Dr. Aizharkyn Kozhobekova (Aijarkyn Kojobekova) is a Director of Civil Society Initiative. In the past she worked as an associate professor in Philosophy and a National expert in Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), Focal Point of Kyrgyzstan for the UNESCO Silk Roads Online Platform. Over the years she collaborated with different local and international organizations, including Open Society Institute, UNDP, UNESCO, IFES, SaferWorld, IWPR, Soros-Kyrgyzstan Foundation, Aigine Cultural Research Center and others. She has received a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Tuebingen (Germany). She has experience in designing and leading evaluations and reviews based on outcome harvesting, including a demonstrable understanding of qualitative and participatory approaches, working with Outcome Harvesting, or Most Significant Change and Utilisation-focused evaluation tools and teaching social sciences.
Her research interests include social and cultural memory studies, nationalism and nation building process, gender issues, political implications of religion, civil society and CSOs in Kyrgyzstan.
Publications
- Transforming Central Asian Civil Society. WINGS publications
- "Kyrgyzstan focuses education around soft skills". OPEN CENTRAL ASIA MAGAZINE #50 / 2023, pp. 58-62pp.
- National Guidelines for the Safeguarding of Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Practices and Rituals. ISBN 978-9967-9282-1-3. Aigine Cultural Research Center (in co-authorship)
- Training Handbook for Silk Road Heritage Guides. UNESCO and World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 2020 (Supervision, copyediting and proofreading)
- “Women of protest, men of applause. Political activism, gender, and tradition in Kyrgyzstan”. Central Asian Survey ISSN: 0263-4937 (Print) 1465-3354 (Online)
- Monuments to Heroes or Construction of Memory About the April Uprising of 2010 in the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan) IGI Global. Memory, Identity, and Nationalism in European Regions DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-8392-9.ch008
- “Are the Commonwealth of the Independent States and Eurasian Union able to enhance economic and political cooperation in the post-Soviet space?’ IGI Global. Economic and Geopolitical Perspectives of the Commonwealth of the Independent States and Eurasia
- “’The Decline of Europe’ and the problem of the languages of description”. The New past, #2, DOI: 10.23683/2500 3224 2018 2 204 206
- “The Discourses of Romanticism and Heroism in the post-soviet Kyrgyzstan”. The special volume of International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (IJSSH), ISSN: 2010-3646
- Manual on traditional ways of conflict prevention and resolution. Bishkek, Aigine Cultural Research Center (in co-authorship)