... exchanges serve as an alternative means for conducting micro-level businesses in Central Asia. The phenomenon of “rassiychilar,” which is the central focus of this article, is one of the intriguing examples of debt-based trade in rural Fergana, Uzbekistan. This debt-based trade involves a myriad of informal...

...Vladimir Otrachshenko; Sana Iliyas; Nargiza Alimukhamedova Traditions and culture affect decisions in many daily life aspects, including family, labor market, business, and social life activities. The focus of this article is on Uzbekistan, a country that has a legacy of the Soviet past but also...

...Adrian Zenz This study traces the evolution of systemic state-sponsored coercive labor in the cotton harvest in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The recent situation in the XUAR is compared to Uzbekistan, which implemented forced labor in cotton picking until 2021...

...Dina Rome Spechler; Martin C. Spechler Under the authoritarian regime of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan has achieved independence and stability by exploiting its natural resources through a strategy of “staple globalism” and by balancing the great powers against each other. Since the breakup...

...Reuel R. Hanks The “re-Islamization” of society in independent Uzbekistan has proven to be a complex process, generating conflict in the social, cultural and political spheres. Since the early 1990s, the regime of Islam Karimov has sought to undermine any manifestation of “unofficial” Islam via...