Email: b.bowring@bbk.ac.uk

Prof Bowring has experience in Kazakhstan dating back to 1996 when he first travelled to the country. He has taught human rights at a Summer University at KIMEP University on multiple occasions, allowing him to develop close contacts within human rights organisations in the country. From 2003 to 2006, Prof Bowring was the lead expert in the UN Development Programme project on behalf of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights working to promote international human rights standards in Kazakhstan. He is one of the most experienced experts on the country and has written a multitude of official reports for international organisations. Please see this document for a full breakdown of Prof Bowring’s work in Kazakhstan.

Email: did214@lehigh.edu

Dr. Duvanova is an Assistant Professor in the Lehigh University Department of International Relation. She received her doctorate degree in political science from The Ohio State University; she worked at Princeton University as a postdoctoral fellow and at the State University of New York at Buffalo as an assistant professor. Duvanova’s research interests lie in the spheres of comparative political economy, state-society relations, corruption, and collective action. She conducted field research in Russia, Ukraine, Croatia, and Kazakhstan. Her publications, among others, include a book with Cambridge University Press and articles in British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, and Journal of Comparative Economics.

Email: luca.anceschi@glasgow.ac.uk

Dr Luca Anceschi is Lecturer in Central Asian Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK. His research areas of expertise are focussed on the Politics and International Relations of post-Soviet Central Asia. Luca’s first book, Turkmenistan’s foreign policy – Positive Neutrality and the Consolidation of the Turkmen regime(Routledge 2008), represents the first book-length analysis of Turkmenistan’s foreign policy published in Western languages. Luca is willing to provide expert reports on Turkmenistan. He is a native Italian speaker and has advanced control of Russian.

Email: mmf@blueyonder.co.uk

Marjorie Farquharson has worked in the field of human rights and the USSR and post-Soviet states for 30 years. She has given her expert opinion on 43 cases involving asylum seekers to the UK. She has been a freelance researcher, writer and translator since 2001 and has worked in all five Central Asian States. She has done numerous research projects for UNDP, UNHCR and Amnesty International as well as independent research on Central Asian states. She was Amnesty International’s first representative in the Soviet bloc from 1994-1996 as the Director of the EU Tacis project. As a Council of Europe officer she has worked in 44 of Russia’s federal regions and helped establish a regional ombudsman institution there. She is the author of several publications on Central Asia. She is capable of giving her expertise on all Central Asian states, namely, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Marjorie is not able to provide her services pro bono, however, she is willing to negotiate a fee.

Email: shahrani@indiana.edu

M Nazif Shahrani is Professor of Anthropology, Central Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, has served two terms as Chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and Director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program at IU. Shahrani is an Afghan-American anthropologist with extensive field research in Afghanistan, and has studied Afghan refugee communities in Pakistan & Turkey. Since 1992 he has also conducted field research in post-Soviet Muslim republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. He is interested in the impact of Islam on social life, institutional dynamics and political culture of Muslims, problems of state-failure, role of nationalism in social fragmentation in multi-ethnic nation-states, and the political economy of international assistance to postcolonial failing states and its consequences. He grew-up bilingual in Uzbek & Tajik/Dari/Farsi, learned Pashtu, Kyrgyz, English and some Arabic.

Website
Tel: +44 (0) 18 65 484 252
Email: ricoisaacs@brookes.ac.uk

Dr Rico Isaacs is a Professor of International Politics. He joined Lincoln in September 2019 having previously worked at Oxford Brookes University. His research focuses on the domestic and international politics of the Central Asian Republics with a particular emphasis on Kazakhstan. Moreover, his research examines broader issues of comparative authoritarianism and democratization, and state and nation-building. Dr. Isaacs has extensive field work experience in Kazakhstan where has spent time interviewing political elites, local journalists, analysts and NGO activists. He has been awarded research grants from both the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy for his research and is often asked to provide consultancy to companies, public institutions and international organisations relating to issues of political risk in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states. He is also often employed as a country expert on Kazakhstan for other research institutes’ comparative projects.