Desire for development: seeking social change though climate adaption projects

ABSTRACT

This article considers why residents of Tajikistan seek out development projects, which are increasingly focused on adaptation to climate change, even as they recognise the limitations of those projects. Experiences of meaningful development during the Soviet era, along with foreign media accounts and migrant experiences abroad, reoriented people’s expectations and encouraged them to seek aid. As a result, people sought out personal networks to guide development projects in the hopes of bolstering their ongoing livelihood strategies. Efforts to promote participation in development must account for the desires people hold in order to guide how projects are devised and implemented.

KEYWORDS:

• Aid – Aid effectiveness
• Civil society – NGOs
• Environment (built and natural) – Climate change
• Labour and livelihoods
• Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the wonderful hospitality and generosity of my friends and neighbours in Tajikistan, who hosted me and made me feel like a part of their community, and in some cases, their family. I am also deeply indebted to my advisors, João Biehl, Elizabeth Davis and Serguei Oushakine, who have been invaluable intellectual mentors. I am more than grateful to Grace Zhou, who helped me throughout the trials and tribulations of the research endeavour and beyond. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of the journal for their valuable recommendations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Igor Rubinov received his PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University. His research engages with environmental anthropology, development studies, migration and climate change. During 16 months of fieldwork in Tajikistan, he explored how pilot efforts to promote climate change adaptation influenced international development and resource governance. This research was funded by the NSF, IREX, SSRC, and the Princeton Environmental Institute. He has also conducted research in Kyrgyzstan on the social ramifications of remittances.

Notes

1 Over a million residents of Tajikistan had been circulating annually for work to Russia, out of a population of 8 million, and as a result the country has the world’s highest dependence on remittances as a percentage of GDP: 43% (World Bank 2016).

2 All names have been changed to maintain anonymity and comply with research protocols.

3 This conversation was conducted in Russian, which my informants often chose because of my greater fluency relative to my Tajik language proficiency. Conversations in Tajik are noted as such in the text.

4 A notable counterpoint was the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), which secured significant development successes in the Pamirs after the civil war. AKDN, and its multi-faceted health, cultural and development arms, were motivated for long-term investment on account of religious ties based on a shared Ismaili faith. Pamirs residents are nearly all Ismaili and therefore connected through this Shiite sect to its leader, the wealthy Aga Khan (a religious leader based in Switzerland), and the AKDN development agency. However, because residents of Vanj valley are Sunni and feel more aligned with the central government, my informants did not feel like they could make claims on AKDN as easily as residents elsewhere in the Pamirs – therefore precipitating greater engagement with other entities.

5 Tajik citizens working abroad increasingly sought citizenship in Russia to formalise their work and housing status. Furthermore, the proliferation of Russian state-produced media in Tajikistan, as the most widespread and accessible TV programming, certainly helped bolster Russia and its leader as a paragon of sound governance and successful development.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under [grant number 1424295]; the International Research and Exchanges Board under the Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) Program.