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.
Literary Representations of Early-Soviet Dushanbe, with Rebecca Ciattini
In this episode, Paolo is speaking to Rebecca Ciattini, a doctoral candidate at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
Rebecca has authored "A City with Two Lifetimes": Urban Poetics of Early Soviet Stalinobod (https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiac/article/view/3523), an exploration of poems written about Dushanbe when it had just become the capital of the Tajik SSR in 1924.
In the article, she shows the interplay between literary texts and dynamics of urbanization of a village-turned-capital.
For this literary analysis, Rebecca made extensive use of archival material in Dushanbe, an experience that sits at the core of our conversation.
26 Aug 2026
Researching Kyrgyzstan’s Economy at the Edge of the Law, with Gulzat Botoeva
In this episode, Paolo is speaking to Gulzat Botoeva, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Swansea.
Gulzat has authored a number of publications focusing on the blurry border between legality and illegality in local communities in Kyrgyzstan, looking at several economic sectors, but especially hashish harvesting and small-scale gold mining.
The first one we discuss is her 2019 article, titled Multiple narratives of il/legality and im/morality: The case of small-scale hashish harvesting in Kyrgyzstan (https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/106714265/Small_scale_gold_mining_communities_in_Kyrgyzstan_Botoeva-libre.pdf?1697616324=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DSmall_scale_mining_communities_in_Kyrgyz.pdf&Expires=1780227888&Signature=XZvNq7Sj-jCPfaacDGKDh3CFhFp0CP4a1jh0xWmkB16N6E2ghp9Wb~XXueOx5r1bPCOmz3OPnPAfj6eS7OlNirc1CF7TYcBwy5VnPQqjZYyA2tOlsm5Yk4cjU9iR8Kx7XaHZrm4AFxzl402zrjnfXP7FCCKN-R-pvh-Er1ksbC2Vg9yx8hqOdaf9UVAYoS78yq0Nnrjkv1al9LCTWfAxS5mmtJNK4OmyzE7OHRHT1ojemXcWRd8N7742d~oJU7jI4kcu2xqEutGABhneGP8Z5gzi0~OcsCR~qq8zEVm-yuldplpCp1w0gx3BW0w79kCJu5DQF9EC2dXjdkMy26bcTg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA), which asks how certain economic activities are fully outside the law and yet a key part of local economies.
Following this successful fieldwork experience, Gulzat went on to also research the underground gold industry, the findings of which we discuss from her 2023 article Small-scale mining communities in Kyrgyzstan: Torn between extraction projects (https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/61486815/Botoeva_19_Multiple_narratives_of_illegality_and_immorality-_The_case_of_small-scale_hashish_harvesting_in_Kyrgyzstan-libre.pdf?1576084968=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DMultiple_narratives_of_il_legality_and_i.pdf&Expires=1780227895&Signature=MY-7nWYTQf1Td-IxnKBJYoSsTTpLi1Uus15OdGzc3NtuyXjqK-kwqkbqVDfXUyf4qbG6zMwbolutL0t3SwwJSWHZJM4y5rTCAni5lQ3LKm3RCRou8DCfw1D1gLPiVpXTVJ1aZHZdmz23z6NiNPa0a2XrW0Nil~106mbaFspu9dl0epSxxXowDUO1idCirUMzdSgfRXmwoXJzHi0qD8-ZcE1EA~CUCyqksJviz4sdeyWiJ632uj1Br2JmtwjmkjhMHGqPjoxxU937bdiPKgwu-ZRH8ej0oyu9C1qic34eb2GO9Kj2mrr7mhzYqUaPvFZvju0aID~Ilok1XVYf0jY3ow__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA).
As she explains in our chat, this kind of community-centered economic activity is considered “work” by those engaged in it, despite it being completely outside the law — like the hashish farming of her earlier study.
8 Jul 2026
China’s Influence in Central Asia, with Edward Lemon and Bradley Jardine
In this episode, Paolo is speaking to Edward Lemon and Bradley Jardine, the authors of Backlash: China’s Struggle for Influence in Central Asia (https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/backlash/) (Hurst 2025).
Edward is an Assistant Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on Central Asia, particularly Tajikistan, with interests spanning security, authoritarianism, and academic freedom.
Bradley is the Managing Director of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs (https://oxussociety.org/). He previously studied at Xinhua University in China, and his research examines China's growing role across Central Asia and the wider Eurasian region.
Their data analysis and all-encompassing research spanned more than a decade and their fieldwork was conducted across multiple countries in the region.
In our conversation, we talk about the image of China in Central Asia, anti-Chinese protests, soft power and surveillance.
12 May 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 open access (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)].
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 What’s in a Job? – Rethinking Labour, Gender, and Precarity in Central Asia (https://link.springer.com/book/9783032236753) – 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.
13 Apr 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 Making Migrants: International Migration Management in Tajikistan (https://www.pennpress.org/9781512829044/making-migrants/). Malika has also authored a number of academic articles, and in this episode we will discuss one in particular, Subaltern citizenship: naturalization and belonging for New Russian citizens from Central Asia (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13621025.2024.2428667), 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.
6 Mar 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: Researching authoritarian smart cities from below (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/29768640251375573) (2025), From Old to New Colonial Dependencies: Public Perceptions of Chinese Surveillance Cameras in Central Asia (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spsr.12655) (2025), Fieldwork Under Surveillance: A Research Note (https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/16455) (2023), From Romantic Advances to Cyberstalking in the Field (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-39024-1_11) (2023).
Dapter is hosted by Vlast.kz (https://vlast.kz/english/), 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 patreon.com/vlastkz (http://patreon.com/vlastkz).
15 Feb 2026
Researching Polygyny in Kazakhstan, with Hélène Thibault
In this episode, Paolo speaks to Dr. Hélène Thibault, associate professor of political science at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, whose work explores religion, secularism, and the Soviet legacy.
Hélène has lived and worked in Kazakhstan for a decade and her research has focused, also through ethnography, on gender dynamics in Central Asia, more specifically, marriage, sex work, and domestic violence.
At the crossroads between sociology, anthropology, and political studies, Hélène’s work on gender dynamics is best introduced with the short piece The Many Faces of Polygyny in Kazakhstan (https://centralasiaprogram.org/publications-all/the-many-faces-of-polygyny-in-kazakhstan-2/), which is today’s main topic. In this episode, we will also focus on her more recent research (https://theconversation.com/au-kazakhstan-le-debat-brulant-sur-le-mariage-polygame-270505) and publications (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-19-4328-7) focusing on Kazakhstan and the wider Central Asian region.
Dapter is hosted by Vlast.kz (https://vlast.kz/english/), 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 patreon.com/vlastkz (http://patreon.com/vlastkz)
1 Jan 2026
Researching Extractive Industries in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, with Asel Doolotkeldieva
In this episode, Paolo speaks to Asel Doolotkeldieva, a research fellow at the University of Potsdam in Germany, whose work explores the intersection of political conflict and extractivism in Kyrgyzstan, and more recently, across Central Asia.
Asel has a couple of decades of experience researching the political ecology of large-scale extraction and how it affects domestic societies and local communities.
Asel expanded her focus to encompass the geopolitical encroachment of foreign powers in Central Asia's mining projects and whether the role of Russia, China, or the EU led to "variegated sovereignty" perceptions among the local population.
At the crux of domestic and global politics, corporate power, and global capital, some of Asel's work can be accessed online in open access. This episodes focuses mostly on the article Mining for Norms: International Extractivism, Chinese Business, and the Indeterminacy of Compliance in Kyrgyzstan (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/rego.70061), but also touches on her more recent research endeavors in Kazakhstan.
Dapter is hosted by Vlast.kz (https://vlast.kz/english/), 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 patreon.com/vlastkz (https://www.patreon.com/vlastkz)
1 Dec 2025
How Kazakhstan Gave Up The Bomb, with Togzhan Kassenova
In this episode, Paolo speaks to Togzhan Kassenova, author of Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb, taking listeners into two of the most consequential chapters of Kazakhstan’s modern history, the country’s experience under the Soviet nuclear testing program, and its decision to give up nuclear weapons after independence.
As Togzhan explains, her extensive fieldwork made the book possible — it was both conducting archival research in the US and Russia and speaking to policymakers, diplomats, and nuclear test survivors in Kazakhstan that allowed that allowed her to properly tell the country’s nuclear story
Atomic Steppe has gone on to become part of a renewed cultural discourse regarding Kazakhstan’s Soviet past and its current post-independence identity. This episode examines both the making of the book and the research journey behind it.
Dapter is hosted by Vlast.kz (http://vlast.kz), 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 patreon.com/vlastkz (https://www.patreon.com/vlastkz)
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