Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies Zulfiya Tursunova was invited to present her work on Women’s economic empowerment in Uzbekistan on April 21, 2021, for the Central Asian academic and analytical conference. Her panel focused on the role of gender in Central Asia.
Zulfiya's research theorizes that:
- Livelihood resilience and access to resources, market, and global economy is central in maintaining peoples’ well-beings.
- Transformative-justice practices often depends on women’s informal social micro-credit networks that help alleviate economic shocks and poverty and enhance entrepreneurship and often decrease economic dependency of women on men and state micro-loan bank systems.
- And women’s rituals empower women to control their environment and depends on the ways women theorize discourses of patriarchy and empowerment when they challenge and transform their resource access and limited property rights. The discussion of peace testimonies highlights spiritual and healing elements in peacemaking, focusing on rituals where spiritual leaders and participants all seek divine intervention to transcend difficulties and to repair damaged relationships. Participants reconceptualize views of themselves and their broader social landscape to achieve holistic well-being interconnected with spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, and economic realms.