Doctoral Dissertation Research: Financial Traders, Information Technologies and The State in Kazahstan

耶鲁大学博士生Ainur Begim将在Douglas Rogers博士的指导下，对哈萨克斯坦新兴金融领域的金融交易员的实践和技术进行研究。本项目通过科学技术研究、金融社会研究、后社会主义研究和国家人类学的最新发展，考察了哈萨克斯坦交易者的野心、目标和惯例，国家在促进金融市场发展方面发挥着积极作用。人种学数据将通过多种方法收集，包括参与观察、半结构化和非结构化访谈、生活和技术历史、焦点小组、有针对性的档案研究和报纸分析。对这些数据进行分析，目的是检验有关金融市场可持续性的四个主要假设；资讯科技在其发展中的作用；哈萨克斯坦最近政治发展的相关性；以及哈萨克斯坦商人的价值观和文化。这项研究将是第一批在中亚背景下从民族志角度研究新兴金融市场的研究之一。它将阐明不同政治经验与当代金融实践的相关性，并为国家在金融市场发展中的性质和作用提供新的见解。这个项目提供了一个独特的机会来质疑对市场的想当然的理解，即市场是计算经济参与者和缺乏国家的高科技的场所。通过对经济和政治制度的组织和相互联系方式的详细描述，拟议的研究不仅将补充对利率、通货膨胀和信贷的经济分析，还将使对金融的理解更加丰富和深入，并为更好地监管资金流动提出建议。

Yale University doctoral candidate Ainur Begim, supervised by Dr. Douglas Rogers, will undertake research on the practices and technologies of financial traders in Kazakhstan's burgeoning financial sphere. This project -- informed by recent developments in science and technology studies, social studies of finance, postsocialist studies, and the anthropology of the state -- examines traders' ambitions, goals, and routines in Kazakhstan, where the state plays an active role in promoting the development of financial markets. Ethnographic data will be collected through a variety of methods, including participant observation, semi-structured and unstructured interviews, life and technology histories, focus groups, targeted archival research, and newspaper analysis. These data will be analyzed with the goal of testing four major hypotheses concerning the sustainability of financial markets; the role of information technology in their development; the relevance of Kazakhstan's recent political developments; and the values and culture of Kazakhstan's traders.This study will be among the first to approach emerging financial markets ethnographically in the Central Asian context. It will shed light on the relevance of the different political experiences for contemporary financial practices as well as offer new insights into the nature and role of the state in the development of financial markets. This project presents a unique opportunity to question taken-for-granted understandings of markets as sites for calculating economic actors and high technologies devoid of the state. Through detailed descriptions of the ways in which economic and political institutions are organized and interlinked, the proposed study will not only supplement economic analyses of interest rates, inflation, and credit but enable a richer and deeper understanding of finance and suggest ways for better regulation of financial flows.