Guest lecture "Why Leave? Motives on 'non-repatriation' of ethnic Germans and Russians from Kyrgyzstan": findings and organization of a workshop at AUCA, by Alena Zelenskaia

“Why leave?...” workshop was designed as a full circle research experience at the American University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The 12 participants – BA students enrolled in Social Sciences programs all over Kyrgyzstan - learned about migration patterns of Germans and Russians from Kyrgyzstan in the post-Soviet period, obtained knowledge on how to conduct and analyze semi-structured interviews elaborated small research projects themselves and presented the preliminary results in November 2017. In May 2018, the second part of the workshop was launched. At that time 5 motivated students, who had continued to collect interviews after the November workshop, learned how to write a research article. They analyzed 34 interviews from three regions of Kyrgyzstan and outlined the main content of their papers. Nowadays they are working on them.

 During the guest lecture, you will learn more about the details of the organization of the workshop, supported by DAAD and the American University of Central Asia, as well as the key findings of the fieldwork.