ePrints

What happens when borders reopen? Dematerialising the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan boundary.

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Nick MegoranORCiD

Downloads

• Published version [.pdf]

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).

Abstract

Border studies have been focussed on what happens when borders close, leaving the question of border reopenings both largely unconceptualized and unexplored. We argue here for a new focus on border dematerialisations to complement existing work on border materialisations. This is supported by a detailed, interdisciplinary study of the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan border conducted by a geographer and an economist. Having been largely sealed for many years, a change of leadership in Uzbekistan in 2016 precipitated a major change of policy promoting transboundary trade, cooperation and movement. Using both macroeconomic data analysis and ethnographic study, we trace what Uzbekistan did to reopen borders and show the economic and political consequences.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Megoran N, Enikeeva Z

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Geopolitics

Year: 2025

Pages: epub ahead of print

Online publication date: 24/10/2025

Acceptance date: 02/04/2025

Date deposited: 06/05/2026

ISSN (print): 1465-0045

ISSN (electronic): 1557-3028

Publisher: Routledge

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2025.2575986

DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2025.2575986

Altmetrics

Funding

Share