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- Convenor:
-
Zarina Urmanbetova
(University of Fribourg)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Jasmin Dall'Agnola
(The George Washington University)
- Discussant:
-
Indira Alibayeva
(NURCE, Nazarbayev University)
- Formats:
- Roundtable
- Theme:
- Issues of Scholarship, Research & Practice
- Location:
- Room 103
- Sessions:
- Sunday 26 June, -
Time zone: Asia/Tashkent
Short Abstract:
The principal aim of this workshop is to start an honest conversation about the practical, methodological, and ethical challenges female scholars face while conducting field research in Central Eurasia.
Long Abstract:
Women scholars from various backgrounds are actively involved in producing knowledge about the Central Eurasian region. Like all other human communities, women scholars are different and diverse in the field, discipline, approach and methods, gender and other identities. The intersecting facets of female researchers’ identities (e.g. culture, age, nationality, and sexuality) in the field shape both the data collection and the research outcome. Yet, we are united by our research activities in the geographical, cultural and social space of Central Eurasia.
The principal aim of this workshop/thematic discussion is to start an honest conversation about the practical, methodological, and ethical challenges female scholars face while conducting field research in Central Eurasia. So far, only a handful of scholars have written and talked openly about the unique obstacles that the region presents to women researchers (especially young women), barriers that are often not encountered in other field sites. It is this gap that the activity seeks to address.
We believe that the proportion of women scholars and researchers who contribute to Central Eurasian studies is enormous. But how and through what difficulties do women scientists/researchers obtain their research materials and present them? Therefore, we believe it is necessary to bring up women researchers’ conditions and situations during their field research. Moreover, the workshop is meant to be inclusive and hybrid in format. It is open to all, regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or other identities. We will do what is necessary to create fair, equal and horizontal communication between the participants/attendees at the workshop. As a result, we will have an idea generation/brainstorming session to publish a collective note by participants for future female researchers and their institutes. And perhaps we will consider other methods of continuing the discussion on different audio/video media platforms (YouTube/Podcast).
Accepted contributions:
Session 1 Sunday 26 June, 2022, -Dinara Abildenova (Social anthropology and cultural studies)
Contribution short abstract:
What are the pros and cons of doing ethnography at home for woman in Central Asian countries? Is it helpful to avoid conflicts, dangers that we might face? Or is it limitations in data gathering process that we should accept?
Contribution long abstract:
As a woman anthropologist doing ethnography at home means that she is aware of local rules. On the one hand it is beneficial and she does not intervene everyday life of people. On the other hand she knows that opening some doors might put her in danger, and by avoiding opening the doors like that might limit collecting data that helps to see the whole picture. What are the coping mechanisms in situations like this or another related issues where you gender causes limitations in your research?
Aida Aaly Alymbaeva (Independent scholar)
Contribution short abstract:
I reflect on my experience studying society from an ‘insider-outsider’ perspective. The ‘intermediate’ position between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ was challenging often in relation to informants. I suggest reflecting on such challenges become a method of knowledge production about the culture.
Contribution long abstract:
In this paper, I reflect on my experience studying society from an ‘insider-outsider’ perspective. The ‘intermediate’ position between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ in the field was challenging often in relation to informants. I suggest reflecting on such challenges become a method of knowledge production about the culture. The ‘field’ here is understood, socially, as ‘a physical site’ of interaction between people and local combinations of factors and processes, such as identifications, social organizations, administrative and business structure, infrastructures, various social groups, schools and local markets, public places including forms of media and communication (Eidson 2001: 582). They are also sites where certain ideas have been shared and transmitted by a number of people. My reflections on these issues have led me to place my fieldwork and methodological approach within Central Asian studies’ paradigm of ‘centre and periphery'. Two angles are opened up by this paradigm. One is about my own position as a ‘local’ scholar representing a ‘western’ institution, and, through this, the position of Central Asian studies as a whole. The other reflects my informants’ concerns about why there was a scholar studying them, and who was behind her: this opens up a perspective on the hypothetical threats perceived by people in Kyrgyzstan. Such perceptions are among the causes and effects of nationalism. The paper sums up 16 months of ethnographic field study in 2011-12 in rural northern Kyrgyzstan.
Gulzat Baialieva (Asian-Oriental Studies)
Contribution short abstract:
I would like to discuss different roles and ethical issues female researchers encounter in digital and home anthropology
Contribution long abstract:
Drawing from my own research experience I would like to reflect on personal accounts of being a female researcher in Kyrgyzstan. I will bring the issues of positionality, reflexivity and ethics together on two domains: home anthropology and digital ethnography. I have different experiences from being a researcher in these two varying spaces. There is a commonsensical view that studying own community has lots of advantages and a researcher has powerful tools in building trust-based relationships and softening us/them tensions. To what extend is this applicable,? What are the limits and concerns for the female researchers? What is a role of a researcher, is it different in its gendered context and expectations? How different it is if you study "other" communities? How are female researchers perceived in a studied online community? What risks and challenges do they face?
Asking these and other questions I am interested in discussing not only some Kyrgyz gendered norms and restrictions but also look at the insider/outsider perspectives.
Aleksandra Filatova (Narxoz University, Almaty)
Contribution short abstract:
Упоминание позиционности в научных текстах становится закрепленной практикой. Признание того, кто вы есть и как это влияет на вашу работу становится важной частью самого процесса производства знания. Как от этого меняется продукт? Статья, отчет, лекция.
Contribution long abstract:
В ходе мастер-класса я хочу поделиться опытом создания аналитического документа "Точки культурной модернизации в городах КР". Как в формальном документе видна моя феминистическая позиция. Насколько нормировано применение феминитивов в формальных документах и как это влияет на процесс написания, редактирования и публичного обсуждения текстов. Как со-создание знания с респондентами трансформируется в текст отражающий особенность среды и дискурса.