Anara Tabyshalieva

Anara Tabyshalieva "a Kyrgyz native is a specialist on issues of conflict prevention and religious problems in Central Asia. She worked for the Institute for Regional Studies, one of the foremost NGOs in Kyrgyzstan, and managed projects on political and social developments in Central Asia. She was a senior fellow of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Currently she is involved in the project on religious and ethnic tolerance in Central Asia supported by USIP. Her research on the status of women in Central Asia was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In addition to thirty articles and numerous reports, she has written books on religion, democratization and gender issues in Central Asia. Among her recently published articles are “Civil Society and Democracy Ideologies,” “Central Asia and the Caucasus,” “Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures,” Family, Law and Politics,” (Vol.2, Brill: Leiden-Boston, 2005); “Conflict Prevention Agenda in Central Asia” (Albrecht Schnabel and David Carment eds., “Conflict Prevention from Rhetoric to Practice,” (Vol. 1 Organizations and institutions, Lanham: Lexington Book, 2004); and “Political Islam in Kyrgyzstan” (OSCE Yearbook, 2002, Institute for Peace and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg: Baden-Baden, 2003). Anara is a co-editor of two books: Volume VI of History of Civilizations of Central Asia, 1850-1991 (UNESCO, Paris), and Challenges of Rebuilding Post-Conflict Societies and the Need for Woman and Child-Sensitive Peacebuilding Policies/Approaches (UN University, Tokyo)." (Keynote speakers at the same conference this biography is from included Andrew S. Natsios, Anwar Ibrahim, Gretchen Birkle, Lorne Craner, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Carl Gershman, Anisa Mehdi, and S. Abdallah Schleifer.)

She conducted research for a 1999 study "during her 1996–97 Jennings Randolph fellowship at the United States Institute of Peace. Currently [in 1999] she is director of the Institute for Regional Studies and a lecturer at Kyrgyz-Slavonic University. In 1995 she was the recipient of a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in support of her research on "The Women's Question in Central Asia: Historical Roots of Contemporary Contradictions," and a grant from HIVOS (Holland) for researching a group project entitled "Kyrgyzstan: Factors of Destabilization and Stabilization of Ethno-Religious Peace.""

• Director, Central Eurasia Studies Society