Discourses of Russian-speaking youth in Nazarbayev's Kazakhstan: Soviet Legacies and responses to nation-building.

Blackburn, M. (2019) Discourses of Russian-speaking youth in Nazarbayev's Kazakhstan: Soviet Legacies and responses to nation-building. Central Asian Survey, 38(2), pp. 217-236. (doi: 10.1080/02634937.2019.1615409)

Abstract

Research into post-independence identity shifts among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities has outlined a number of possible pathways, such as diasporization, integrated national minority status and ethnic separatism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with young people in Almaty and Karaganda, I examine how Russian-speaking minorities identify with the state and imagine their place in a ‘soft’ or ‘hybrid’ post-Soviet authoritarian system. What is found is that Russian-speaking minorities largely accept their status beneath the Kazakh ‘elder brother’ and do not wish to identify as a ‘national minority’. Furthermore, they affirm passive loyalty to the political status quo while remaining disinterested in political representation. Russian-speaking minorities are also ambivalent towards Kazakh language promotion and anxious about the increasing presence of Kazakh-speakers in urban spaces. This article argues that two factors are central to these stances among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities: the persistence of Soviet legacies and the effects of state discourse and policy since 1991.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Blackburn, Mr Matthew
• Authors: Blackburn, M.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Journal Name: Central Asian Survey
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 0263-4937
• ISSN (Online): 1465-3354
• Published Online: 30 May 2019