Gorno-Badakhshan Region Research Articles

On the Chilopoda fauna of the Pamir Mts, Tajikistan, with notes on the highest records of chilopod species in Middle Asia

New faunistic records of Chilopoda from the Pamir Mts are provided. Lithobius javanicus (Zalesskaja, 1978), order Scutigeromorpha, family Scutigeridae, genus Thereuonema Verhoeff, 1904, and T. turkestana Verhoeff, 1905, as well as order Scolopendromorpha, family Cryptopidae, and genus Cryptops Leach, 1814, are recorded in the Gorno-Badakhshan Region of Tajikistan for the first time; C. doriae Pocock, 1891 is new to the fauna of Tajikistan, Hessebius pervagatus Zalesskaja, 1978 is new to the fauna of Kyrgyzstan. All the new records are mapped. Notes on the highest records of Chilopoda in Middle Asia are provided; H. pervagatus is recorded from altitudes of 4700–4900 m, which is the highest record of Chilopoda in Middle Asia and one of the world’s highest records of these arthropods.

Association between time spent in the Russian Federation and late presentation for HIV among Tajikistani migrants

BackgroundBetween 700 thousand and 1.2 million citizens of Tajikistan currently live in the Russian Federation, one of the only countries where the HIV epidemic continues to worsen. Given the previously reported barriers to healthcare access for migrants to the Russian Federation, and the rapidly expanding HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, this present study set out to determine whether these barriers impact late presentation with HIV among Tajikistani migrants upon their return to Tajikistan.MethodThis study uses data from the Tajikistan Ministry of Health surveillance system (2006 – 2019). At time of diagnosis, patients are interviewed by staff of AIDS centers, and doctors complete routine intake forms and complete medical exams. Descriptive characteristics of migrants with HIV who had lived in the Russian Federation (n=503) were calculated and compared with those of non-migrants with HIV (n=9519). Missing data were imputed using multiple imputation (predictive means matching, logistic regression imputation, and polytomous regression imputation). Two logistic models were created to model the probability of late presentation for HIV. The first model shows unadjusted associations between predictor variables and late presentation for HIV. The second model shows multivariable associations between significant study variables identified in the univariate model, and late presentation.ResultsCompared to non-migrants, migrants with HIV are more likely to be from Gorno-Badakhshan region, are less likely to use illicit drugs, and are more likely to have purchased the services of sex workers. The unadjusted logistic model found that for every year spent in the Russian Federation, the risk of late presentation for a Tajikistani migrant with HIV increases by 4.0% (95% CI: 0.3-7.7). The multivariate model showed that when age, sex, and region of origin are held constant, the risk of late presentation for a Tajikistani migrant with HIV increases by 4.0% (95% CI: 0.1-7.8) for each year spent in the Russian Federation.ConclusionThe results of this paper suggest that if the Russian Federation were to loosen its restrictions on HIV care for foreign nationals, it might improve the treatment outcomes of migrant laborers. As this analysis is only correlational in nature, further research is needed to explicate the causal pathways of the associations found in the present analysis.

Aid, social capital and local collective action: attitudes towards community-based health funds and village organizations in Rushan, Tajikistan

AbstractDespite overwhelming interest in the role of social capital in international development, attention to the interplay of community-based development aid with local collective-action dynamics in Central Asia and particularly Tajikistan has remained limited. This paper investigates donor-induced local institutions for collective action in rural Tajikistan with a focus on the introduction of a community-based health insurance. Social capital and collective-action theories are used to interpret results from qualitative research in two Rushan District villages in the Gorno-Badakhshan region. By highlighting the role of donor embeddedness, and the perceived legitimacy of different decision-making structures, the article contends that the perception of such externally-induced change depends on the community’s capacity to reach beyond the intra-communal solidarity network through bridging and linking capital. The findings suggest this can be fostered by addressing trust, and the role of effective development brokers, with due attention to power relations within communities and towards external agents.

Building bridges across the Oxus: language, development, and globalization at the Tajik-Afghan frontier

AbstractIn this article I set out to explore the Tajik-Afghan frontier in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan region as a “contact zone” in which different actors engage in communicative encounters. Against this backdrop I take the construction of bridges across the Tajik-Afghan border river as a point of departure to analyse how these actors envisage processes of globalization. Following Pennycook, I argue that a focus on language as local practice reveals that the Tajik-Afghan frontier is marked by a high degree of different languages, but also by multiple meanings within and beyond these languages. As a result I maintain that highlighting the locality of languages at the Tajik-Afghan frontier provides an opportunity to frame language as tied to specific communicative encounters in semiotized time and space.

The bridge that divides: local perceptions of the connected state in the Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan–China borderlands

ABSTRACTThe collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought profound changes to the borderlands of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Xinjiang. In eastern Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan region, present-day weaknesses in territorial control of the post-Soviet state’s edges are directly wedded to borderlanders’ memories of Soviet-era practices of bordering, perceived locally as both systemically stronger and cognitively more beneficial to local lifeworlds than contemporary ‘Chinese penetration’. Across the border in Xinjiang, a formerly distant state has been brought into borderlanders’ locales and inscribed into everyday lifeworlds through novel manifestations of the state, which significantly affect cross-border interaction. By comparing how borderlanders on both sides of this frontier themselves choose to characterize border processes between ‘their’ states in the initial two decades of connections to Xinjiang, I explore how and why Kyrgyz and Tajik/Pamiri borderlanders voice strong opinions about what it is they feel has changed in these administrative-territorial homelands. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork on both sides of this frontier, I argue that the gradual bridging of this formerly sealed border has led to neither the development of a new trans-frontier identity nor locally established trans-frontier networks but, instead, reconfirmed borders between China and Central Asia.

Bottom-up and top-down dynamics of the energy transformation in the Eastern Pamirs of Tajikistan's Gorno Badakhshan region

This paper deals with the strategies of households living in a peripheral high-mountain region in order to cope with the post-Soviet energy crisis. The Soviet modernization project failed at connecting the region to the grid, and imported coal for heating and fuel for producing electric energy at high costs over long distances. After the collapse of this alimentation system, people have substituted energy demands with wood and shrubs, and used increasingly available low-cost Chinese solar equipment to produce electrical energy. International development actors have failed to increase acceptance for energy efficiency technologies. Despite the Pamirs' high potential for solar and wind energy and decreasing installation costs, Soviet-style state planning of energy infrastructure still favours big hydropower stations, despite their high (social) costs and the limited potential on the Pamir plateau. The paper will discuss bottom-up effects of household decisions and top-down strategies as potentials and obstacles for a sustainable energy supply in the Pamirs.

Analysis of costs and people's willingness to enroll in forest rehabilitation in Gorno Badakhshan, Tajikistan

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, an energy crisis in Tajikistan led to extensive deforestation. Initial financial investment is necessary for the reforestation of the severely degraded areas. In such areas, the State Forest Agency, with the support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), began to test the Saving Book Approach (SBA) in Gorno Badakhshan region. SBA is a specific scheme of Payments for Ecosystem Services reforestation scheme. Local people participating in SBA receive compensation for six years, if the workload is fulfilled. This research has been carried out in order to analyze people's willingness to enroll in SBA and the suitability of certain forest plots for SBA implementation. The empirical results show that out of the factors tested — ‘benefit expectations’, ‘social pressure’, ‘age’, ‘income’ and ‘ability’, ‘ability’ was the only influential factor for willingness to enroll. ‘Ability’ is defined as the labor force availability, physical ability and amount of available time of the labor force in the household. The suitability of the forest plot depends on the needed investments for reforestation activities. Indeed, the willingness to enroll in SBA of local people does not necessarily match with plot suitability. These findings contribute to the improvement of the determination and understanding of factors that influence local peoples' decision to enroll and thus, provide the international development community with useful information for the design of future payment schemes.

The Impact of Land-Reform Legislation on Pasture Tenure in Gorno-Badakhshan: From Common Resource to Private Property?

In this paper, we look at the ways in which recent economic and legal changes affect pastoral management in the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan. In Central Asia, livestock mobility is crucial for sustainable pasture management, but in Gorno-Badakhsan, average livestock ownership is extremely low. Households must therefore rely on collective herding practices if they are to exploit remote pastures and avoid overgrazing. Post-Soviet land legislation permits privatization with the aim of improving security of tenure for farmers; however, the same laws also apply to pastures. We consider whether the recent legislation is likely to promote or prevent livestock mobility, and assess the potential impact on collective herding. The effects of the legislation on the ground were investigated using 2007 field data from 2 sites, looking particularly at the impact of pasture privatization on collective users. We describe the extent to which pasture at these sites is under private, community, or state control, discuss the implications for sustainable management of this resource, and make recommendations for Tajik legislators.

Pastoralism in the Gorno-Badakhshan Region of Tajikistan

Abstract This report describes the major grazing systems and current problems facing pastoralists in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan. Field observations and household income data, as well as a participatory assessment of living standards, are presented. The report discusses changes in livestock numbers and seasonal migrations that have occurred as a result of Tajikistan's independence from the USSR and the subsequent civil war there (1993-1997). Changing land tenure laws and adaptations of pastoralist systems are described, along with development initiatives that are attempting to ameliorate poverty among Tajikistan's pastoralists.