Understanding the Violence in Tajikistan ? Registan.net

[NOTE: This is cross-posted from my website, www.sarahkendzior.com, at Nathan's request.? The original entry is here.]

A lot of people have been asking me about the outbreak of violence in Tajikistan so I decided to put together a list of sources and coverage.

The best writer on Tajikistan, in my view, is?Christian Bleuer, a Central Asia expert who is, unlike most academics, a thoughtful and engaging writer.?Here is his blog. Be sure to check out his most recent post,?What?s going on in the mountains of Tajikistan?

Christian also runs?Tajikistan Research Resources, which is an online portal for scholars, researchers, students, journalists, policy-makers, NGO/humanitarian workers, travelers, and others who want to better understand Tajikistan.

Tajikistan has been studied much less than other Central Asian countries, but has been a key research site for a younger generation of Central Asia scholars. Besides Christian, I recommend?Brent Hierman?(political science), Christopher Whitsel (sociology),?Zohra Ismail-Beben?(anthropology) and?Daniel Beben?(history) as sources on Tajikistan. Zohra and Daniel did research in Gorno-Badakhshan, the province where the violence is taking place.

News coverage on the conflict has been better than expected given the difficulty of gathering information in the region. Communications have been cut in Gorno-Badakhshan, a mountainous region which is notoriously difficult to access. Here are a few highlights:

Eurasianet:?Tajikistan: Will Ceasefire End Deadly Conflict in Gorno-Badakhshan?

Economist:?Violence in Tajikistan: The Strongman Cometh

Radio Free Europe:?Explainer: Violence In Tajikistan?s Badakhshan Province A Legacy Of The Civil War

Eurasianet:?Tajikistan Blocks YouTube, Steps Up Info Restrictions After Clashes

On YouTube,?PamirTV?has been uploading video of clashes and television news reports.

I?ll try to update this post as more information comes in.

This post was written by...

Sarah Kendzior ? author of 19 posts on Registan.net.

Sarah Kendzior is an anthropologist who studies politics and the internet in the former Soviet Union. She has a PhD in cultural anthropology from Washington University in Saint Louis and an MA in Central Eurasian Studies from Indiana University. Her research has been published in many academic journals and media outlets, including American Ethnologist, Central Asian Survey, Demokratizatsiya and the Atlantic. She is currently an instructor at Washington University, where she teaches a course called "The Internet, Politics, and Society." Follow her on Twitter.

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