Abstract

Scholars specializing in Central Asia have increasingly adopted gender as a critical analytical lens. This allows to examine the diverse nuances of human experience, interrogating constructs of masculinity and femininity alongside broader gender identities and discourses as they intersect with colonialism, nationalism, and capitalism. However, scholarship has frequently conflated gender with women’s issues and lived realities, resulting in a significant oversight of male experiences within the existing literature. While recent scholarship on nationalizing states has primarily focused on patriarchal norms and the oppression of women, only a limited number of studies have ventured beyond these themes. This panel proposes a critical reading to the existing gender narratives with a focus on men and masculinities and aims at conceptualizing the construction of masculinities and its impact on the lived experiences of men.

This interdisciplinary panel examines the construction and negotiation of masculinity through different lenses: visual culture, public health, and marital patterns. In particular, it will explore how masculine figures are constructed in the contemporary Kazakhstani cinema and how patriarchal ideals of male authority and the flawed men figures found in reflect anxieties about class mobility, urban–rural divides and competing Kazakh-and Russian-speaking identities. A second paper looks into practices of chemsex and men at risk in Kazakhstan and through the concept of structural edgework, illustrates that the practice is not a monolith. Instead, its character is shaped by the practitioner's intersectional position. Finally, a third paper looks into marriage dynamics and asks how unmarried men in Kazakhstan experience and navigate the social and family pressure to marry. The study reveals that in contrast to women who are often shamed for being unmarried, the social burden for men shifts from marital status to the fulfillment of filial and financial obligations.

Together, these papers mobilize a diverse range of perspectives that illuminate the complex lived experiences of Central Asian men. By doing so, we hope to move beyond reductive archetypes and generate critical insights into how masculinities are negotiated, performed, and transformed within the region’s historical and cultural landscapes.