Writing and Research

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Abstract: How do civil society actors in authoritarian states use the internet to mobilize and advocate for rights claims? The internet has changed the patterns of political communication for civil society actors, but the range of tactics used in autocracies remains undertheorized. In this paper, I analyze the activities of Atajurt Eriktileri, a group that petitions the Kazakhstani government on behalf of co-ethnics detained in Xinjiang, China. Empirically, I complement five semi-structured interviews with an interpretive analysis of 3,272 petition videos (an original dataset) posted to Atajurt’s YouTube channel. I identify four visual–discursive patterns and three scripts that characterize the petitions, which speak to Atajurt’s strategy of atomized collective action; this approach helps avoid the repression that comes with more traditional forms of mass mobilization. The hypervisibility of Atajurt’s social media presence challenges the dominant literature on civil society and resistance in authoritarian regimes that emphasizes hidden forms of contention.

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Abstract: What is the mobilizing and meaning-making potential of information and communication technologies (ICT s) in non-democratic regimes? This question has been studied globally, with the Arab Spring heightening the urgency and the stakes for social science theories of digital mobilization. In the semi-authoritarian regimes of Central Asia, where access to the internet has risen dramatically in the last decade, various online platforms have served as stages for state-sponsored identity construction and grassroots debates about memory and belonging. The central aim of this special issue is to advance the region-specific debate about the mobilizing potential of ICT s through detailed case studies and thick descriptions of how these technologies are used by state and non-state actors alike. In this introductory article, the editorial team provides a brief analysis of the existing social science literature on the internet’s role in state–society relations in Central Asia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This essay has two goals: to define the scope of the special issue and to lay out the three key contributions/themes that emerged from the collection of papers in this special issue.

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Abstract: The “hidden curriculum” in academia represents a set of informal norms and rules, expectations, and skills that inform our “ways of doing” academic practice (Calarco 2020). This article suggests that relying on informal networks to provide access to instruction in these skills can reinforce preexisting inequalities in the discipline. Drawing on a pilot program that we developed and implemented in our own department, we provide a model for formalizing instruction and equalizing access to training in these professionalizing skills. Drawing on the literature on inclusive pedagogy, as well as our own implementation experience, we advance four recommendations for scaling and transporting instruction in the “hidden curriculum” to other departments.

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Abstract: Advice for Western women preparing for fieldwork in Central Asia can perpetuate Heathershaw and Megoran’s concept of a “discourse of danger” by emphasizing the region’s obscurity, Orientalism, and fractiousness (2011, 589). In this chapter, I reflect on my experiences conducting fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan as a young woman with a U.S. passport and map lessons learned from three periods of my field training onto the discourse of danger. In recounting my experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer, a graduate student conducting research for the first time in Kyrgyzstan, and a doctoral candidate writing my dissertation with digital methods, I explain how I sought to overcome the discourse of danger. In doing so, I call for patient but counterbalanced listening, both as scholars conducting research in Central Asia and as members of a broader epistemic community marked by deep inequalities.

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What forms of precarity do civil society actors experience in Central Asia? What are the sources of these precarities? In this article, I synthesize literature from political science and development studies to identify five top-down mechanisms of precaritization for civil society: (extra)legal restrictions on operations, financing activities, flows of funding from the Global North, professionalization, and the sociopolitical atmosphere. I draw on twenty-seven interviews with activists and human rights defenders in Kazakhstan to consider how civil society actors navigate structural constraints on their work. In line with the literature on authoritarian regimes, I find that civil society actors who criticize the regime face precarity through coercion and bureaucratic demands. But whereas development studies scholarship has been pessimistic about the effects of professionalization, Kazakhstan's civil society actors see their technical training and pressure to formalize their organizations as beneficial to their reputation and institutional leverage.