On 3rd-4th November of last year SOAS hosted a conference, “Cotton Sector in Central Asia: Economic Policy and Development Challenges”. The papers have now been posted at the website for the SOAS Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus. Naturally, there’s something for anyone interested in Central Asia: development, agriculture, politics, human rights, history etc.

My own particular field of interest is history, so I’m going to highlight a fascinating paper by J. Otto Pohl on the role of the “punished peoples” in developing Uzbekistan’s cotton industry. Entitled ‘A Caste of Helot Labourers: Special Settlers and the Cultivation of Cotton in Soviet Central Asia: 1944-1956′ (Powerpoint presentation), it’s an interesting angle on a highly contentious issue.

A friend of mine did her MA thesis last year on the Meskhetian Turks, in particular the riots in the Ferghana valley in 1989. Her thesis advisor was strangely uncooperative.