This collection is part of a series, Contemporary Central Asia: Societies, Politics, and Cultures, edited by Marlene Laruelle. It brings together fresh work in sociology, anthropology, and political science that investigates the realities that have emerged in Kazakhstan's third decade since independence. Politics and society have been transformed by action and enhanced by a widely-shared will to avoid conflict and to make visible contributions to regional and global culture. In the utopian glow emitting from Astana, the unique nation-making project that sets Kazakhstan apart from its neighbors, mass protests and ethnic violence have been infrequent. The volume contains a brief introduction, eleven revised conference papers based on a mixture of fieldwork, interviews, and surveys, and a lengthy, up-to-date bibliography. It is divided into three sections, “State,” “Nation,” and “Society.”
The book opens with Assel Tutumlu's analysis of pension reform, a balancing act between the needs of society, loyalist oligarchs, and potentially predatory officials. Astana consolidated retirement funds and raised women's retirement ages while imposing administrative discipline and maintaining financial credibility, making sure the bulk of pensions might actually be paid. The government offered special deals to the largest owners, somewhat selectively enforcing laws, and established effective control over information, helping diminish the impact of a wave of protests in 2013.
Sebastien Peyrouse provides a detailed account of Kazakhstan's wealthiest and most influential elite groups and what they have gained since the 1990s, including the president's family and its offshoots, several sets of Astana-based bosses, and a “well-managed” dissident group (including the former boss of Kazkommertsbank, a “Kazakh Khodorkovsky”). Regime circles have taken control of nearly every key sector of the economy while strengthening presidentialism. A middle class of civil servants and entrepreneurs might demand more law and order if they could function with less patronage.
Mateusz Laszczkowski explores the reception of Astana among residents and visitors. His fieldwork captures the astonished disbelief of past decades as the futuristic skyscrapers and plazas of the new Left Bank came into being, and how the cult of Astana, with its new tourist rituals (like putting one's hand into “Nazarbayev's” golden handprint at the Bayterek tower), contributes to a playful regime legitimation.
Wendell Schwab and Ulan Bigozhin tell the story of a new Kazakh shrine near a major highway, and of its pious detractors who would like to see the site shut down. The founder, without formal religious training, faces off against an educated imam and the local teacher who sees superstition and potentially charlatanism. Believers say they receive healing and blessings, and the shrine serves a broad community of visitors, including non-Muslims and travelers on the international road. Shrines are flourishing everywhere. This one is registered as a charitable organization and “the mosque-goers” have little legal leverage against it.
Part II opens with Diana T. Kudaibergenova's comparison of nationalizing elites to similar groups in Latvia. Kazakh elites are more cosmopolitan, less nationalizing, and more open-minded about the presence of ethnic minorities. Loyalty to the president and to Astana's policy of gradual nationalization has kept Kazakh nationalism and extremism in check.
Alexander C. Diener discusses how the president and parliament support multicultural ideals as part of a campaign of positioning Kazakhstan globally. Domestically, however, this is increasingly seen as serving mainly Nursulatan Nazarbayev, and efforts to create a clearer ethnonational identity are becoming more urgent. Interviewees continue to identify as Uzbeks, Russians, or Kazakhs. Even as non-Kazakhs say “Kazakhstan is our country” (143), and feel pride in the new capital or the Astana cycling team, they find it difficult to embrace the artificial-sounding term “Kazakhstani” as an identity.
The editor, Marlene Laruelle, maps out the worldviews of Kazakh writers and activists who reject Astana's notion of Kazakhstani-ness as too pro-Russian and as a Soviet and colonial legacy. Few advocate directly against Russians, urging them to leave, for instance. Because of the government's and many Kazakhs’ continuing support for the Russian language, the issues are still how forcefully to promote the Kazakh language and how to end the perceived silence on historical injustices, most prominently the Kazakh famine. Long-term demographic trends favor Kazakhs, but Kazakhstan's nationalists are anxious because their project does not resonate as much as they would like.
Distinctions between north and south are explored in Natalie R. Koch and Kristopher D. White's chapter on Shymkent and its regional identity, obscured by the bland Soviet-era designation as “South Kazakhstan,” and perhaps also by the 1990s stereotype of it as a kind of lawless Kazakh “Texas.” Shymkent's ancient center is the city of Turkistan. The authors’ countrywide surveys and interviews reveal loose awareness of the region's history and stereotypes of southern Kazakhs as less Russified and as having “saved” Kazakh culture.
Opening Part III of the book, Alima Bissenova reports on the spectacular Holy Sultan Mosque in Astana. Completed in 2012, located across from Norman Foster's pyramid on Independence Square, it has room for 10,000 and stays open 24/7. With its relaxed decorum, including convenient changing rooms for women, it shapes and showcases the new liberal religious culture of Kazakhstan. The imams are young and highly educated and their sermons remind worshippers to adhere to a moderate, Hanafi style, reconciling Kazakh concepts with more global concerns.
Megan Rancier explores the Tengri music festival that has brought performers of contemporary Kazakh and world music to an audience in Almaty since 2013, “looking both inward and outward,” just like Kazakhstan. The final chapter by Douglas Blum captures the voices of young returnees from the US, interviewed in Almaty and Astana and torn (mildly) between new, individualistic practices discovered abroad and the difficulties of finding acceptance for them upon returning to their families.
The continued presence of the aging Nazarbayev has been crucial, but Kazakhstan's particular brand of success and authoritarian stability is not just about him. This book brings together the best of recent Central Asian scholarship to help analysts consider what happens next. Like other volumes in the Contemporary Central Asia series, it is an essential reference for scholars, students, and policy makers and will be a valuable resource for years.
