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  • Mongolian Kazakh Migration (2004-Present)


    Beginning in 2004, I have been conducting research on the transnational migration of Mongolia’s Kazakh population. This is a collaborative project (with geographer Holly Barcus from Macalester College). The Kazakhs are the largest minority group in Mongolia. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Mongolian Kazakhs started to migrate to the newly independent Republic of Kazakhstan, a location that is newly imagined as their homeland. While approximately one-half of the 120,000 Kazakhs in Mongolia migrated to Kazakhstan, as many as one-third later returned to Mongolia. Our project uses a mix of qualitative interviews and quantitative survey to address several different questions. First, we are interested in individual and family decisions to migrate, decisions which involve a complex interplay of individual perceptions, needs, and desires, coupled with the ability (financial, legal) to move, and real or perceived benefits offered at the destination. While recognizing the importance of economic factors, we are also interested in how cultural factors, such as place attachment, influence migration decisions. Second, we are interested in how gender shapes migration decisions and migration impacts. And finally, we are interested in the role that kin-based social networks play in helping to maintain transnational networks and social identities. This project promises to contribute to the interdisciplinary scholarly literature on migration decision-making, with special focus on the migration literature related to immobility and place attachment, gender and transnational migration, social networks and remittances, and migration in post-Soviet settings. This project has been funded by the National Science Foundation, which included funds for a related museum exhibit at the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History. This project has resulted in articles in Asian Ethnicity (forthcoming), Geographische Rundschau, and Migration Letters, and we are currently working on several additional journal articles.


  • Nuclear Testing in Kazakhstan (2001-Present)


    Beginning in 2001, I have been conducting research on the legacy of nuclear testing in northeastern Kazakhstan. This is a collaborative project (with environmental chemist Kathleen Purvis-Roberts at the Claremont Colleges). After World War Two, the Soviet Union developed a major nuclear test site in northeastern Kazakhstan that served as the location for 116 above-ground tests and 340 underground tests between 1949 and 1989. The Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, also known as the Polygon, is a 19,000 square kilometer tract of land situated about 150 km west of Semipalatinsk, a city with approximately 400,000 residents. A number of smaller towns and villages, including Kurchatov (the testing headquarters) and Kainar and Dolon (villages where we conducted interviews), are situated even closer to the test site. Researchers estimate that over one million people have received significant doses of radiation as a result of these nuclear tests. Information about the tests were highly classified until the late Soviet years when Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his glasnost’ policies. Today, many individuals continue to live in areas near the former test site where they are exposed to chronic low dose radiation, and a few individuals engage in high-risk activities, such as mining copper cables from the former test site. Our project involves interviews and surveys with Kazakh and Russian villagers who live near the Polygon, health care workers in the region most affected by nuclear testing, and research scientists who work at the former test site. We are interested in several different questions. First, we are interested in how local understandings of radiation compare to the two “expert” understandings of radiation, as well as how the two expert groups differ in their understandings of radiation and human health. Second, we are interested in the stories that rural residents have to share about their memories of nuclear testing and their memories of a state that sacrificed their health in the name of national security. And, finally, we are interested in the politics of nuclear testing in the present, as the victims of nuclear testing struggle to find justice in the form of compensation, quality health care, and international aid. Our project contributes to interdisciplinary studies of risk perception; and science, technology and society. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER), the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and the National Research Council. Our publications have appeared in Risk Analysis, Central Asian Survey, Central Eurasian Studies Review, and a volume entitled Half-Lives and Half-Truths (edited by Barbara Johnston), and we are currently working on a book manuscript.


  • Bride Abduction (2000-2008)


    I became fascinated with the subject of bride abduction (bride kidnapping) while conducting dissertation research in southern Kazakhstan. In 2000, I pursued this interest during several months of additional fieldwork in the region. My research on this subject has examined the extent to which bride abduction cases vary greatly in terms of the motive of kidnapping and the level of consent. Motives range from saving money and/or saving time to being a way to marry a woman who would otherwise object. Many abducted “brides” do in fact agree to stay due to social pressure from relatives on both sides and the shame that would befall them if they rejected their suitor. My research has also examined how discourses of shame and tradition have helped men assert greater control over female sexuality and female mobility in the post-Soviet period. This project has been primarily funded by a grant from Texas A&M University. My publications on this subject have appeared in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute and a volume entitled Transformations of Central Asian States (edited by Pauline Jones-Luong).


  • International Tourism Development (2001-2002)


    After teaching a class at Pitzer College on the Anthropology of Tourism, I worked on a short-term project to examine the development of tourism in Central Asia, namely Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The interplay between “hosts” and “guests,” and the impact of tourism on “host” communities, have been recurring themes in the anthropological literature on tourism. While the twin concepts of “hosts” and “guests” are routinely cited, scholars recognize that these categories have several limitations. The use of these terms glosses over the wide variation that exists in the tourist experience for both guests and hosts, and unfortunately ignores an important group of actors, known as “mediators,” who actively promote and develop tourist destinations. My research focused on the role of tourist mediators in the development of international tourism in both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The role of tourism mediators in these countries is particularly important because neither country is very well known in the Western tourist-generating countries, and unlike neighboring Uzbekistan, neither country inherited a well-developed tourist infrastructure from the Soviet state. In addition to cultivating a positive image of a new tourist destination, tour operators in Central Asia are working hard to develop adequate tourist accommodations, to create tourist itineraries, and to influence government institutions that support and regulate tourism. These mediators, however, interact with each other in an industry that is rife with conflict, competition and cooperation. This research project was funded by a grant from Texas A&M University, and resulted in a publication in the journal Ethnology.


  • Market Women on the "New Silk Road" (1998-2000)


    This is a project that developed directly out of my dissertation research. The project involved further exploration of one important survival strategy in the post-socialist transition period, and that is the mass development of “shuttle trade” and the dominance of this trade by women. My research focused on market women living in rural regions of southern Kazakhstan. While some women sold home-produced goods, most of these women acquired their trade goods from wholesale markets within Kazakhstan and a few travelled across international borders (including the Uzbekistan border) to purchase clothing and food items to sell in local, rural bazaars. My research examines the ways in which these trade activities affect the lives of women and their families, and the ways in which gender ideologies are transformed by the emergence of this trade. This project was supported by grants from Texas A&M University, in addition to grants that supported by dissertation research. This project has resulted in publications in a volume entitled Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition and a volume entitled Gender at Work in Economic Life.


  • Gift Exchange & Social Networking (1993-1997)


    My dissertation project focused on household survival strategies in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, with a special focus on early transition years. During the course of dissertation (1993-1995) and post-dissertation research (1998-2000), I lived with a Kazakh family in a rural region of Southern-Kazakhstan oblast for a total of eighteen months. I was mostly interested in how rural families were coping with the hardships they encountered during the early transition years, including high rates of inflation, unemployment, and increasing social stratification. I was especially fascinated by their ability to maintain family obligations to sponsor and attend large family celebrations for weddings, male circumcision, and other special occasions. Equally important were the significant values that were being exchanged in the form of gifts. My dissertation explained that gift exchange allowed families to maintain social networks that were invaluable for daily survival in the post-Soviet economy. This project was funded by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Social Science Research Council. My publications include articles in Central Asian Survey, Human Organization, Culture and Agriculture, Islamic Quarterly, and Central Asian Monitor. I am currently working on a book manuscript that combines a revised version of my dissertation and post-dissertation research.