Can Tajikistan's large and growing diasporic population be harnessed to promote alternative visions for the country's future?

Can Tajikistan's large and growing diasporic population be harnessed to promote alternative visions for the country's future?
Uzbekistan watchers must be exhausted with the near-constant flow of news about reforms in the country, but as the reforms appear to be supporting people in the country to live better and happier lives, this is a fatigue worth accepting. I've written a summary of the reforms that are affecting higher education and about a wave …
Continue reading Politics is back (on the curriculum) in Uzbekistan
I realized I didn't blog about a recently published article I co-authored with Prof Creso Sá, my supervisor at the University of Toronto. How remiss of me! (?!) So, let me tell you about our article, The politics of the great brain race: Public policy and international student recruitment in Australia, Canada, England and the USA, …
Continue reading New(ish) publication: The politics of the great brain race
After a break from blogging to attend the recent and quite fantastic World Cup in Russia, I'm back with the good news that I have a new publication out. This is a book chapter co-written with my supervisor Professor Creso Sá and is titled Scientific nationalism in a globalizing world. It's part of a hefty new Handbook …
Continue reading New publication: Scientific nationalism in a globalizing world
Imagine you were unjustly accused of massive corruption and fired from your job. It's an indignity. But then imagine that you've been fighting for well over a decade in no fewer than 14 courts to clear your name, each time with an unsatisfactory ending - or simply no real conclusion at all. During that time, …
In my most recent post, Protests? What protests?, I discussed recent protests both against and in favour of the government in Tajikistan. Following up on this, I want to share an excellent and highly informative article from Russian-language site Fergana News, which Open Democracy has reproduced with permission and translated into English. The article, provocatively called Tajikistan's imitation …
Continue reading Paid to protest: More on student protests in Tajikistan
This mini-series on the year ahead for Central Asia was kicked off with a global analysis of the opportunities and challenges facing the region by Kazakh thinktank Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan (KazISS) and was inspired by two early January stories on the broader future for Central Asia. This second part draws on …
Following on from my post at the beginning of January 2016, Central Asia: what lies ahead?, I'm going to dedicate the rest of this month to thinking about the situation in the region in the coming year. I plan to do this at both a macro (state, regional) level as well as considering the implications at a …
Happy new year! This is my fifth year of blogging on Central Asia, focussing on issues relating to higher education and social change. I open the year with an interesting analytical think piece from global intelligence agency Stratfor that attempts to surmise what the future might hold for the region. It's available on their website …
First, greetings from Canada and a note on the silence on the blog for the past few weeks. After a whirlwind summer taking in three continents and cramming in temporary farewells to family and friends, I have now moved to Toronto, Canada and have started my PhD in Higher Education and Comparative, International & Development Education at …
Continue reading Inter-regional soft power: Kazakhstan and Tajikistan meet again