The international public has taken a while to notice the specific problems of Central Asia and its significance for Europe – both politically and as a subject of research – in contrast to its immediate attention to the post-communist states in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe.

The origins of this book go back to a project on gender politics in Central Asia intended to both collect material on the situation in the countries of Central Asia with regard to organisations and women’s own experiences and to analyse the findings from a gender perspective. At the same time, the project was intended to stimulate research on the region and to bring the Central Asian states into the discussions that are currently going on in women’s and gender studies.

The eight contributions to this book deal with gender politics in Central Asia (specially in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan) and, in doing so, put women’s current life situations into political, social, economic, and cultural contexts. Each essay focuses on some special issue, but beyond this specific focus the essays provide basic information and data on the state in question – demographic and economic structures or political and ideological conditions.