Paper abstract:

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent Republic of Kazakhstan adopted a homeland rhetoric that sought to position the nation as the home of all Kazakhs worldwide. A crucial aspect of these nationalizing efforts was the implementation of a program of "return" for the millions of ethnic Kazakhs living outside of the borders of their so-called ethnohistorical homeland.

However, it has now been thirty years since the implementation of this program, and many of the children of these initial migrants have reached adulthood. Young Kazakhs are also now frequently choosing to move to Kazakhstan alone - often in pursuit of education and economic opportunity. Where do these youth consider their homeland to be, after having spent their formative years in two different places?

In this paper, I argue that these young migrants often do not consider Kazakhstan to solely be their homeland. Rather, I posit that they maintain a constellation of attachments between their country of origin and/or Kazakhstan which come together to construct unique conceptualizations of homeland that may not be bound by the borders of a nation-state. In other words, I explore how these migrants' aspirations, experiences, and relationships in both Kazakhstan and their country of origin shape what it means to be "home" - a place that is often, for them, found somewhere both between and within these two locales.

This argument is supported by insights taken from life history interviews that I have conducted with young Kazakh migrants as part of my ongoing research on this topic.