Doctoral Dissertation Research: From Almaty to Astana: Authoritarianism, Nationalism, and Kazakhstan's Capital Change

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This project examines state strategies and the nature of popular and elite geopolitical culture in Kazakhstan. It highlights the contested nature of the state project to promote a particular vision of national identity in Kazakhstan. The central research questions are: How has the state decision to move the capital to Astana been used to promote a particular "Kazakhstani" identity? And how has this been interpreted by the people of Kazakhstan? In answering these questions, this study will employ both quantitative and qualitative methods, including a country-wide survey (of 1,500 respondents), textual analysis, focus groups, and interviews. Furthermore, the research project will explore the ways in which the citizens of Kazakhstan have actively engaged in the interpretation of the state's identity project. The researcher will also shed light on contestations and multiple articulations of identity in Kazakhstan. The capital city change is used as a focal point for understanding the population's articulations of their identity and their geopolitical imaginations. The findings of the proposed research will contribute to advancing knowledge by linking theoretical and methodological approaches to the investigation of nationalism of a region currently undergoing significant political changes. The project draws heavily on the regional studies tradition, highlighting the centrality of deep regional knowledge to the generation of theory and empirical field research in geography. Furthermore, Kazakhstan is an important site for this study because Central Asia is a particularly neglected region within the discipline of geography. Although Kazakhstan has a small population of 16 million people with a territorial size of 2.7 million sq km, its strategic significance cannot be underestimated given that the country is home to vast oil and gas reserves and is one of the world's leading producers of uranium ore. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career. This project is jointly supported by the NSF Geography and Spatial Sciences Program and the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.