Anna Horolets

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Anna Horolets 

Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities 

[e-mail]

 

 

 

Socio-Cultural Anthropology in Central Asia 

Preliminary Report (draft version, please do not cite or quote) 

 

ANTHROPOLOGY IN SPAIN AND IN EUROPE. 

Facing the Challenges of European Convergence in Higher Education and in Research.  

A Review of the Fields of Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology. 

September 2-5, Madrid 

 

 

Introductory remarks 

 

Prior to presenting some of the preliminary findings on the state of socio-cultural 

anthropology in Central Asia two disclaimers need to be made. First, the countries of the 

region (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) with their 

respective traditions of anthropology/ethnology are not equally represented in this report, my 

main “case” is the state of social/cultural anthropology in Kyrgyzstan. I take into 

consideration some data from Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan. There is much less 

information on Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in this report. The reasons for this bias are two-

fold. On the one hand, the bias stems from the distribution of the discipline in the region: 

Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia seem to be pioneering the introduction of socio-cultural 

anthropology of the western type, Kazakhstan and perhaps Uzbekistan occupy an intermediate 

position as countries that have several ethnological academic institutions but no representation 

of socio-cultural anthropology, while in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan the discipline (even in 

the form of ethnology) is hardly present. On the other hand, the focus on Kyrgyzstan stems 

from my own possibilities of access to the field. 

Second, while undertaking preliminary research I mainly relied on the internet and less 

on published sources; several interviews with the representatives of the discipline via 

telephone (with Madeleine Reeves) or e-mail (with Emil Nasritdinov) have been conducted; I 

was also privileged to receive much support and the assistance of Stanislav Khorolets and 

Galina Melnikova, who conducted several interviews in Kyrgyzstan in June and July 2008. 

The broader study including interviews with anthropologists, study of the state of library 

collections, publishing initiatives, museums etc. in (some of) the countries of Central Asian 

would produce a more nuanced and complete account.