colonization of Central Asia and see it as beneficial and positive process. At the same time students tend to disregards the violent methods used by the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, the negative impact of “modernization” on environment, local languages, cultures and ethnic representation. Challenge comes with the attempt to re-construct students understanding of the process of invasion of Russian Empire and Soviet “modernization” in Central Asia. Observation of class discussions and student performance suggests that using agent-centered approach to “development” as well as dissolution of myths (resulting from earlier Soviet propaganda) are more effective in bringing about the motivation to learn than the perspective of passive recipient of “development aid” from developed countries. It helps students to focus on knowledge as an active decision-maker and solution-seeker to existing problems in research and practice. Moreover, it helps students to critically reconsider their countries’ past, even the past that was before the Russian invasion in the region.
Contribution abstract:
My presentation will highlight the development, challenges, and design of a collaborative research project entitled "English Learner Success in ESL & Content Classrooms: Online courses incubated at AQB and AUCA for the Open Society University Network". This research project is currently piloted and implemented in 3 higher institutions in the network, namely, Arizona State University, American University of Central Asia, and Al Quds Bard in Palestine. Designed for OSUN classrooms with strong emphasis on student-centered learning, critical literacy (especially in reading and writing), and teaching strategies, the project has integrated issues of global and local relevance through interdisciplinary research collaboration or comparative pedagogy and research. This project involves 4 student-support courses in liberal arts education courses which are the Second Year Seminar, Human Rights, Economics, and Information and Media Literacy, that are designed to be integrated, embedded or side by side in content-courses in liberal arts and sciences curriculum or beyond those aforementioned courses. In this project, we have a wealth of incredible work developed by scholars and educators despite our varied cultural differences, diverse institutional research expertise, and different pedagogical and methodological experiences that enable these institutions communicate and share critical discussions and reflections on framing knowledge-and-skill building production and strategies. This presentation will also share common course design frameworks, feedbacks from students, and some insights and successes that are generated when this project has been created, piloted, and implemented.
Contribution abstract:
Oral history as a discipline is still in its infancy in Kyrgyzstan but it can serve as a way to decolonize and decenter Soviet Kyrgyz history. Conventionally history of Kyrgyzstan and its peoples was written with the focus on Soviet Russia, and very often it was placed in the margins of Soviet history and scholarship. But as bell hooks wrote
" ... these margins have been both sites of repression and sites of resistance," oral history can bring these margins to the center reversing the traditional order and ways of how histories of Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia were written. By giving the voice to the ones who have been in the margins and silenced, it gives us an opportunity to rethink and reexamine the existing discourses, narratives, and methodologies in the field of history.
Contribution abstract:
At present, there is a growing interest among researchers in regional studies, and local history, which investigates the spatial dimensions of social, economic, political, and behavioral phenomena. The picture of history would be incomplete without the assessments and interpretations of certain events by their participants and eyewitnesses.
The comprehension of the historical process, based on the memories of the average citizen, on the one hand, and a thorough analysis of written sources, on the other, will make it possible to detail the events, while expanding the global picture of the period under study.
In the report, the author will present his experience of studying local history on the example of the unique region of Central Asia, the Fergana Valley, which is home to more than 10 million people.
Why this region? This is due to political, economic, and social factors. The geopolitical location, besides the neighboring republics (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), has a border with China. On the one hand, it is an economically developed region, which is due to its favorable geographical location, rich water resources, and fertile land, as well as the presence of Russian capital since tsarist times and the special attention of the Soviet authorities to the region as a major supplier of cotton. On the other hand, due to the densely populated area, there is a high percentage of unemployment in politically active with a high level of religious (Islamic) consciousness and the presence of radical groups, which leads to social tensions.
In this connection, studying and analyzing the state of society and people's perception of historical events on the eve and first years of independence of Uzbekistan through the method of oral history play a special role in writing an objective regional history.