Academic freedom in Tajikistan: how the suppression, acquiescence and incorporation of intellectuals strengthens the state and affects knowledge production

ABSTRACT

While there have been a number of studies of the political economy of knowledge production in Central Asia, the often exploitative relations between foreign and local researcher, there has been less discussion of what Elizabeth Perry recently described as the ‘scholar–state’ nexus: how authoritarian rule rests on the suppression of independent academics, the ‘educated acquiescence’ of academia or their incorporation into the ‘factory of answers’. Through the concepts of suppression, acquiescence and incorporation, this article examines how restrictions on academic freedom have an impact on knowledge production in Tajikistan.

KEYWORDS:

• Authoritarianism
• Tajikistan
• academic freedom
• higher education

Acknowledgements

The authors thank John Heathershaw, Katarzyna Kaczmarska and the two anonymous reviewers for helping to shape the framing of this article. Dr Antonov extends his appreciation to Bo Petersson and Joakim Ekman for their continued support, and to Russia and the Caucasus Regional Research (RUCARR), Malmö University, and Center for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES), Södertörn University, for hosting him during this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We used software (CopyLeaks and Text.ru) that highlights text where five or words in sequence are the same. For more details on the methodology, see Antonov and Lemon (2020).

2 Interview with Tajik academic 3.

3 Interview with Tajik academic 1.

4 Interview with Tajik academic 4.

5 Interview with Tajik academic 5.