Toma Peiu and Alice F. Hill, 2018 NEST Graduate Fellows, were among the 19 participants in Knowing the Naryn River, a Transdisciplinary Flash Study held in Shamaldy Say, Kyrgyzstan, 26th-30th April 2018, as a part of the three- year long research project The “Social Life” of a River: environmental histories, social worlds and conflict resolution along the Naryn-Syr Darya, run under the lead of Dr. Jeanne Féaux de la Croix (University of Tübingen), funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.
The participants - social scientists, activists, water managers, artists, engineers and geographers - were paired in 9 interdisciplinary research tandems. Each tandem developed their question to research and spend 2 full days working closely with local communities. The final day was devoted for synthesis and analysis of the findings, and a briefing with local community leaders. In total, 96 intensive interviews were conducted.
Toma Peiu collaborated with social anthropologist Nurzat Sultanalieva, a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Tübingen, on a study of the Dreams of teenagers of Shamaldy-Say: perception, imaginary and futurities.