Subject: Various Issues in the Valley
From: Nick Megoran (nickmegoran@infotel.kg)
Date: Thu Apr 08 1999 - 08:41:52 EDT
Dear fellow list members,
I would like to introduce myself to you all, as the list moderators
have suggested, before discussions get underway. I am a postgraduate
at the Department of Geography, Cambridge, England, who is currently
living in Osh studying the Kyrgyz and Uzbek languages through the
ACCELS Kyrgyzstan programme. I have previously taught and lived in
Ferghana as well as Osh, and have travelled widely in the Ferghana
Valley.
My research interests focus on the effect of the division of the Valley into
sovereign states on ethnic minorities in the border areas,
particularly in terms of people's own understandings of their
relations to the country they live in and the country which bears the
name of their ethnic group.
Although I am an outsider, I feel the issues very keenly. When I first
came to the Valley a few years ago, I used to travel backwards and
forwards between the states easily. Now it is much harder, and
as the three states take their own paths towards different futures,
people who have been used to crossing the borders for trade or study
or to see friends and family are starting to become more afraid,
starting to feel more like strangers in places they once felt at home, and
in turn
starting to feel uneasy in the places they live now. This is a
significant factor to consider in any development plans, and I hope
that this project will be able to have a positive effect on the lives
of the people who live in this ancient and beautiful valley.
Nick Megoran
Osh
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a22 : Sat May 29 1999 - 07:34:13 EDT