EVENT- Roundtable with the Afghan Kyrgyz, SRC, AUCA, Bishkek, June 6

Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian Studies

EVENT- Roundtable with the Afghan Kyrgyz, SRC, AUCA, Bishkek, June 6

Posted by: Social Research Center <src@mail.auca.kg>

Rountable with the Afghan Kyrgyz, June 6, Social Research Center, AUCA,
Bishkek

The Social Research Center (www.src.auca.kg) and Cultural Anthropology
Department at American University of Central Asia

present:

A Roundtable with the Afghan Kyrgyz

Time: 16:00 pm, June 6th, 2008

Venue: 232, AUCA (Main building)

Language: Kyrgyz/Russian

Synopsis: High in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan, a remnant
population of 1,300 Kyrgyz still follows the traditional lifestyle of
semi-nomadic pastoralism. During the past 100 years, the Afghan Kyrgyz
have ranged across tsarist Russia, Qing and Republican China, the
Afghan Pamir, Pakistan and even Turkey, where the majority of the
1970s Afghan Kyrgyz population was resettled in 1982, four years after
leaving Afghanistan for Pakistan in expectation of a Soviet invasion.

Today, the Afghan Kyrgyz dwell in one of the most remote and
inhospitable environments occupied by any human population. Lacking
roads, schools, or doctors, this community has some of the highest
rates of maternal, infant and child mortality in the world. Opium
addiction is also a rapidly growing problem.

Yet, despite the challenges posed by geo-political events,
Afghanistan's thirty years of war, and living at average elevations of
4100 meters, the Afghan Kyrgyz have persevered and today their future
is probably more hopeful than it has ever been before.

On 6 June, six Afghan Kyrgyz will visit SRC at AUCA for a
question-and-answer session. A brief introduction and slide show will
be given by Ted Callahan, a PhD candidate in anthropology and former
SRC Fellow, who has spent the past year living with the Kyrgyz in the
Afghan Pamir. Following this presentation, we will open the floor to
questions for the Afghan Kyrgyz.

How to register: Please RSVP to pss@mail.auca.kg giving your name and
institution.

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