Order at the Bazaar: Power and Trade in Central Asia

press release: 4:00 pm, (refreshments served beginning at 3:45), 206 Ingraham Hall

Regine A. Spector, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Regine A. Spector will present key findings from her book, Order at the Bazaar, based on research in Kyrgyzstan. Bazaars are the economic bedrock for many throughout the region—they are the entrepreneurial hubs of Central Asia. However, they are often regarded as mafia-governed environments that are largely populated by the dispossessed. By immersing herself in the bazaars of Kyrgyzstan, Regine A. Spector learned that some are rather best characterized as islands of order in a chaotic national context.