Anastasiya Shtaltovna

Knowledge Gaps and Rural Development in Tajikistan: Agricultural Advisory Services as a Panacea?

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse knowledge systems and channels of innovation diffusion in Tajikistan. In particular, I look at the formation of agricultural advisory services (AASs) and how these provide a vital source of knowledge and innovation for farmers during the transition process. Methodology: Empirically, this paper draws on qualitative, ethnographic research in the agricultural sector of Tajikistan, that is, semi-structured and in-depth interviews with agricultural experts, and a ‘farm diary’ that provided data on farmers’ perspectives regarding access to knowledge and expertise. Findings: Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the civil war in Tajikistan, knowledge available to farmers can be described as a mix of traces and fragments originating from the Soviet agricultural and educational system represented by universities, research institutes and academies of science, on the one hand, and Western-style knowledge, mainly introduced by development agencies, on the other. Donors are relatively new actors in the field of knowledge dissemination, but they are nevertheless very important ones. Under the ‘development’ framework, that is, rhetorical, organisational and infrastructural development, different donors play their own parts, some of them geo-political. At the same time they provide support for the functioning of local non-governmental organisations and help to maintain them accordingly, and they are also used by Tajik political actors for their own purposes. Practical implications: From this discussion, practical suggestions are made on how AASs could be organised in Tajikistan, namely on existing assets, traditions and networks, thus reflecting the interplay between the main actors and local needs.

Agricultural Resources Governance in Uzbekistan: A System Theory-Inspired Perspective on Evolutionary Governance

This contribution studies the layered coexistence and mutual shaping of three forms of differentiation (functional, segmentary, hierarchical) in rural Uzbekistan, a region of world society that, since 1991, is undergoing tremendous processes of socio-economic transformation and change. More precisely, we analyses the evolving governance of land, water and agricultural support services (knowledge & advice) in the Uzbek province of Khorezm, where currently three types of farms utilize various social practices to navigate a complex and partly opaque environment marked by various forms of differentiation, each posing different opportunities, threats and coordination mechanisms (institutions). In doing so, the chapter builds on Rudolf Stichweh’s considerations of world society’s structural patterns, its ‘Eigenstructures’ as well as Niklas Luhmann’s conceptualization of world society’s autopoietically closed function systems. Based on ethnographic research, we argue that the mobilization of patron-client relationships, a complex system of coercive reciprocity and a trilogy of formal, strategic and discursive practices are widely employed to cope with the coexistence of an undermined layer of functional differentiation and reaffirmed/reinvented segmentary and hierarchical identities. We argue that the skillful navigation by local actors between these different differentiation forms and their demands, embodies a short-term adaptation strategy that is likely to hamper a (re-) crystallization of autonomous functional domains. Hampering functional differentiation jeopardizes long-term change adaptation. Yet, at the same time, it illustrates the degree to which agricultural resources governance is evolutionary in nature, thus, marked by dependency.