International responses to violence in the South of Kyrgyzstan, June 2010

1 May 2013 - 30 September 2013

PI/s in Exeter: Professor John Heathershaw

Research partners: Nick Megoran (University of Newcastle)

Funding awarded: £ 9,663

Sponsor(s): Open Society Institute (OSI) of New York and the Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) of Stockholm

About the research

John Heathershaw (Politics) and co-investigators David Lewis (a new appointee to Politics, Exeter) and Nick Megoran (Newcastle) have been awarded $15,000 by the Open Society Institute (OSI) of New York and the Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) of Stockholm to supplement their research as part of the ESRC-funded ‘Rising Powers and Conflict Management in Central Asia’ project. The grant will pay for travel and research assistance over the Summer of 2013 to undertake a study of the direct effectiveness and inadvertent consequences of Western humanitarian, diplomatic and security responses to the Osh ethnic conflict of 2010. In this conflict over 400 ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz died and the social dislocation of the violence continues to impact society in southern Kyrgyzstan to this day. The study will investigate what has been done and how responses to such conflict might be improved in the future. It will be published as an OSI/SIPRI paper and is expected to be read widely by policy-makers and officials working in the region.