Decolonization of Education Research, Policy-making, and Practice in Central Asia: The Case of Tajikistan

Abstract

This chapter reviews the challenges facing educational research and knowledge production, in the independent post-Soviet Central Asia through examination of the case of Tajikistan. The chapter revisits issues discussed in Niyozov and Bahry (2006) on the need for research-based approaches to with these challenges, taking up Tlostanova’s (2015) challenge to see Central Asian educational history as repeated intellectual colonization, decolonization, and recolonization leading her to question whether Central Asians can think, or must simply accept policies and practices that travel from elsewhere. The authors respond by reviewing Tajikistan as representative in many aspects, if not all particulars, of the entire region. Part one of the review describes data sources, analyses, and our positionalities. Part two reviews decolonization in comparative, international, and development education and in post-Soviet education. Part three describes education research and knowledge production types and their key features. Thereafter, the authors discuss additional challenges facing Tajikistan’s and the region’s knowledge production and link them to the possibilities of decolonization discourse. The authors conclude by suggesting realistic steps the country’s scholars and their comparative international education colleagues may take to move toward developing both research capacity and decolonization of knowledge pursuits in Tajikistan and Central Asia.

Citation

Niyozov, S. and Bahry, S.A. (2022), "Decolonization of Education Research, Policy-making, and Practice in Central Asia: The Case of Tajikistan", Wiseman, A.W. (Ed.) Annual Review of Comparative and International Education 2021 (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 42A), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 161-183. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-36792022000042A014