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Food and food systems in Central Asia

Research seminar

Food and food systems in Central Asia

Coordinated by Aliya Bolatkhan (University of Zurich), Agathe Guy (Ecole Pratiques des Hautes Études and Ludwig Maximilian University) and Irène Mestre (IFEAC)

Food is the fuel of life and the receptacle of contested values. It also connects us to soil, landscapes, and people (Kneafsey et al., 2021). This seminar aims to explore current research related to food and food systems to foster the development of a transdisciplinary approach to food in Central Asian contexts.

As a multifaceted object, food has been investigated by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, economists, medical doctors, agronomists … who created different fields such as food science, food studies, and food system research. Food science is mostly dedicated to the technical solutions to provide safe food (in engineering and food processing, for instance), while food studies focus on the understanding of cultural values related to the transmission of knowledge on food, its preparation, and consumption.

In parallel, food systems research emerged from the willingness to connect issues related to agricultural production with those linked with malnutrition. It is now largely devoted to the governance of food between public and private actors. Food system can be defined as an open system of complex interactions, including feedback loops, power relations, multiple values, and a multiscale and holistic understanding of sustainability (IPES-Food, 2015).

During the Soviet Union, food was the instrument of transformation of domestic lives, intricate with agricultural and industrial policies but also a battlefield for ideological contestation and a space of formation of national/ethnical identities (Jacobs, 2015; Scott, 2012). In contemporary Central Asia, food has been investigated through the lens of memory and relationships within the socio-ecological system (van Oudenhoven and Haider, 2017; Murzakulova, 2024), the transformation of the values related and their relation to identity discourse (Aaly Alymbaeva, 2020). In the Pamir, Andrei Dörre explored how biomass flows, across the Pamir and through different regions to deliver food and provide subsistence (Dörre, 2024).

This seminar aims to encourage the development of transdisciplinar community of researchers working on the diverse dimensions of food in Central Asian contexts. In the course of this seminar, we aim to host a variety of research. Researchers who explore food and position themselves within food studies or food systems, as well as researchers who approach these issues as a secondary component, are invited to deepen their analysis of food to better understand the constantly evolving dynamics of Central Asian societies.

Sessions

14 May 2025: Dr Kamil Wielecki, (Warsaw University), Producing a Sensuous Difference: Being a South Asian Student in Kyrgyzstan. Discussant: Irène Mestre.

25 September 2025: Rachel Kay (Cambridge University), Slippery Speculations: Vegetal Materialities, Trust and Mistrust amongst Walnut Traders in Southern Kyrgyzstan. Discussant: Agathe Guy (EPHE/LMU).

10 December 2025 (9:00 am -10:30 US Central / 16:00 – 17:30 CET / 21:00 – 22:30 Bishkek): Aliya Bolatkhan (University of Zurich), The production of ethnographic knowledge on food culture in the Qazaq SSR: writing Kazakhs and Dungans. Discussant: Dr Erik R. Scott (University of Kansas)

26 February 2026 (12:00 to 14:00 CET / 17:00 to 19:00 Bishkek) – Hybrid IFEAC and on-line: Carmen Le Bris (EHESS), De la traite aux produits finis, analyse de la fabrique du social à travers la transformation des produits laitiers chez les éleveuses kirghizes. Discussant: Irène Mestre. Langues de la présentation : Français et Kirghize.

24 March 2026 (12:00 to 14:00 CET / 17:00 to 19:00 Bishkek): Simone de Boer (University of Gothenburg), “Making a living by making alive: rethinking resourcelessness through vermicomposting in Kyrgyzstan”. Discussant: Irène Mestre.

23 April 2026 (12:00 to 14:00 CEST / 16:00 to 18:00 Bishkek): Léo Maillet (University of Geneva – CETOBaC),“‘If there is Water in the Beginning, There will be Bread in the End’: Uyghur Foodways and Relationship with Land Seen Through the Case of Bread-Making”. Discussant: Agathe Guy (EPHE/LMU).

10 June 2026 (10:00 to 12:30 CEST / 14:00 to 16:30 Bishkek) – Hybrid Condorcet and on-line: Dr Ael Thery (INRAE), Preliminary title: The work of chefs in China.

24 June 2026 (10:00 to 12:00 CEST / 14:00 to 16:00 Bishkek) – Hybrid IFEAC and online: Arnaud Caiserman (Mountain Society Research Institute, University of Central Asia), Preliminary title: Climate change and food security in mountainous areas of Tajikistan

Blog posts

Rachel Kay, Agathe Guy (12 janvier 2026). The walnut trade in southern Kyrgyzstan: living with ambiguous plants and uncertain futures. IFEAC. Consulté le 23 avril 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/15hf5. https://doi.org/10.58079/15hf5

Angèle Postolle, Irène Mestre, Agathe Guy (15 avril 2026). Trajectories and Challenges of Geographical Indications in the Kyrgyz Republic = Траектории и вопросы развития географических указаний в Кыргызской Республике. IFEAChttps://doi.org/10.58079/162i9

Organizers

Aliya Bolatkhan is a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Zurich, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Peter Finke. As part of her doctoral research, she investigates the gastronomy sector and its socio-economic embeddedness in the Jetisu region of Qazaqstan. She has over a decade of experience working in Qazaqstani historical research institutions, engaging in long-term research on the history of ethnographic scholarship and the representation of ethnic food cultures in Soviet Qazaqstan, with a particular focus on Qazaqs, Dungans, and Cossacks. Beyond academia, she develops public outreach projects that bridge research and cultural heritage, with a strong focus on knowledge dissemination. Aliya actively engages in public scholarship, developing projects that emphasize the importance of democratizing academic knowledge as a form of intellectual and cultural empowerment. She has initiated several efforts to make scholarly work more accessible to broader audiences — including the translation of academic books on Qazaqstani history from English into local languages, contributing to the creation of an oral history collection now housed at the Central State Archive of Qazaqstan, and collaborating with various artistic and activist initiatives, as part of her broader commitment to inclusive knowledge production.

Agathe Guy is a PhD student in anthropology at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (PSL University, France) and at the Ludwig Maximilian University (Germany), under the supervision of Stéphane A. Dudoignon et Rano Turaeva. Her research investigates halal food and halal economies in Qazaqstan. She has been focusing on highlighting the diversity of understandings of notions of “halal”, “adal” and “purity”. Her dissertation aims to depict and explain the way people make sense of their religious (or not) practices within food systems through the study of both production (certification, butchery) and consumption (selling practices, daily consumption). Aside from her PhD, she is also involved in a project with Dr. Kristina Kovalskaya researching conjugal life and wedding rituals of Chechens and Ingush people in Western Europe, as well as a collaborative project on digital religion (with Chloé Baills, Dr. Kristina Kovalskaya and Dr. Johan Rols).

Irène Mestre is a doctor in geography. Her research interest lies in the Human-Nature interface and governance in particular. As part of her PhD at the Université Jean Moulin-Lyon 3 (CRGA – UMR 5600), in partnership with the French Institute for Central Asian Studies and the Centre for Development and Environment at the University of Berne, she explored the effects of community-based pasture management on the resilience of rural communities in Kyrgyzstan. At the same time, as a consultant, she worked on the dynamics of collaboration for the use of natural resources in cross-border territories, the effects of the mining industry on community management and the institutional strengthening of the decentralisation of pasture management. She is an associate researcher at the UMR Sciences pour l’Action et le Développement; Activités, Produits, Territoires (SADAPT). Her current research examines transitions in agricultural and food systems, particularly their governance, based on case studies in Kyrgyzstan and Qazaqstan.

References

Aaly Alymbaeva, A. (2020). Nations of Plov and Beshbarmak: Central Asian Food and National Identity on the Internet. The Muslim World, 110(1), 107‑125. https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12321

Dörre, A. (2024). Food security and dietary patterns in the Tajik Pamirs. ERDKUNDE, 78(4), 251‑272. https://doi.org/10.3112/erdkunde.2024.04.01

IPES-Food. (2015). The new science of sustainable food systems : overcoming barriers to food systems reform (1) [Research Report]. https://ipes-food.org/fr/rapport/la-nouvelle-science-des-systemes-alimentaires-durables-2/

Jacobs, A. K. (2015). The Many Flavors of Socialism : Modernity and Tradition in Late Soviet Food Culture, 1965-1985 [University of North Carolina]. https://core.ac.uk/reader/210596634

Kneafsey, M., Maye, D., Holloway, L. et Goodman, M. K. (2021). Geographies of Food: An Introduction (1re éd.). Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsburyfoodlibrary.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9781474204392

Murzakulova, A. (2024). The power of apricot: Border Disputes, Land Scarcity and Mobility in the Isfara River Basin. Dans Environmental Humanities in Central Asia. Taylor & Francis. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/75840

Scott, E. R. (2012). Edible Ethnicity How Georgian Cuisine Conquered the Soviet Table. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 13(4), 831‑858.

van Oudenhoven, F. et Haider, L. J. (2017). With our own hands (LM Publishers).

Complementary materials

An open zotero group was created to share references related to the presentations: https://www.zotero.org/groups/6199729/foodandfoodsystemsca