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Abstract:

Within the administrative-territorial structure of Kazakhstan, Aral is a rayonnyi tsentr. Situated at the bottom of the largest dried sea, Aral is an abandoned periphery (Koch, 2018). Depending on the perspective of a larger city dweller, an Aral resident, or a resident of one of Aral’s remote villages, Aral transitions between rural and urban identities. This paper aims to illustrate how identities of mid-sized towns in Kazakhstan are nuanced using changes in Aral’s identity as a prime example.

Data collected through participant observation, online surveys, structured interviews and archival work show that, for Aral, issues of identity stem from historical, geographical, and socio-economic factors. Historically Aral transformed from a port city of nation-wide importance to a zone of ecological catastrophe. In the present Aral, economic dynamics directed at urban consumerist culture of cities coexist with rural ways of informally exchanging favors and cash between kin and neighbors. The way remote village dwellers take small trips to Aral for better medical service, job opportunities, entertainment and grocery runs contradicts to how Aral residents describe the ‘safety’ of Aral as that of a village compared to the ‘coldness’ of such large cities and use this to navigate their migratory decisions.

Building on this data collected as part of pilot study for doctoral dissertation, the paper argues that grasping the ambiguity of mid-sized towns is important for more informed understanding of patterns related to rural-urban division, migration between the two, rural-urban economic dependency, and explores whether these understandings have implications for understanding development issues of the region and evaluating policies that address them.