Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Mongolian-Kazakh Returnees: Repatriation, Citizenship, and National Belonging In Kazakhstan

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Graduate student, Anna Genina, working under the direction of Dr. Alaina Lemon, will undertake research on the growing new phenomenon of return migration. The study will be carried out in Kazakhstan, where the government of Kazakhstan officially encourages repatriation. However, the return of Kazakhs from Mongolia to their historic homeland has had unexpected consequences, because state policies have not always connected well with local priorities. This situation has provoked radical new discussions of what constitutes ethnicity, belonging, and citizenship, making it an excellent opportunity for a micro-scale examination of return migration and its social and political effects. In Kazakhstan, conceptions and practices of citizenship are illuminated through analysis of discursive constructions of kinship and hospitality, which are regarded as essential parts of Kazakh nomadic heritage. Therefore, the researcher will use the methods of both cultural and linguistic anthropology to explore conceptions of kinship and hospitality and their relation to ideas and practices of citizenship and national belonging. She will do participant observation, living with a local family and accomanying other returnees on visits back to Mongolia. She will conduct interviews with new returnees, other local residents, and officials; collect migration and life histories; and monitor and analyze media accounts. This research is important because return migration is found throughout the world. Social science can help to explain the relationship between locally situated identifications and practices and how those connect or fail to connect with the symbolic and practical emplacement of people within larger frameworks, such as citizenship, nationhood, and state. The research also will contribute to the education of a graduate student.