Modernity, Development and Decolonization of Knowledge in Central Asia: Kazakhstan as a Foreign Aid Donor

Join us for an online book launch with the author Nafissa Insebayeva, discussants Syinat Sultanalieva and Sofya du Boulay.

This book joins the discussion on foreign aid triggered by the rise of multiplicity of emerging donors in international development and explores the transformation of Kazakhstan from a recipient country to a development aid provider. Drawing on fieldwork in Nur-Sultan and Almaty (Kazakhstan) between 2016 and 2019, this research evaluates the philosophy and core features of Kazakhstan’s chosen development aid model and explains the factors that account for the construction of aid patterns of Kazakh donorship.

Nafissa Insebayeva, Author

Nafissa Insebayeva specializes in Kazakhstan’s foreign policy, international development politics, foreign aid, and South-South cooperation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tsukuba (Japan) as a MEXT scholar, and currently serves as a Researcher at the Nippon Foundation Central Asia-Japan Human Resource Development Project (NipCA). Nafissa has previously held the position of a Central Asia-Azerbaijan Fellow at the Central Asia Program (CAP). Her studies have been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Eurasian Studies and Europe-Asia Studies.

Syinat Sultanalieva, Discussant

Dr. Syinat Sultanalieva is a researcher at Human Rights Watch, focusing on Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. She received her PhD from the Special Program in Japanese and Eurasian Studies at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of gender studies and critical postcolonial theories. Previously Syinat has worked extensively on LGBTI and women’s rights in Central Asia, helping in the establishment of several initiatives in the region.

Sofya du Boulay, Discussant

Sofya du Boulay is a Marie Curie Fellow and PhD candidate in Political Science at Oxford Brookes University. Her main research interests are related to the study of authoritarian regimes, including their political stability and legitimation in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Her research has been published in Problems of Post-Communism and Theorizing Central Asian Politics: The State, Ideology and Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Sebastien Peyrouse, Moderator

Sebastien Peyrouse, PhD, is a Research Professor at the Central Asia Program in the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University) and a Senior Fellow with the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China relations. His main areas of expertise are political systems in Central Asia, economic and social issues, Islam and religious minorities, and Central Asia’s geopolitical positioning toward China, India and South Asia.