Bordering in post-Soviet Central Asia Two tales from Tajikistan

• Published in: The EU's Eastern Neighbourhood pp. 100 - 114
• Main Authors: Virkkunen, Joni, Fryer, Paul
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2016
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: bordering processes; Ferghana Valley; EU Ukraine Association; Border Delimitation; EU's Security Interest; EU's East; socio-political context; EU's Eastern Neighbourhood; EU's External Border; EU Russia Relation; EU Neighbourhood Policy; EU's Communication; Young Men; ethno-territorial instability; EU's Policy Approach; EU's Neighbourhood; Tajik Kyrgyz Border; Tajik Aluminium Company; EU's Eastern; EU's Eastern Enlargement; post-Soviet Central Asia; EU's Immigration Policy; Tajik Uzbek Border; EU Ukraine Relation; Tursunzoda; Tajik Border; EU's Migration Policy; EU's Eastern Border; EU's Attempt; economic resources
• ISBN: 9780415722865; 1138477699; 9781138477698; 0415722861
• DOI: 10.4324/9781315858036-9

This chapter focuses on Tajik borders and the redefinition of economic and political space in two contexts: the situation in the town of Tursunzoda with its company Tajik Aluminium Company (TALCO), close to the Uzbek border in central Tajikistan, and the Tajik-Kyrgyz border in the Ferghana Valley. The two examples illustrates simultaneous but different bordering processes in contemporary Tajikistan, the serious economic impacts of an unstable and unpredictable border regime with Uzbekistan, resulting from the collapse of Soviet production networks and deteriorated interstate relations, and the ethno-territorial instability connected to creeping migration that is significant on the Tajik border with Kyrgyzstan. The history of the small city of Tursunzoda on the Tajik-Uzbek border is a rather common one in the post-Soviet context. New nationalising states like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are struggling with the economic reorganisation of Soviet-time production and political space. This chapter focuses on discursive strategies and policies developed by the EU in its efforts to manage migration in the eastern neighbourhood and beyond, in the so called Wider Europe, by analysing the EU's communications on the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) published between 2003 and 2013. It examines the EU's migration policies in the context of five eastern neighbourhood countries, namely Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan and Ukraine. Conventional wisdom in and outside the academic community claims that contradictions in the EU's migration policy result from multilevel factors, such as the globally felt economic crisis, heightened nationalism and security concerns, which in the European Union are counterpoised by factors such as an increased awareness of the demographic challenges faced by the majority of the member states. In the current discourse of migration, the normalisation of movements across the borders of the EU is conditioned by political stability, the rule of law and democracy in the EU's neighbourhood.