Where can I listen to this podcast?

This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.

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Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

Dapter – For Research in Central Asia

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by Dapter

6 episodes

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Podcast Overview

Welcome to Dapter, a new podcast for research in Central Asia bringing you the voices of scholars who have explored this region in their academic journeys, hosted by Paolo Sorbello, Vlast.kz’s English-language editor. “Dapter” is the Kazakh word for notebook—the companion of all researchers doing fieldwork in Central Asia. This podcast opens that notebook, featuring scholars reflecting on the stories behind their work in Central Asia and discussing what their research reveals about the region’s past, present, and future.

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Publishing Since

12/1/2025

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Recent Episodes

May 12, 2026

Private Farmers vs. Landless Peasants in Rural Uzbekistan, with Franco Galdini

In this episode, Paolo is speaking to Dr. Franco Galdini, a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Birmingham.A political economy scholar, Franco is the author of “Rise of the Surplus Population? Land Decollectivization, Class Stratification, and Labor Precarization in Uzbekistan,” an article published by International Labor and Working Class History, a leading journal in labor studies, in a 2023 special issue [available in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history/article/rise-of-the-surplus-population-land-decollectivization-class-stratification-and-labor-precarization-in-uzbekistan/DDDDA93CE05A574913F9153BE484CF01">open access</a>].His fieldwork experience in Uzbekistan helped him track the transformation from full employment and low migration during Soviet times to the mass informalization of economic activity and rural outmigration after independence – a phenomenon he has written extensively about.Franco is also a co-editor, together with Eugenia Pesci, of <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/9783032236753">What’s in a Job? – Rethinking Labour, Gender, and Precarity in Central Asia</a> – an edited volume that will be published in July by Springer. In our conversation, we talk about the effects of decollectivization, which created a new class of landless peasants that are often employed as day laborers. As we’ll hear, the economic consequence was the class stratification of Uzbek society, especially in rural areas.

April 13, 2026

The Toil of Tajikistan’s Migrant Workers, with Malika Bahovadinova

In this episode, Paolo is speaking to Dr. Malika Bahovadinova, lecturer in International Studies at Leiden University.Malika is an anthropologist who conducted extensive fieldwork in Tajikistan during her doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships focusing on global migration management practices. For her ethnographic research, she did participant observation, embedding herself for extended periods of time with the International Organisation for Migration. She is the author of a new book published this year by the University of Pennsylvania Press, titled <a href="https://www.pennpress.org/9781512829044/making-migrants/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Making Migrants: International Migration Management in Tajikistan</a>. Malika has also authored a number of academic articles, and in this episode we will discuss one in particular, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13621025.2024.2428667">Subaltern citizenship: naturalization and belonging for New Russian citizens from Central Asia</a>, published in 2024. In our conversation, we try to unpick one of the main focuses of both the article and the book: the politics of representation involving migrants from Central Asia, that is, how the social group of migrant workers gets classified, and then how that classification is produced and reproduced over time. As we’ll hear, these questions of representation are often entangled in geopolitical and postcolonial power relations.

March 6, 2026

Smart Cities and Surveillance in Central Asia, with Jasmin Dall’Agnola

In this episode, Paolo speaks to Dr. Jasmin Dall’Agnola, external lecturer in smart city and surveillance studies at the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich, about her work researching smart cities in Central Asia as well as her reflections on doing fieldwork under surveillance. Jasmin has done extensive fieldwork across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan during her doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships. Her work has focused on technology adoption, Chinese surveillance cameras, and authoritarian practices in Central Asia. In several other publications, she has also written about regional-specific research methodologies and fieldwork ethics. Some of her open-access publications we touch upon during our conversation are: <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/29768640251375573">Researching authoritarian smart cities from below</a> (2025), <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spsr.12655">From Old to New Colonial Dependencies: Public Perceptions of Chinese Surveillance Cameras in Central Asia</a> (2025), <a href="https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/16455">Fieldwork Under Surveillance: A Research Note</a> (2023), <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-39024-1_11">From Romantic Advances to Cyberstalking in the Field</a> (2023). Dapter is hosted by <a href="https://vlast.kz/english/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Vlast.kz</a>, produced by Oliver Fisk, and features music and design by Daniyar Mussirov. Tune in next month for a new episode, spread the word to your colleagues, and send us some love and support at <a href="http://patreon.com/vlastkz">patreon.com/vlastkz</a>.

6 total episodes available

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Frequently asked questions

Have a different question and can't find the answer you're looking for? Reach out to our support team by sending us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

What is Dapter – For Research in Central Asia?: Welcome to Dapter, a new podcast for research in Central Asia bringing you the voices of scholars who have explored this region in their academic journeys, hosted by Paolo Sorbello, Vlast.kz’s English-language editor.

“Dapter” is the Kazakh word for notebook—the companion of all researchers doing fieldwork in Central Asia. This podcast opens that notebook, featuring scholars reflecting on the stories behind their work in Central Asia and discussing what their research reveals about the region’s past, present, and future.
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates daily.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

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