What Do We Know about Central Asia’s Public Opinions?

press release: Please join us for the next in our Spring Lecture Series: Marlene Laruelle's lecture titled “What Do We Know about Central Asia’s Public Opinions?" In this presentation Laruelle will discuss the ongoing evolutions of public opinion in Central Asian countries and the tools scholars have to get information on countries with very diverging political and social paths. Some broad trends emerge cross-countries: more polarized younger generations, living in different information spaces; new narratives on identity and nationhood; new practices both in the religious realm as in the economic one. Some trends are country-specific, depending on the nature of the political regime, the importance of labor migration, and the socioeconomic and cultural context. As scholars, which tools do we have to grasp this understudied public opinions and comprehend them in a more plural, nuanced and moving perspective?

The Speaker:

Marlene Laruelle is Research Professor of International Affairs and Associate Director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. She explores contemporary political, social and cultural changes in Russia and Central Asia through the prism of ideologies and nationalism. She has recently edited Eurasianism and the European Far Right. Reshaping the Russia-Europe Relations (Lexington, 2015), and Between Europe and Asia. The Origins, Theories and Legacies of Russian Eurasianism (Pittsburgh University Press, 2015), co-edited with Mark Bassin and Sergey Glebov. She is currently working on a monograph on nationbuilding in Kazakhstan