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About John Heathershaw

John Heathershaw is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Exeter, working on the politics of aid and conflict resolution in Central Asia. He lived in Kyrgyzstan in 2001-2003.

Articles by John Heathershaw

Central Asia: the discourse of danger

John Heathershaw and Nick Megoran 16 June 2011

From policy reports and academic studies, to computer games and television mini-series, Central Asia is routinely portrayed as overwhelmingly dangerous. Does it matter that serious analyses dovetail with fictional accounts? John Heathershaw and Nick Megoran argue that it does, because it indicates a common Western geopolitical vision of Central Asia that distorts policy towards the region.

A recipe for radicalisation: the campaign against Islam in Tajikistan

Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw 17 January 2011
A government campaign against Islamic education and political movements in Tajikistan, prompted by an armed conflict with ’mujaheds’ in the Rasht valley, risks creating the very militancy it aims to prevent, write Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw.

Tajikistan’s marginalised youth

Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw 20 October 2010
Armed conflict has been raging for almost a month in the mountains of the Kamarob gorge between the forces of the Government of Tajikistan and local ‘mujohids’. This is the most serious political violence in Tajikistan for ten years. Here, in the second of a two-part article, Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw draw on ethnographic research and contacts with residents of the region to explain the nature of contemporary ‘Islamic radicalism’ in the area and the possible causes and dynamics of the current violence.

Conflict in Tajikistan – not really about radical Islam

Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw 19 October 2010
For almost a month, an armed conflict has been raging in the mountains of the Kamarob gorge between the forces of the Government of Tajikistan and local ‘mujohids’. This is the most serious political violence in Tajikistan for ten years. Here, in the first of a two-part article, Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw draw on ethnographic research and contacts with residents of the region to explain the legacy of the civil war and the social and political contexts of this largely unreported conflict.

Beware of meddling in Kyrgyzstan!

John Heathershaw 25 August 2010
Despite deep fissures in Kyrgyz society in the aftermath of the upheavals, external intervention would be counterproductive, advises John Heathershaw. Instead, foreign governments should concentrate their efforts on reducing the stakes of the conflict.

Kyrgyzstan: fractured, but not broken

John Heathershaw 12 April 2010
Kyrgyzstan’s government has fallen, its provisional rulers are untested, and there is as yet no sign of a lasting political settlement. Yet that does not mean it will automatically follow the example of neighbour Tajikistan and descend into civil war, writes John Heathershaw

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Heather McRobie


Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

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