Assistant Professor
Zamira
Abman
Department of History & Comparative International Studies
San Diego State University
Scroll
Assistant Professor
Department of History & Comparative International Studies
San Diego State University
Zamira Abman is an Assistant Professor of History and Comparative International Studies at San Diego State University, where she also serves as Director of the Comparative International Studies Program. A native of Tajikistan who attended university in Kyrgyzstan, she brings firsthand knowledge of Central Asian histories, cultures, and languages to her scholarship and teaching.
Her research examines the Soviet Union's transformative — and often coercive — policies toward Muslim communities in Central Asia, with particular attention to gender, religion, and state power. Her book, Coerced Liberation: Muslim Women in Soviet Tajikistan (University of Toronto Press, 2024), draws on local archives and oral histories to interrogate how Soviet campaigns for women's emancipation produced deeply uneven outcomes. Her current ACLS-funded project investigates Soviet-era border demarcations in Central Asia and their lasting social, political, and environmental consequences.
Prior to her academic career, she worked with international NGOs — including the Carter Center and Counterpart International — on development and peacebuilding initiatives across Washington D.C., Atlanta, West Africa, and Central Asia. She holds a Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2015), an M.A. in International Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution from the University of Notre Dame (2006), and a B.A. in American Studies from the American University of Central Asia (2004).
My work sits at the intersection of Soviet history, gender studies, and Central Asian studies. I combine archival research with oral history interviews to recover the lived experiences of communities whose stories have long been marginalized in dominant historical narratives.
I examine the social, political, and cultural history of Soviet rule in Central Asia, with a particular focus on Tajikistan. My research draws on local archives and multilingual oral histories to recover perspectives often absent from Soviet-era documentation.
My book Coerced Liberation investigates how Soviet campaigns to "emancipate" Muslim women in Tajikistan unfolded in practice — revealing the tensions between ideological imperatives and the realities of women's lives under Soviet rule.
My current ACLS-funded project traces how Soviet-era border demarcations and water-sharing agreements in northern Tajikistan continue to shape the region's political, social, and environmental landscape today, incorporating research across Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia.
I teach courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels on Russian and Soviet history, world history, and Western civilization, drawing on primary sources and comparative frameworks to help students engage critically with the past.
Abman, Zamira. Coerced Liberation: Muslim Women in Soviet Tajikistan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2024.
Publisher page →Abman, Zamira. "Marriage and Margins: Gendered Belonging in Chala-Jewish Muslim Lives." Central Asian Survey, October 2025.
Read article →Abman, Zamira. "History of Women's Movements in Soviet Tajikistan: Early to Mid-20th Century." In Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, edited by Suad Joseph, vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
Abman, Zamira. "Women and Islam: Analysis of the Soviet Atheist Propaganda, 1953–1982." In Women and Gender in Twentieth Century Russia and the Soviet Union, edited by Melanie Ilic, pp. 299–314. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Review of Collectivization Generation: Oral Histories of a Social Revolution in Uzbekistan by Marianne Kamp. American Historical Review 130, no. 4 (December 2025): 1732–1733.
Read review →Review of Moscow's Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR by Isaac McKean Scarborough. Slavic Review 83, no. 1 (2024): 192–194.
Read review →Abman, Zamira. Bridging Worlds: The History of the Chala — Jewish-Muslims in Soviet Tajikistan. Under advance contract, University of Toronto Press.
Abman, Zamira. "Beyond Water Wars: Untangling Conflict and Cooperation in the Isfara–Batken Valley." Supported by ACLS Fellowship. Submitted to Central Asian Survey, December 2025.
For inquiries about research, teaching, or collaboration, please reach out by email.