[PDF] Environment And Post Soviet Transformation In Kazakhstans Aral Sea Region eBook

Author : William Wheeler
Publisher : UCL Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 44,18 MB
Release : 2021-10-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1800080336

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The Aral Sea is well known for its devastating regression over the second half of the twentieth century, and for its recent partial restoration. Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region is the first book to explore what these monumental changes have meant to those living on the sea’s shores. Following the fluctuating fortunes of the pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet fisheries, the book shows how the vast environmental changes the region has undergone cannot be disentangled from the transformations of Soviet socialism and postsocialism. This ethnographic perspective prompts a critical rethinking of the category of environmental disaster through which the region is predominantly known. Tracing how the sea’s retreat and partial return have been apprehended by diverse local actors in the former port of Aral’sk and surrounding fishing villages, as well as by scientists, bureaucrats and international development workers, William Wheeler draws out the multiple meanings environmental change acquires within different contexts. This study of how people make their lives amidst overlapping ecological and political-economic upheavals is rich in ethnographic detail that is both rooted in Soviet legacies and alive to the new transnational connections that are reshaping the region. Offering a rigorous political ecology of Soviet socialism and after, the book is a major contribution to the nascent environmental anthropology of Central Asia. It will be of interest to environmental anthropologists, environmental historians, and scholars of all disciplines working on Central Asia and the former USSR.

Author : WHEELER
Publisher :
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 14,24 MB
Release : 2021-10-25
Category : Aral Sea Region (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan)
ISBN : 9781800080348

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Presents a political ecology of life amid overlapping environmental and political upheaval. Once the fourth largest lake in the world, Kazakhstan's Aral Sea dried into an unrecognizable fraction of its size during a period of dramatic political change. Through the experiences of local fisheries across the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan's Aral Sea Region explores the diverse ways people in different socioeconomic contexts understand environmental change. In this book, William Wheeler offers a rigorous political ecology of life amid overlapping upheavals, attentive both to the legacies of Sovietism and the possibilities of transnationalism.

Author : William Wheeler
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 24,86 MB
Release : 2021
Category :
ISBN : 9781800080379

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Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan's Aral Sea Region explores how the sea's retreat and partial return has impacted the lives of people living in the area.

Author : Jean-François Caron
Publisher : Springer
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 46,67 MB
Release : 2019-03-26
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9811366934

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This book examines Kazakhstan’s struggle to distance itself from its Soviet past over 25 years after its independence. To a very large extent, the affirmation of its sovereignty and a unique Kazakhstani way remain largely a matter of rhetoric. This book looks to explain the various aspects that show the continuity of Kazakhstan’s political system and governance with its colonial legacy, namely through its foreign policy, the country’s environmental policies, the judicial system, the management of religious diversity, the way youth organizations are structured and administered or how those who were born after the collapse of Soviet Union are still showing a typical Soviet behavioral attitude towards the political sphere. What are the reasons for this reluctance or incapacity to break away from these ties of the past? Will the unavoidable political transition that will bring new individuals to the head of the state contribute to a real change? Will this lead to a break with the country’s past and a radical shift in the country’s policies or will things remain as they have been since 1991? This book provides some valuable insights on what may happen in the near future to the biggest country of Central Asia.

Author : Pauline Jones Luong
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 347 pages
File Size : 14,13 MB
Release : 2018-08-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1501731335

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With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, former Communist Party leaders in Central Asia were faced with the daunting task of building states where they previously had not existed: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Their task was complicated by the institutional and ideological legacy of the Soviet system as well as by a more actively engaged international community. These nascent states inherited a set of institutions that included bloated bureaucracies, centralized economic planning, and patronage networks. Some of these institutions survived, others have mutated, and new institutions have been created. Experts on Central Asia here examine the emerging relationship between state actors and social forces in the region. Through the prism of local institutions, the authors reassess both our understanding of Central Asia and of the state-building process more broadly. They scrutinize a wide array of institutional actors, ranging from regional governments and neighborhood committees to transnational and non-governmental organizations. With original empirical research and theoretical insight, the volume's contributors illuminate an obscure but resource-rich and strategically significant region.

Author : Philip Micklin
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 34,8 MB
Release : 2013-04-18
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 3642611826

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The Aral Sea Basin, which is located in the central Asian part of the former Soviet Union, is undergoing dramatically rapid and intense environmental change. Pervasive human misuse and overuse of its water, land, and other critical natural resources have led to severe degradation of key ecological systems. This book analyses the environmental, human and economic problems that have arisen and presents recommendations for future research needs. Primary focus is on the drying of the Aral Sea, but related issues of diminished river flow, land and water pollution, and degradation, ecosystem deterioration, and adverse effects on humans are also examined.

Author : Igor Jelen
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 379 pages
File Size : 17,80 MB
Release : 2021-03-01
Category : Science
ISBN : 303061266X

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This book provides a profound geographical description and analysis of Central Asia. The authors take a synthetic approach in a period of critical transformation in the post-soviet time. The monograph analyzes comprehensively the physical and human geography as well as human-nature interactions of Central Asia with focus on Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Natural processes are described at a systemic scale, focusing on ecological impacts and consequences and contemporary human adaptations and organization. It also discusses in which ways the human organizations try to apply solutions for their needs such as security, territorial management and resources renewability, material and functional needs, identity elaborations, culture and communication. The Geography of Central Asia appeals to scientists and students of regional geography and interested academics from other areas such as social, political, economic and environmental studies within the context of Central Asia. The book is also a very useful resource for field trips into this area.

Author : Jeanne Féaux de la Croix
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 10,92 MB
Release : 2023-08-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1000983196

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This book is the first collection to showcase the flourishing field of environmental humanities in Central Asia. A region larger than Europe, Central Asia possesses an astounding range of environments, from deserts to glaciated peaks. The volume brings into conversation scholarship from history to social anthropology, demonstrating the contribution that interdisciplinary and engaged research offers to many urgent issues in the region: from the history of conservationism to the tactics of environmental movements, from literary engagements with ‘pure nature’ to the impact of fossil fuel extraction. The collection focuses on the Central Asian republics of the former USSR, where a complex layering of nomadic and sedentary, Turkic and Persianate, Islamic and Soviet cultures ends up affecting human relations with distinct environments. Featuring state-of-the-art contributions, the book enquires into human-environment relations through a broad-brush typology of interactive modes: to extract, protect, enspirit and fear. Broadening the scope of analysis beyond a consideration of power, the authors bring into focus alternative local cosmologies and the unintended consequences of environmental policy. The volume highlights scholarship from within Central Asia as well as expertise elsewhere, offering readers diverse modes of knowledge-production in the environmental humanities. This book is an important resource for researchers and students of the environmental humanities, sustainability, history, politics, anthropology and geography of Asia, as well as Soviet and Post-Soviet studies.

Author : Norman A. Graham
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 33,66 MB
Release : 2023-12-22
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1003823645

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This book advances our understanding of security and its intricate interactions with geopolitics and the environment in Eurasia. Norman A. Graham and Şuhnaz Yılmaz focus on Eurasia, where the energy-water-food nexus has emerged as a vital aspect of political economy and increasinglyas a decisive factor for human security. As clearly revealed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this nexus rests on a precarious balance. Graham and Yilmaz argue that Central Eurasia is currently “Running on Empty” and highlight the key environmental challenges, including water quantity and quality and food security. The authors draw on their extensive fieldwork in countries including Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Turkey, and Uzbekistan to assess the interests and impact of pivotal actors and evaluate the competition and complementarities of these actors regarding water, energy, food security, and foreign policy imperatives. They also examine the broader interaction and implications of security at multiple levels by analyzing the local, national, and international factors in light of geopolitical and environmental challenges. Taking a novel and highly interdisciplinary approach, this book will be an important resource for students and scholars of energy and food security, political economy, international conflict and cooperation, and natural resource politics.