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- Convenors:
-
Cholpon Turdalieva
(American University of Central Asia)
Kubatbek Muktarbek uulu (Kyrgys State Technical University)
Gulzat Ibraeva (AUCA)
Estegul Eshimova-Hall
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- Discussant:
-
Cholpon Turdalieva
(American University of Central Asia)
- Format:
- Panel
- Theme:
- Anthropology & Archaeology
- Location:
- William Pitt Union (WPU): room 527
- Sessions:
- Thursday 19 October, -
Time zone: America/New_York
Abstract:
The term "mobility" was popular in academic research by British scholar Georg Simmel (1858–1918). Simmel wrote about the lives of people in the context of the city and the capitalist "money economy." He described how people move to work, adapt, and survive in the reality of growing consumption and economic production. He also elaborated on the systems of meaning that people attach to their mobility and how they understand their identities in the movement process. After Simmel, the mobility of society in the West led to a more extensive contextualization. In the 1990s, the study of mobility found a new meaning after numerous political crises, including the dissolution of states such as the USSR and Yugoslavia and their implications for nationalism, migration, and gender inequality.
The mobility phenomenon, now called the "mobility paradigm" or "mobility turn," is an essential theoretical concept. The works by Urry, Sheller, Kaufman, ad others are highly presented in mobility literature. In Central Asia, mobility is significantly under-researched, and what studies have been done tend to be monodisciplinary, limiting their academic theoretical and practical significance. In the words of Sheller and Urry (2007), taking a monodisciplinary approach to the field is a sign that the area is still in an embryonic stage. The mobility of people, objects, animals, and ideas has always been studied separately from the sources and vehicles of movement. This was undoubtedly the approach in Soviet times when such terms as "movement," "mobility," and "displacement" were more likely to be used in fields such as the study of pastoral nomadism and seasonal pastoral migration or, more recently, in studies which focus on internal and external labor migration of Kyrgyz citizens to Russia and Kazakhstan. The panel aims to invite scholars working in the interdisciplinary mobility field in Central Asia and the USA, including the history of educational mobility of AUCA, contemporary migration of Issyk-Kul pastoralists, gendered mobility and public transport in Central Asian cities, the mobility of inclusive education for US children with special needs and challenges and perspectives of sustainable urban mobility in Kyrgyzstan. Although there were different angles of mobility studies' development, the field still faces other methodological and theoretical challenges to adapt to local and regional academia. How to overcome the disciplinary barriers will be discussed at the panel.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 19 October, 2023, -Paper abstract:
With the rapid development of the transportation system and the active implementation of modern solutions around the world, the Kyrgyz Republic is experiencing a relative stagnation in this area. The obsolescence of standards and approaches poses some challenges to introducing modern solutions and implementing them in the field of transportation in the country. This paper will explore and offer viable and sustainable approaches and active mobility solutions to solving problems in public transportation system and traffic light regulation during power outage on the road network of Bishkek city. First, In public transportation issue, the solution can be in found in delineating responsibilities among key three parties: the private bus operators, government, and financial institutions. Second, traffic light control experiencing power shortages is causing big stagnation on the road network, which is dangerous especially during winter. The solution for this can be an autonomous power supply by using solar panels and having batteries, enable to operate completely autonomously for up to 4 hours and transmit real-time traffic data using Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) technologies. Third, the need of active mobility infrastructure can also be in providing the safe bike lanes, taking into account cultural realities, the local mentality and physical infrastructure standards. All these viable solutions are deemed practically necessary, cost-effective, and considered sustainable and can serve as a sustainable framework solution to some common mobility problems in the country or the region.
Paper abstract:
This abstract examines the stages of development of the structure of higher education in the Kyrgyz Republic since the day of independence. The means and goals of education in almost all higher educational institutions in the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia were created by the USSR. After gaining independence, the republics of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, including Kyrgyzstan, faced many questions and problems that either previously attracted the attention of former Soviet teachers, or were themselves created by the Soviet model of higher education, or arose as a result of economic and political difficulties "transitional" period. In this article, I first look at the Soviet historical background and its powerful legacy. I then turn to an analysis of various post-independence educational issues in Central Asia, and then turn my attention to the Kyrgyz Republic.
Based on the analysis of laws in education that regulate the development of Kyrgyzstan as a sovereign state. The post-independence policy of the government of Kyrgyzstan included the improvement and expansion of higher education as an important strategy for successfully entering the international market economy. Young people were to become a resource for economic growth and prosperity. However, after independence in the country, the number of higher education institutions and the number of students increased dramatically. These factors create problems for the organization of higher education and the quality of universities.
It also describes and discusses these dynamics observed in a larger case study on universities such as AUCA and university reform in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, between 1991 and 2021.
Key words: Higher education in Kyrgyzstan, International higher education, Education in the post-Soviet period.