Research: Paths of life in Qaraqalpaqstan (1945 till today).
Paths of life in Qaraqalpaqstan (1945 till today). Space and memory
Project funded in line with the DFG Central Asia activity
During the last decades people in Qaraqalpaqstan have experienced dramatic changes and reformations of their living space: from civilising of the natural space at the underflow of the Amu Darya (from the 1940s to the 1970s), to agricultural and compound reforms (from the 1960s to the 1980s) and the directly related climatic disaster of the Aral Sea region (since the 1970s), unto the new efficacy of political and administrative borders after the end of the Soviet Union (since the 1990s).
Within the scope of the project funded by the DFG that is implemented together with the Institute for History of the Qaraqalpaq Academy of Sciences in Uzbekistan (Dr. Makset Karlibaev) it is planned that two workshops in Berlin (7 - 9 May 2009) and Nukus (3 - 6 September 2009) are taking place to work on a joint research basis. During a one month research stay in Qaraqalpaqstan several German-Qaraqalpaq researcher teams are going to implement a pilot study on "Paths of lives in changing spaces". At this it is to be documented and analysed how people in Qaraqalpaqstan have experienced the change of physical and sozial space caused by development processes during the second half of the 20th century with its modernisation verves, historical breaks and ecological and social disasters.
The material of memory to be gathered should be served as basis for the conception of a much bigger cooperational project under participation of historians, ethnologists and folklorists.
last update : 05 December 2011