Stockholm International Program for Central Asian Studies – SIPCAS
Stockholm International Program for Central Asian Studies (SIPCAS) was established at Stockholm University with funding from The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities (2007–2013). From 2012, this program is operated from the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul.
Central Asia is a vast region combining in varying degrees European culture and European-style policies with Asian identities and world-views. Both of these aspects are addressed for a deep-loading and multi-dimensional research on the nature of Central Asian societies.
The aim of SIPCAS is to work for a united Eurasian research network through the exchange of students, scholars and research results. The point-of-departure is an agenda that is general enough to allow a large range of thesis topics and, at the same time, specific enough to constitute a framework within which different types of research work will contribute to one recurrent theoretical discussion of the defining civilizational features of Central Asian societies from a regional as well as local perspective.
The combination of cultural-historical and socio-political parameters for the anlysis of present-day processes in and around the Central Asian region is considered to be an especially fertile method of scientific research and the east-west perspective enabled through participating institutions a sine qua non for a profound understanding of Central Asian societies and their consolidation as sovereign political units in the post-Soviet era. Research and training are conducted not primarily at the state level, but at the regional and local-community level. The role of language is given special prominence.
Institutions and scholars from Europe and Asia as well as other parts of the world are invited to participate in this program for the promotion of graduate studies and post-graduate research in fields relating to Central Asia.
SIPCAS is headed by Prof. Dr. Birgit N. Schlyter, present Director at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII). Master’s students from the former site of SIPCAS at Stockholm University participate in the program as trainees at SRII. Master’s students and Ph.D.Candidates from partner institutions (see below) are invited to SRII for supervision and training.
At present, SIPCAS has the following partnership agreements for funded international cooperation:
PARTNER PROGRAMS AND AGREEMENTS FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Exchange Program for the promotion of Central Asian graduate studies and post-graduate research.
Within the framework of this program, a grant of 1.9 million Swedish crowns (2007–2012) has been provided by The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) for joint activities with the following partner institutions and their associates in the Central Asian region:
Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan.
Contact person: Associate professor Timur Dadabaev
E-mail: dadabaev(a)chiiki.tsukuba.ac.jp
The Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS), Kolkata, India
Contact person: Dr. Anita Sengupta.
E-mail: anitasengupta(a)hotmail.com
Coordination of Central Asia collections in Sweden for online access and international cooperation
In a joint project between the Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm, and the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, materials from the Central Asia collections once belonging to the Swedish scholars Sven Hedin and Gunnar Jarring will be digitised and documented for the establishment of a national Swedish database in affiliation with the International Dunhuang Project at British Library, London. A grant of 2 million Swedish crowns has been obtained from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Work started in January 2011.
Contact person on behalf of the Gunnar Jarring Central Asia Collection: Prof. Birgit Schlyter
E-mail: birgit.schlyter(a)sri.org.tr
Contact person on behalf of the Sven Hedin Foundation: Curator Håkan Wahlquist
E-mail: hakan.wahlquist(a)etnografiska.se
****
For contact with SIPCAS:
Birgit Schlyter, head of SIPCAS
E-mail: birgit.schlyter(a)sri.org.tr
Phone: +90-212-2524119
****
PUBLICATIONS
Forthcoming conference volume from SIPCAS:
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Eurasian Geopolitics,
edited by Michael Fredholm in collaboration with Birgit Schlyter
Previous articles and papers prepared at SIPCAS:
Fredholm, Michael, “The Legacy of Nursultan Nazarbaev”. Will the 2010 OSCE Chairmanship Make Kazakhstani President Nazarbayev Go Down in History as Reformer or Despot?”, Team IPPEKI, February 2010.
Fredholm, Michael, “The Impact of Mancu Institutions on Tibetan Military Reform”, presented at the 6th Nordic Tibet Conference, Stockholm, 5-6 May 2007.
Fredholm, Michael, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The Latest Chapter in the History of the Great Game or the Guarantor of Central Asian Security?”, Team IPPEKI, June 2007.
Fredholm, Michael, ”Turkiets geopolitiska betydelse i historiskt perspektiv”, in Dragomanen, Årg. 10-11/2006-2007.
Hällzon, Patrick, ”Stepping onto Sacred Ground: The mazar in Uyghur day-to-day life”, in Tore Ahlbäck (ed.), Pilgrimages Today. Based on papers read at the symposium on pilgrimages today held at Åbo, Finland, on 19–21 August 2009, Åbo: Donner Institute for Religious and Cultural History 2010.
Hällzon, Patrick, ”I Gunnar Jarrings fotspår till östturkestanska mazarer”, in Dragomanen, Årg. 10-11/2006-2007.
Juntunen, Mirja, ”Fakta och fiktion om staden Taratambol”, in Orientaliska Studier 123/2009, pp. 99-105.
Laanatza, Marianne, “Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - Trends and Tendencies”, in Hisao Komatsu, Sahin Karasar, Timur Dadabaev, Güljanat Kurmangalieva Ercilasun (eds.), Central Eurasian Studies: Past, Present and Future, 2011, Maltepe University, Turkey.
Schlyter, Birgit N., “The Turcological Legacy of the Swedish Diplomat Gunnar Jarring”, in Hisao Komatsu, Sahin Karasar, Timur Dadabaev, Güljanat Kurmangalieva Ercilasun (eds.), Central Eurasian Studies: Past, Present and Future, 2011, Maltepe University, Turkey.
Schlyter, Birgit N., ”Från statsspråk till nationalspråk i Centralasien”, in Årsbok 2010, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm, pp. 153–168.
Schlyter, Birgit N., ”Turan, Ergenekon och turkarnas röda äpple”, in Orientaliska Studier 123/2009, pp. 107–118.
Schlyter, Birgit N., ”Språk och politik i Centralasien”, in YMER, Vol. 125 (2005), pp. 77-94.
Schlyter, Birgit N., “The Karakalpaks and Other Language Minorities under Central Asian State Rule”, in Birgit N. Schlyter (ed.), Prospects for Democracy in Central Asia, Transactions. Vol. 15, Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul/I. B. Tauris, Stockholm/London/New York 2005, pp. 81–94.
Schlyter, Birgit N., “Changing Language Loyalties in Central Asia”, in Tej K. Bhatia and William C. Ritchie (eds), The Handbook of Bilingualism, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing 2004, pp. 808-834.
Schlyter, Birgit N., “Sociolinguistic Changes in Transformed Central Asian Societies”, in Jacques Maurais and Michael A. Morris (eds), Languages in a Globalising World, New York: Cambridge University Press 2003, pp. 157-187.
For reports on academic studies in Sweden relating to Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey, see the following two publications from STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education).
Schlyter, Birgit, Academic Studies in Sweden on Central Asia, Caucasus and Turkey: An Investigation of Higher Education and Research for The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education, STINT, January 2009, 18 pages. [Abridged and revised version of a longer report in Swedish:]
Schlyter, Birgit, and Svante Cornell, Rapport från inventering av svensk utbildnings- och forskningskompetens inom området för studier av Centralasien, Kaukasien och Turkiet [An investigation of higher education and research concerning Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey in Sweden, carried out on the request of The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education], September 2008, 63 pages.