Central Asian studies: multidisciplinarity and connections of a field

These study days are organized by GIS MOMM and CeRMI, in collaboration with CREE, IFEAC and ZooStan. They are funded by GIS MOMM, with support from the PaleoCALM project (ANR).
Carte ancienne géographique en noir et blanc
Carte de l'Asie centrale par M. J. Klaproth, 1828. © Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF‎

Remote follow-up link for the two study days ici

Scientific event summary

The days devoted to Central Asian studies "pluridisciplinarity and connections of a field" are organized as part of the activities of the GIS Middle East and Muslim Worlds, in partnership with the Centre de recherche sur le Monde iranien (CeRMI), the Institut français d'études sur l'Asie (IFEAC), the Centre d'archéologie de l'Asie centrale Zoostan (CNRS, KazNU) and the CREE. They follow on from the meeting held in February 2023 entitled "Central Asian studies: scientific dynamics, new research contexts".

With a view to reinforcing the structuring of the field, the study days aim to promote Central Asian studies by reporting on their dynamism and diversity, to bring together its various disciplines and components, and to provide a moment for exchanges between researchers involved in work on the region. Central Asia is understood in a broad geographical sense, stretching from Iran to Mongolia and from Afghanistan to Russia.

These meetings will showcase ongoing research across the broad spectrum of the human and social sciences, from antiquity to the present day, on themes as diverse as heritage, religion, power, territory, social relations, circulations, the digital, climate change, critical approaches, and so on.

Program

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2024

- 9am: Opening: Frédéric Abécassis (ENS Lyon, director of GIS MOMM), Maria Szuppe (CNRS, director of CeRMI), Julien Vercueil (vice-president of Inalco) (to be confirmed)

- 9:30am-11am: Panel 1 - Exploring family, age and gender: anthropological perspectives

Moderation: Catherine Poujol (Inalco, CREE)

  • Swetlana Torno (Max Planck Institute, Göttingen): "Le care intergénérationnel, citoyenneté et construction de l'avenir: Contempler la mobilité des seniors tadjiks entre le Tadjikistan et la Russie"
  • Richelli Afonso (EHESS, CERCEC): "Balayeuses et jardinières de Douchanbé: Village trajectories at the heart of two urban professions in Tajikistan"
  • Guéorgui Mory (EHESS, CERCEC): "Normative pluralism and state power: regulating polygamy in Uzbekistan"

- 11:00-11:30: Break

- 11:30-12:30: Panel 2 - Epigraphic sources for the ancient and medieval history of Central Asia

Moderation: Maria Szuppe (CNRS, CeRMI)

  • Danielle Zwarthoed (EHESS, CETOBAC): "Circulations and migrations in Timurid Central Asia (second half of the IXe/XVe century): A "history from below" through epistolary writing practices"
  • Arnaud Bertrand (Musée Guimet), Olivier Bordeaux (CNRS, ArScAn), Christophe Decoudun (ANR FRONTIER), Maxim Korolkov (Universität Heidelberg): "Central Asia, frontier of the west in the Chinese texts of Xuanquan"

- 12:30pm-2pm: Lunch

- 2pm-3pm: Panel 3 - Historiography and corpus of the pre-Mongol and Mongol periods

Moderation: Simon Berger (CNRS, CeRMI)

  • Sébastien Gréal(Inalco / La Sapienza, Rome): "Nouveaux recollements, identifications et reconstitution de fragments des manuscrits de l'expédition Pelliot. Homage to Takao Moriyasu (1948-2024)"
  • Matthieu Chochoy (Université Côte d'Azur, CMMC):"From Joseph de Guignes' "Tartar nation" to René Grousset's "Turko-Mongolian race": two centuries of the study of Central Asia in France"

- 3pm-4pm: Panel 4 - Modeling the city, shaping institutions in contemporary Central Asia (late 20th-early 21st)

Moderation: Adrien Fauve (Université Paris-Saclay, IEDP)

  • Marat Absattarov (Université Lumière Lyon 2): "Les dynamiques informelles dans l'élection du Président du Sénat kazakh"
  • Paul Wolkenstein (Inalco, CREE): "Brezhnevian operations of architecture and urban planning in Central Asian capitals"

- 16h-16h30 : Pause

- 16h30-17h30 : Panel 5 - Economy and politics of water resources through time

Moderation: Isabelle Ohayon (CNRS, CERCEC)

  • Elodie Brisset (Aix Marseille Université, CEREGE): "A century of agropastoral and forest resource management in the Uzbek mid-mountain region through the prism of the study of the sedimentary filling of Lake Kanbeshbulak"

- 5:30pm-6:30pm: Panel 6 - Exploring the religious field: practices and vectors of belonging (Kazakhstan, Afghanistan)

Moderator: Marc Toutant (CNRS, CETOBAC)

  • Xavier Hermand (EHESS, CESAH): "Les rattachements religieux en Afghanistan entre les 16e et 20e siècles"
  • Achille Pescarini (Université L'Orientale, Naples): "Researching Sufism in Contemporary Kazakhstan: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations"
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2024

- 9h15-10h15: Panel 7 - Horses and societies: literary fact, economic fact

Moderation : Carole Ferret (CNRS, LAS)

  • Olga Khallieva Boiché (EPHE, Cetobac): "Turkmen and their horses: Köroğlu, his Gyrat and the institution of the alaman"
  • Niyoz Rashidov (Samarkand Institute of Archaeology): "Evidence of "horsemanship syndrome" in the skeletal remains of medieval Ustrushana inhabitants"

- 10h15-11h15: Panel 8 - Faire communauté, faire norme au Kazakhstan contemporain

Moderation: François-Olivier Seys (Université de Lille, TVES)

  • Zhanna Karimova (Université Grenoble Alpes, Centre Max Weber): "L'héritage des déportations staliniennes : les défis identitaires de la communauté allemande au Kazakhstan"

- 11h15-11h45 : Pause

- 11h45-12h45 : Panel 9 - Documenting the material and the spiritual in ancient times

Moderation: William Rendu (CNRS, ZooStan)

  • Delphine Decruyenaere (MNHN, AASPE): "L'utilisation des matières dures d'origine animale dans l'artisanat antique et médiéval en Sogdiane. Approches archéozoologique et paléoprotéomique"
  • Camille Hut (CNRS, ArScAn): "Des archives de fouilles aux dynamiques funéraires: l'étude de la Nécropole Principale de Gonur Dépé à l'âge du Bronze Moyen et Final (Turkménistan)"

- 12h45-14h : Déjeuner

- 14h15-15h15 : Panel 10 - Policies of culture: instruments of contemporary influence in Central Asia

Moderation: Julien Thorez (CNRS, CeRMI)

  • Adrien Houguet (Webster University, Tashkent): "Articulating European cultural diplomacy, national cultural policies and local cultural scenes to study soft power in Central Asia: the case of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan"
  • Dilda Kulmagambetova (CNRS, Eur'Orbem / IFEAC): "Central Asia at the Venice Biennale: from artistic self-organization to instrumentalization by political regimes"

- 15h15-15h45: Pause

- 15h45-17h15: Panel 11 - Afghanistan and Tajikistan in the early 20th century: artistic and political matrices

Moderation: Juliette Cleuziou (Université Lumière Lyon 2, LADEC)

  • Agnès Devictor(Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, HiCSA): "Naissance du cinéma en Afghanistan : Enquête sur le premier film"
  • Isabelle Linais-Aoulova (Sciences Po Paris, CHSP): ""La chasse aux mollahs" (Shikār-i mullāhā): The flight of the mullahs from eastern Bukharia (1920s-1930s) according to new Tajik hagiographies"
  • Aeron O'Connor (University College London): "Domesticating the Intellectual: intimate and intellectual life in times of turmoil (Tajikistan)"

- 17h15 : Clôture : Marie Favereau, director of IFEAC (Institut Français d'Etudes sur l'Asie Centrale, Bichkek, Kirghizstan)

- POSTERS

  • Léna Marin (Inalco): "Les migrations féminines à Istanbul : portrait d'une couturière ouzbèke au Grand Bazar"
  • Anne-Charlotte Marcombe (Kimyo International University, Tashkent): "Une économie circulaire décoloniale et diversifiée dans la ville de Tachkent, Ouzbékistan"
  • Hugues Plisson (CNRS, PACEA): "Technologie de pointes à Obi-Rakhmat (Ouzbékistan) il y a 80 000 ans"

Comité d'organisation

Contacts

catherine.poujol@inalco.fr and julien.thorez@cnrs.fr