Aijarkyn Kojobekova
Aijarkyn Kojobekova is the director of the Civil Society Initiative of the Graduate School of Development, University of Central Asia and previously an associate professor in philosophy. She also serves as a national expert of Kyrgyzstan in intangible cultural heritage and the focal point of Kyrgyzstan for the UNESCO Silk Roads Online Platform. Aijarkyn is also a member of both the UNESCO Convention 2003 facilitators and the UNESCO Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific. Her research interests include cultural heritage, social/cultural memory studies, nationalism and nation-building processes, gender issues, political implications of religion and the sacred, and civil society and CSOs in Kyrgyzstan. She published several books and articles, most recently Intangible Cultural Heritage on the Silk Roads: Handbook Toolkit for Teachers with UNESCO Almaty Cluster Offices for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.