Astana to host International Conference on Central Asia

    By D.Mukhtarov
    Astana will host the International Conference on Central Asia, according to a news release fr om Nazarbayev University JSC.
    "Nazarbayev University will be hosting the International Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies / ESCAS. The conference to be held in Astana on August 5-7 will have the following title: From the Steppes to Arable Land: a Symbiosis of Nomadic and Sedentary Civilizations, the statement said on Monday.
    The event will bring together about 200 participants from 16 countries in Asia, Europe and North America.
    "This theme was chosen because we want to talk about Central Asia as a cultural space, based on the interweaving of various layers of nomadic and sedentary civilizations," the press release quoted Professor of Anthropology at Nazarbayev University and member of the organizing committee, Alma Bissenova as saying.
    She said historical studies show that a variety of cultural layers as well as Cossacks and Kazakhs, Sarts and Tatars lived and interacted in the Kazakh steppe, the area wh ere Astana is now growing and developing.
    The conference will include 48 sessions on the disciplines of anthropology, art, literature, linguistics, education, history, politics, sociology as well as five round tables.
    Kazakhstan will be represented at this year's conference by researchers from 13 universities and institutes.
    Professors of the Nazarbayev University are active participants of the conference that will lead ESCAS thematic sessions as well as present their own research on migration and national identity, civic development, material culture, music, Kazakh literature, education, culture, agriculture and population, famine, history of Islam in the region, stories of borders and sovereignty.
    The Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies was first held in 1987 in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Since then, the event has taken place in 11 countries around the world once every two years.
    This upcoming ESCAS conference is held in Central Asia for the first time. The previous conference was held in 2011 at the University of Cambridge in the UK, Trend states.