In this episode of Yurt Jurt, host Diana T. Kudaibergen speaks with political sociologist Nodira Kholmatova about how migration, power, and inequality shape the lived realities of Central Asians across borders. Working at the intersection of comparative political economy and migration studies, Nodira unpacks how migration governance produces social hierarchies and how migrants and their families navigate, resist, and rework these systems. Drawing on research spanning Central Asia, Russia, Serbia, and beyond, the conversation explores the racialization of Central Asian migrants, deportation regimes, and the enduring legacies of empire in contemporary mobility.

Together, Diana and Nodira reflect on what concepts like race, ethnicity, and decolonisation mean in and for Central Asia today. What does it mean to think from the region, rather than about it? How do postcolonial dynamics shape migration, belonging, and exclusion? And what responsibilities do scholars have toward the communities they study?