|
 |
|
|
The Stockholm-Tsukuba International Program for Central Asian Studies is an inter-institutional research environment established for the training of future scholars in the young and still developing discipline of Central Asian Studies. Given the research agenda supporting this enterprise, the combination of cultural-historical and socio-political premises for the analysis of present-day processes in and around the Central Asian region is considered to be an especially fertile method of scientific research and the east-west perspective enabled through participating institutions a sine qua non for a profound understanding of Central Asian societies and their consolidation as sovereign political units in the post-Soviet era. Research and training will be focused not on the state level, but on the regional and local-community level. The role of language is given special prominence.
Central Asia is a vast region combining European culture and European-style policies with Asian identities and world-views, without either of which the study of the nature of Central Asian society becomes one-sided and too simplistic. The immediate strength of the Stockholm-Tsukuba program for Central Asian Studies is that it offers a united European-Asian research perspective through the exchange of students, scholars and research results.
Institutions participating in this program will mutually benefit from, on the one hand, the development and enhancement of curricula for graduate studies and, on the other, joint fieldwork in Central Asia involving not only the Stockholm and Tsukuba institutions but also partner institutions in the region.
The program is administrated and coordinated by:
Birgit Schlyter |
Birgit Schlyter
Director of the Department of South and Central Asian Studies, University of Stockholm, and Research Fellow at the Swedish Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. |
Timur Dadabaev |
Timur Dadabaev
Director of Central Asian Studies at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba, and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters and the Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo. |
A grant for the development of long-term cooperation between the Stockholm and Tsukuba universities within the framework of this program for the promotion of Central Asian Studies has been provided by The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT).
Ph.D Students
Mika Inoue, Ph. D. Cand.
Adjunct Lecturer, Graduate School of Area Studies, University of Tsukuba
22 February - 6 March, 2008
Visit to the Department of South and Central Asian Studies at stockholm University for work on Comparison of UN Approaches to Conflicts in Afghanistan and Somalia
Outline and Purpose of the Research
Conflicts in "failed states" contain tremendous challenges of internal, regional and international nature, such as abuse of human rights and destabilization of the political, social, economic situation. Resolving and preventing these conflicts is one of the most important and urgent tasks that the international community is destined to confront in the nearest decades. My research aims to contribute to this task through the analysis of "UN peace operations" ", which mainly refer to peacekeeping, peacemaking, post-conflict peace building and conflict prevention. Research into the UN efforts and errors in responding to the complex internal conflicts offers much needed lessons to further public understanding on how the international community should achieve the peace, order and security. From this point of view, the urgency of such research is justified by the essentiality to minimize further mistakes and by the importance to equip the international community with new means to deal with situations in "failed states". The end of the 20th century witnessed a shift in the nature of conflicts resulting in a more complex web of conflicts based on ethnic, cultural and identity differences, intolerance and discrimination. Such inter-ethnic, inter-clan and religious tensions take the shape of internal confrontations that fatally endanger human security both at the national and local level. On many occasions, this also worsens regional prospects for peace and results in inter-state confrontation, requiring the intervention of the international community. In most cases, such conflicts take place in societies where there is no state to pacify such tensions and unify people. Preventing and resolving such conflicts is a challenge to the UN ever since the end of the Cold War. However, is the UN capable to successfully accomplish this task? Does this capacity to intervene and pacify conflicts in so-called "failed states" evolve with the years of the UN involvement? If not, what is lacking for such UN evolution and learning to succeed? In order to deal with these questions, this research uses the comparative analysis of the UN involvement in Somalia and Afghanistan drawing lessons from the UN involvement in Somalia for contemporary UN Peace Operations in Afghanistan. After the UN involvement in Somalia, peacekeeping has been deployed for localizing and resolving internal conflicts and aiming to minimize human suffering and reconstruct nations. This deployment had two new features: use of force and cooperation with regional organizations. In this research, the case of Afghanistan is placed as an arriving point and a result of UN efforts to use its experiences from its involvement in and after Somalia. From this point of view, this research into the cases of Somalia and Afghanistan does not only serve the purpose of analyses of the change of UN Peace Operations throughout the decades of their deployment but also the role of the UN as an actor changing the international norms such as the use of force for the maintenance of international peace and security. Furthermore, an investigation of the UN role in the area of peacekeeping closely relates to the overall task of dealing with and maintaining political, economic and social stability in Central Asia as well as Africa. To a great extent, the formulation of a theoretical framework of the thesis by reviewing literature has finished to this point. What now needs to be done is to explore the details and conclude observations about how lessons from the UN involvement in Somalia can be used to improve its capacity to achieve durable peace in the situations of internal but internationalizing conflicts including Afghanistan. In this regard, this task will be accomplished by firstly, analyzing the way the UN assesses its operations in Somalia and Afghanistan by interviewing and exchanging views with scholars and practitioners with academic interest or practical experience in peace studies and conflict resolution. Importantly, for an empirical analysis, the multiplicity of the views on this issue from both practitioners and researchers will ensure the bridging the gap between theory and practice. In this regard, this process has already started with several interviews in Europe and the U.S. already conducted. Through the Stockholm-Tsukuba Partnership framework, I hope to conduct further interviews with researchers in Sweden, especially at Stockholm University and SIPRI.
(A brief account of the stay at Stockholm University will be added
Masters Students
Henrik Ohlsson
Department of South and Central Asian Studies, Stockholm University
Master´s thesis:
Islam and Secular State in Uzbekistan:
State Control of Religion and its Implications for the Understanding of Secularity
Abstract
Since independence religion, particularly Islam has acquired a completely new role in the nation-building process in Uzbekistan. The government now embraces Islam as a national heritage and a moral guideline. This has meant an upsurge in Islamic activity, but also, after a few years of tumult in the early 1990s, a tightening government control of religious education and practice. Islamic societies have historically, for the most part, lacked central canonizing bodies. However, with the political developments of the last century, along with the emergence of fundamentalism, governments in Muslim countries have begun to feel a need for a stricter central control of religion. As the title of my master´s thesis indicates, the aim of this research work is to examine the official structures that control religion in contemporary Uzbekistan and to determine what this control means for the understanding of secularism. My central question can be put as follows: Has a new form of canonization in Islam begun to take shape within the framework of the nation state? And, more specifically, are the state institutions of religious affairs in Uzbekistan to be considered religious, and thus canonizing bodies, or are they part of the secular state structure? In my thesis I will present some of the basic problems one has to face in attempting to understand secularity in a post Soviet society with a predominantly Muslim population, along with a brief account for the religious situation in present day Uzbekistan and the official structure that controls religion in the country. I will look into some theories of secularization and see how they apply to the situation in Uzbekistan, and discuss the general problems arising from the fact that most theories of secularization are based on the experiences of predominantly Christian societies. I will also examine the secularity dichotomy proposed by Ahmet T. Kuru - passive vs. assertive - where passive implies state neutrality and non-interference with religion, and assertive an ambition, on the part of the state, to confine religion to the private sphere.
Report on a field trip to Uzbekistan, March-April, 2008
In the spring of 2008 I spent two months in Uzbekistan to collect material for my master´s dissertation. The aim of my inquiry is to examine the official structures that control religion in contemporary Uzbekistan, and what this control means for the understanding of secularism. During my stay in Tashkent I received much help from French Research Institute IFEAC. Through contacts introduced to me by the institute, I got an opportunity to visit the office of the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan, the official body to which all mosques and institutes for Islamic education in the country must be affiliated. There I met with an employee of the board, manager of the "Specialized Fund" for the restoration of sacred and historical sites. This, together with discussions with both Uzbek and foreign academics, gave me some insight into the structure and functions of the official bodies that exercise control over religion in Uzbekistan and into the official thinking on issues such as religious fundamentalism, proselytising and the role and status of Islam in the country. I spent some time in the IFEAC library going through volumes compiled after conferences held in Uzbekistan in recent years concerning Islam and the secular state. I also looked through some legal material (the Uzbek constitution and penal code) with regard to paragraphs concerning religion. In the last few weeks of my stay, I took some time to travel around in the Central Asian region for visits to important religious sites. Among the places I visited were the Mausoleum of Baha al-Din Naqshband in Bukhara, the Mausoleum of Ahmad Yasawi in Turkestan and the sacred mountain Takht-i Suleyman in Osh. These visits were too short to allow for any deeper inquiries, but they gave me some first-hand experience of popular religious practices
Conferences, Courses, Venues
2007December
- Central Asian Studies Conference: History, Politics and Society
Tsukuba 14-17 december
Conference program and additional information on the conference: Tsukuba.pdf
From the Conference Program: Panel on Language Policy organized by Birgit Schlyter, Stockholm
Reports and abstracts from the conference:
Newsletter part 1 part 2
2008March
October
- Joint Stockholm-Tsukuba workshop on Central Asian History - Vision and Revision, 1-2 October, at the University of Stockholm.
Program with an introduction by Birgit N. Schlyter
- Joint Stockholm-Tsukuba-Tokyo course on Islam in Central Asia at Stockholm, 3-7 October, under the supervision of Prof. Hisao Komatsu (Head of Islamic Area Studies Program, Tokyo) and co-taught by Prof. Timur Dadabaev and lecturers from Sweden.
November
2009Mars
- PUBLICATIONS:
Central Asian World (newsletter): Joint Issue of University of Tsukuba, International Center for Central Asian Research and Education, Stockholm University (STINT Program), and Islamic Area Studies, University of Tokyo, 2/2008 (Maarch).
(In the series of)
Asian Cultures and Modernity Research Reports (from the depts of Oriental Languages and Political Science, Stockholm University, editor-in-chief Birgit N. Schlyter):
No. 15, November 2008
Natural-Gas Trade between Russian, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine: Agreements and Disputes
Michael Fredholm
No. 16, December 2008
The World of Central Asian Oil and Gas: Power Politics, Market Forces, and Stealth Pipelines
Michael Fredholm
Juntunen, Mirja, Uday Narayan Singh, Kikkeri Narayan, and Birgit Schlyter (eds), Competing Language Loyalties in South and Central Asia: Theories and Case Studies
Proceedings from a workshop held at CIIL (Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore) jointly organised by the Department of South and Central Asian Studies, Stockholm University, and the Nordic Centre in India, in cooperation with University of Tsukuba, Japan, 4-6 March 2008, to be published in 2009. From the content:
CENTRAL ASIAN CASE STUDIES
SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET LANGUAGE POLICY IN TWO REPUBLICS:
A COMPARISON OF KAZAKHSTAN AND AZERBAIJAN
William Fierman, Indiana University, USA
THE STATUS OF UZBEK AS ‘NATIONAL LANGUAGE’
Birgit N. Schlyter, Stockholm University, Sweden
SOCIAL AND LINGUISTIC RESEARCH INTO THE SITUATION IN THE KYRGYZ CITIES OF BISHKEK, KARAKOL AND OSH
Toshinobu Usuyama, University of Tsukuba, Japan
- Central Asia between Russia and China: local strategies and perspectives on the new Great Game
Marlene Laurelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, PhD, Senior Research Fellows, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University (Washington DC)
Date & time: Wednesday March 25, 15-17
Place: Auditorium, Kräftriket 4A, Stockholm University
(0,8 km south of the subway/T-bana "Universitet" Stockholm University Frescati;
"Albano" by bus 40, 70 or 670; see http://www.su.se/pub/jsp7d=2486a?45692)
Language: English
Welcome!
May
- The Stockholm-Tsukuba International Program for Central Asian Studies
Intensive course on
Borders and Boundaries from a modern sociocultural perspective,
29 April till 7 May, 2009
COURSE PROGRAM
29 April, 10-12 Introduction for students enrolled at Stockholm University
Birgit Schlyter
4 May, 10-11 The Theoretical Framework
Birgit Schlyter, Timur Dadabaev
11-13 Pre-Soviet Border Issues in Central Asia
Konuralp Ercilasun
14-16 Border Institutionalization and Identity in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia
Guljanat Kurmangaliyeva Ercilasun
5 May, 10-12 Borders in Inter-State Relations
Timur Dadabaev
13-16 Round Table: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the European Union: Similarities and Dissimilarities
Moderator: Merrick Tabor
Introduction by Marianne Laanatza
6 May, 10-12 Seminar with Master students
7 May, 10-12 Water Management and the Institutionalization of Borders
Timur Dadabaev
13-15 Summaries and discussion with students
- Panel Discussion
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the European Union: Similarities and Dissimilarities
Introduction by: Marianne Laanatza.
Foreign guests:
Timur Dadabaev, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Guljanat Kurmngalieva Ercilasun, University of Maltepe, Turkey
Konuralp Ercilasun, University of Maltepe, Turkey
Moderator: Merrick Tabor
Date: Tuesday, 5 May 2009, 13-16 hrs.
Address: Kräftriket 4A, Room 136.
Welcome!
ForSCASS - the extended Central Asian Studies network
Information
| Birgit N. Schlyter |
| Program Director |
| Department of South and Central Asian Studies, Stockholm University |
| birgit.schlyter@orient.su.se |
| +46-8-16 3119 |
|
| Timur Dadabaev |
| Deputy Program Director |
| Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba |
| dadabaev@chiiki.tsukuba.ac.jp |
| +81-29-853-4773 |
|
| Sharofathon Nozimova |
| Assistant |
| Department of South and Central Asian Studies, Stockholm University |
| rahatlukum@gmail.com |
| +46-8-16 1784 |
|
 
|
|
| |
|
|
|
