Dr Asel Murzakulova is a Senior Research Fellow with UCA’s Mountain Societies Research Institute and Co-Founder of the analytical club "Mongu". She has extensive work experience with governmental, international, and civil organizations in Central Asia. In 2008, she was a visiting scholar at the Davis Center at Harvard University, and in 2013, at the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California in Berkeley. Between 2006 and 2015, she worked at the International Institute of Strategic Studies under the President of Kyrgyzstan, as a national expert to the Development International Organizations, and political consultant to the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Her research covers conflicts, migration, natural resource management, (in)security, and nationalism. Currently, she is engaged in security and conflict-related research, with a focus on resource management challenges across Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Border. In 2013, she was awarded the International Medal of the Commission of National Education of Poland for her contribution to the development of civic education in Kyrgyzstan. In 2015, she was also awarded the Diderot post-doctoral fellowship FMSH IFEAC for the research in the framework of the Center for the Study of modern Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Europe.
Publications
- Murzakulova, A. (2024). The power of apricot: Border Disputes, Land Scarcity and Mobility in the Isfara River Basin. In: Féaux de la Croix, J. and Penati, B. (eds.) Environmental Humanities in Central Asia: Relations between Extraction and Interdependence. London: Routledge.
- Murzakulova, A., Kuznetsova, I.*, & Mogilevskii, R. (2023). Has immobility been left behind in migration regulatory infrastructures? International Migration, 62(1), 23-36.
- Murzakulova, A.*, Dessalegn, M., & Phalkey, N. (2021) “Examining migration governance: evidence of rising insecurities due to COVID-19 in China, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Morocco, Nepal and Thailand”. Comparative Migration Studies, 9(1),1-16.
- Murzakulova A. (2021) Sensuous Nostalgia: Insecurity in the Borderlands of the Fergana Valley. Roadsides Issue 006: 46–52.
- Murzakulova A. (2014) Izobretenie legitimnosti: Vliyanie mezhparlamentskih institutov SNG na post-sovetskii parlamentarism. [Accruing legitimacy: CIS Interpaliamentarian institutions impact on Post-soviet parliamentarism ] Central Asia and Caucasus. Issue 17(3), 166-176.
- Murzakulova, A., & Schoeberlein, J.* (2009) The invention of legitimacy struggles in Kyrgyzstan to craft an effective nation-state ideology. Europe-Asia Studies, 61(7), 1229-1248.
- Murzakulova A. “The Impact of Climate Change on Central Asian Hydro-Politics” GSD Policy Brief. November 2023.
- Murzakulova A. “Climate Change Concerns in Central Asia Public Discourse” GSD Policy Brief November 2023
- Murzakulova A. “Applying a Rural Development Lens to Migration Policy in Kyrgyzstan”, AGRUMIG Policy Brief #9, December 2022.
- Murzakulova A. “The Soviet Water Legacy in Central Asia,” Diplomat , September, 2021.
- Murzakulova A. “Who does not exist in discussions of regionalization in Central Asia? A Decolonial Critique of the - Discourse of Integration and Regionalization” (on Russian). Central Asian Analytical Network.
- Murzakulova A., Sidle R. “Rethinking the Nexus of Climate Change, Development and Discourse of Danger in Central Asia”. MSRI Policy Brief, 2020.
- Kuznetsova I., Mogilevskii R., Murzakulova A., Abdoubaetova A., Wolters A., Round J., “Migration and COVID-19: Challenges and Policy Responses in Kyrgyzstan”. In COVID-19 pandemic and Central Asia: Crisis Management, Economic Impact, and Social Transformations. The George Washington University, 2020
- Murzakulova, A. “Rural Migration in Kyrgyzstan: Drivers, Impact and Governance”. MSRI Research Report #7. UCA, 2020
- Murzakulova A., Omorova G., Shibkov E. “Reconsidering the Meaning of Neighbourship: The Transformation of Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan Border Areas after 2016”. MSRI Policy Brief, 2019
- Murzakulova A. “Contextual factors of the conflicts in Batken Province Kyrgyzstan”. MSRI Research Report 2019.
- Murzakulova, Asel, Mestre Irene. “Natural Management Dynamics in border communities of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan”.
- Murzakulova A. “Challenges of social cohesion and tensions in communities on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border”. MSRI UCA Research Report #2, 2018.
- Murzakulova A. “Kyrgyzstan: The Citizen and the State”. Tutorial for university students. Publisher: Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, - Bishkek, Maxprint, 2012, – 116 pages.
- Murzakulova A. The impact of the CIS inter-parliamentary Assembly on Kyrgyz parliamentarism. CACI Analyst Johns Hopkins University-SAIS. - 2010.-Vol. 12.-№1.
- Climate Change Concerns in Central Asia Public Discourse
- The Impact of Climate Change on Central Asian Hydro-Politics
- Rethinking the Nexus of Climate Change
- Rural Migration in Kyrgyzstan
- Lessons Learned from Interventions in Areas of Medium and High Intensity Conflicts: A Case Study of Vorukh (Tajikistan) and Ak-Sai (Kyrgyzstan)
- Reconsidering the Meaning of Neighbourship: The Transformation of Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan Border Areas after 2016
- Challenges of Social Cohesion and Tensions in Communities on the Kyrgyz-Tajik Border
- Contextual Factors of the Conflict in Batken Province Kyrgyzstan
- Natural Resource Management Dynamics
- Natural Resource Management Dynamics