USTA at King’s College London

The symposium Scholarly Knowledge in the Context of Epistemic Injustice and Authoritarian Censorship, held on April 25, 2025, at King’s College London (Strand Campus), convened a diverse cohort of researchers to explore the intersection of knowledge production and political repression in post-Soviet Eurasia. Organized by Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Petr Torkanovskiy, and Iris Magne, the event critically examined how authoritarian regimes shape, suppress, and instrumentalise knowledge, particularly in wartime contexts. The symposium foregrounded methodological, ethical, and epistemological challenges faced by researchers studying civil society, resistance and state power, with a particular focus on para-academic spaces.

In this context, Gulzat Botoeva (Swansea University) and Sofya du Boulay (University of Sussex) presented on the USTA Academic Mentorship Project: Empowering Central Asian Voices. Their contribution interrogated the specific forms of epistemic injustice facing scholars in and from Central Asia, where research agendas are frequently constrained by national funding structures that replicate official narratives. Drawing on recent scholarship, they noted that data produced by National Statistics Committees—formally accountable to state administrations—often reflect politically motivated distortions, further complicating empirical inquiry. These restrictive conditions have rendered certain research topics—particularly those concerning authoritarian politics, dissent, and inequality—either censored or subject to pervasive self-censorship.

Botoeva and du Boulay argued that the structural limitations facing Central Asian scholars are compounded by deeper epistemological exclusions, the marginalization of locally grounded theorizing and the under-citation of regionally produced scholarship—especially by women. Their presentation highlighted how the USTA Mentorship seeks to counteract these dynamics by mentoring early-career researchers, fostering critical engagement with theory from within the region, and facilitating cross-border scholarly collaboration. Moreover, they addressed the cultural challenges posed by hierarchical academic traditions that discourage critical dialogue and reflexive inquiry. 

The symposium also featured two additional collaborators of the USTA Mentorship Project whose contributions have been central to its mission. Mariya Omelicheva (National Defense University), an expert on security and governance in Eurasia, served as a mentor in a previous USTA cohort. Diana Kudaibergenova (University College London) supported the program by delivering in-person masterclasses on theory-building and scholarly confidence during a USTA training session in Almaty in June 2023. Both scholars exemplify USTA’s commitment to building sustainable, transnational networks of intellectual support that empower scholars from the Global South.