Precarious work and environmental uncertainty in the Central Asian walnut trade

我将研究经济和环境不确定性的经验之间的核桃采摘和tradersassociated与核桃林在吉尔吉斯斯坦的贾拉拉巴德地区。这些人的生计在经济上很不稳定：随着苏联解体，核桃采摘者失去了有工资的工作，他们一贫如洗，现在主要依靠出售核桃来获得收入，核桃的产量每年都不一样。为了加剧这种不稳定性，气候变化正在破坏核桃树，使其产量更加不可预测。这些不确定的工作生活也由中亚特有的政治经济动态配置。为了框在这个地理环境中的经济条件和环境变化之间的相互作用，我将考虑不稳定的工作和中亚的政治经济转型的文献，并将这些机构的工作纳入谈话与理论方法，强调机构的森林和景观。我的实地考察将是多地点的，遵循核桃和它的商人的旅程，以反映中亚的流动性和商人的相互联系的经验。这也将使我能够调查环境变化的机构在太空中旅行的方式。实地考察将包括参与核桃收获，以及对核桃采摘者和沿着核桃商品链的移动的贸易商进行采访。

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.