[PUBLICATION] “Confluence of Research Worlds” podcast: Zhanna Karimova

On The November 29, 2023

The Collegium - Institute of Advanced Studies of the Université de Lyon is launching “Confluence of Research Worlds” (Confluences des mondes de la recherche), a series of podcasts to discover the ongoing research of the 2023/2024 fellows.

A research director at the Institute of Strategic Studies of Kazakhstan, sociologist Zhanna Karimova is a resident at the Collegium – Institute for Advanced Studies of the Université de Lyon for the 2023/2024 academic year. She is conducting research on Aljir (Alzhir), a forced labor camp located on the territory of Kazakhstan and reserved for the women and children of those designated as “enemies of the people” during the Stalinist era.

Today we know the names of 8,000 imprisoned women, including 1,273 women of European origin. My stay in France constitutes the first phase of a larger research project: I will begin by reconstructing the trajectories of the 4 French women who found themselves in this forced labor camp.

This research project is part of an approach both to making women visible in history, and to re-appropriating, through Kazakh research, the history of Kazakhstan which has until now been written from outside. In order to conduct this research, Zhanna Karimova works in collaboration with the Max Weber Center.

Listen to the podcast

(Length: 23 minutes – in French, transcript in English)

Find out more on the Collegium