Remittances as a Source of Finance for Entrepreneurship in Uzbekistan

It is an exciting time to study migration in the Eurasian region. Migration policies and patterns are receiving crucial attention from governments, scholars, and activists alike. Old, new, and changing patterns are making important impacts on home and host societies. The region is marked by some of the freest migration in the world through the free labor zone of the Eurasian Economic Union and the visa-free regime of the Commonwealth of Independent States. At the same time, however, it faces restrictions in the form of Soviet-era registration procedures, active use of re-entry bans in Russia, and heavy-handed efforts to regulate emigration in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In this context, migration is not only an issue requiring domestic policy attention, but also a critical focus of geopolitical bargaining. Given the political and theoretical salience of migration in the Eurasian region, the NAC-NU Central Asia Studies Program chose as its second theme “external and internal migrations in Central Asia.” The call for papers generated proposals related to the development of Central Asian economies from migration and remittances, the dynamics of migration to Russia (the major destination), rising alternative destinations, and political factors in home and host countries. On the basis of these papers, we convened a conference in Astana in September 2017, which brought together junior and senior scholars with ties to the region and to international academic institutions. This group of scholars is well placed to mediate the empirical work being done in the region and broader theoretical perspectives.No Full Tex