Precarious work and environmental uncertainty in the Central Asian walnut trade

我将研究与吉尔吉斯斯坦贾拉拉巴德地区核桃林相关的核桃采摘者和贸易商的经济和环境不确定性经验。这些人的生计在经济上并不稳定：随着苏联解体，核桃采摘者失去了有工资的工作，他们陷入了贫困，现在主要依靠出售核桃来获得收入，核桃的产量每年都在变化。雪上加霜的是，气候变化正在破坏核桃树，使其产量变得更加不可预测。这些不确定的工作生活也受到中亚特有的政治经济动态的影响。为了在这个地理环境中构建经济条件和环境变化之间的相互作用，我将考虑关于不稳定工作和中亚政治经济转型的文献，并将这些工作与强调森林和景观代理的理论方法进行对话。我的实地考察将是多地点的，跟随核桃及其贸易商的旅程，以反映中亚的流动性和贸易商的相互联系的经历。这也将使我能够研究环境变化在太空中传播的方式。实地工作将包括参与核桃收获，以及对核桃采摘者和核桃商品链上的流动贸易商进行采访。

I will research experiences of economic and environmental uncertainty amongst the walnut pickers and tradersassociated with the walnut forest in the Jalal-Abad region of Kyrgyzstan. These livelihoods are economically precarious:walnut pickers have been impoverished by the loss of waged work that accompanied the breakup of the Soviet Union,and now rely mainly on selling walnuts for their incomes, the yields of which vary annually. To compound this precarity,climate change is damaging walnut trees and rendering their yields more unpredictable. These uncertain working livesare also configured by political-economic dynamics specific to Central Asia. In order to frame the interaction betweeneconomic conditions and environmental change in this geographical setting, I will consider the literature on precariouswork and on Central Asian political-economic transformations, and will bring these bodies of work into conversation withtheoretical approaches which emphasise the agency of forests and landscapes. My fieldwork will be multi-sited, followingthe journey of the walnut and its traders so as to reflect the fluidity of Central Asia and traders' experiences ofinterconnectedness. This will also enable me to investigate the ways in which the agency of environmental changetravels through space. The fieldwork will involve participation in the walnut harvest, as well as carrying out interviews withwalnut pickers and mobile traders along the walnut commodity chain.