Fellows Research

The Islamic shrines of Tajikistan remain largely unstudied by Western scholars, although this appears to be changing based on the inquiries from young scholars I have been receiving recently.

To date, there has been practically no western scholarship on the history of Islamic shrines in Tajikistan, due to limited access during the Soviet period, the protracted civil war that followed, and a prevailing tendency of scholars to study the well known and better documented urban shrines of Central Asia.

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The Muslim Shrines of Tajikistan: Spiritual Geography, Oral History the Political Transformation (46KB.pdf)

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This project studies the Greek minority of Bulgaria in the first half of the twentieth century, tracing the contradictory policies of nationalization that the Bulgarian state formulated against the small but prominent minority as well as the diverse responses of individuals to increasing assimilation attempts within their communities.

The goal is to explore the intersection between nationality and emigration and to examine how ordinary people adapted to increasing nationalization.

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Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration among the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1949 (55KB.pdf)

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Recent tragic events in the Balkan area stimulated copious research interest on nationalism and modernity but little attention has been paid to amphibian social groups that both supported and opposed them.

This project explores Balkan modern history with a focus on multi-ethnic merchant networks against the broader backdrop of Balkan, Ottoman, and European economy and society.

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Hermes’ Heirs: The Balkan Transition to Modernity & Nation-States through the Eyes of Three Generations Merchants (56KB.pdf)

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This project is an examination of the continuity and change in Soviet and Uzbek ideology of womanhood; the processes by which women are encouraged to adopt and approximate these ideals; and in the ways their actual roles diverge from them.

I examine the relationship between the idealized woman represented in policy and media and the practices of women in everyday life.

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Forward to the Past: Uzbek Women Discuss Post-Soviet Gender Role Ideology (55KB.pdf)

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A short-term travel grant permitted the first stage of a long-term project that seeks to analyze women’s motivations for pursuing Islamic education in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which are secular states with large Muslim populations.

Ultimately, the project will address two related research questions: why are women pursuing Islamic education in capitalist societies that reward degrees from secular institutions, and how does Islamic education shape women’s identity in a secular context?

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Women’s Proclivity Toward Islamic Education in Kyrgyzstan & Tajikistan: A Backlash Against Communist Gender Equality (46KB.pdf)

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The research conducted during this Short-Term Grant was designed to assess the nature of privatized force in and emanating from Russia and Ukraine.

Because of the length of the research and because of a lack or inaccessibility of official statistics, this is not a quantitative study but a qualitative one.

Download the pdf at the top of this page for the full brief.
Olivia Allison, of King’s College London, was a 2008-09 Short-Term Travel Grants fellow.

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Dynamics and Regulation of the Private Military and Security Industry in Ukraine and Russia (115KB.pdf)

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This study examines the early Soviet campaign for Ukrainian-language schooling and pedagogical innovation at the local level and explores in detail the rationale for this mandate, teacher and student response, and the consequences of this effort.

What emerges from the documentary record is not only an account of the development of Ukrainian-language instruction, but the re-imagining of the entire school curriculum through the adaptation of progressive pedagogical methods.

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Breaking the Tongue: Langauage, Education, and Power in Soviet Ukraine, 1920-1934 (244KB.pdf)

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For this ethnographic field research I examined social services programs for Africans living in Moscow by focusing on religious and non-religious charitable programs that provide food, medical care, shelter, and human rights advocacy for Moscow’s African population.

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Faith-Based Human Rights Work in Russia: Social Services Programs for Russia’s African Communities (200KB.pdf)

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My research centered on Ozersk, the former Cheliabinsk-65 in the Southern Urals. This city was built in the late forties to house the operators of the Maiak Plutonium Production Plant. The city was and remains a closed city.

I went to Cheliabinsk to work in the local archives related to Cheliabinsk-65 and to conduct interviews among people who lived down-stream and down-wind from the plant in territories that are now severely radiated.

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Enriched by Plutonium (423KB.pdf)

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The project built an archive for transnational comparative thinking about women‘s rights and women‘s lives over the last three generations in the United States and Romania.

Questions central to the 54 oral history interviews done this summer are ―what does political gender equality mean,‖ and especially how does it connect with the everyday lives of women who come from different social categories—educationally, generationally, economically, religiously, politically, and other relevant groupings.

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The Everyday Experience of Women‘s Emancipation in the U.S. and Romania in the Twentieth Century and Beyond: (335KB.pdf)

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