Send message to Author

Abstract

The paper examines national sports not only as a practice of revitalizing traditional forms, but also as part of cultural heritage that requires preservation, representation, and promotion. In this context, it is possible to speak about the process of the “museumization” of images and meanings associated with national sports, when they begin to be perceived as symbols of history, culture, and national identity. These transformations are connected with the development of cultural policy, the growing interest in intangible cultural heritage, and the emergence of new forms of representing tradition in museum spaces, festivals, ethno-cultural complexes, and official cultural events.

The paper analyzes how national sports in contemporary Kazakhstan acquire new meanings and functions beyond their original social context. Particular attention is given to the ways in which processes of preservation, display, and popularization produce new representations of tradition that are used to strengthen historical memory, national identity, and state cultural policy.

Send message to Authors

Abstract

The study examines how the boundaries of national belonging are reinterpreted in the Kazakhstani public sphere through the case of naturalised athletes who represent the country while having different ethnic backgrounds or citizenship. Drawing on Craig Calhoun’s conception of the nation as a dynamic practice of distinguishing between “us” and “them”, we analyse the conditions under which such athletes are incorporated into the symbolic category of “ours” within Kazakhstan’s multiethnic context.

The empirical basis consists of a corpus of comments from digital media and social networks discussing athletes from various disciplines who have represented Kazakhstan in different periods. The selection of figures with diverse career trajectories, from consistently successful athletes to those who have provoked more ambivalent or contested reactions, allows us to trace shifts in public attitudes and to identify the mechanisms of symbolic inclusion. Particular attention is paid to how sporting achievements, the frequency of appearing with national symbols, and public statements referencing Kazakhstan shape perceptions of an athlete as belonging to the national community.

We assume that high performance often facilitates a pragmatic form of acceptance in which origin becomes secondary. However, such inclusion remains partial and contingent on current sporting success, media framings, and prevailing discursive moods. The case of naturalised athletes thus offers a lens for observing which criteria are regarded as legitimate for recognising national belonging, how society negotiates between ethnocultural expectations and civic identity, and how sport functions as an arena in which the boundaries of Kazakhstan’s national “we” are continuously reassembled.

Send message to Author

Abstract

This paper examines the relationships that young bilingual and multilingual Qazaqs have with the Qazaq and Russian languages, especially how their outlooks have developed in the past four years. I have conducted a written survey with Qazaqs from all over the country. The survey covers each language the respondent speaks, asking about their background with the language (including when they learned it, with whom they use it, and what kind of media they might consume in it) and their attitudes towards the language (including whether they will pass the language down to their children, and what associations they might have with the language). Overall, I have found that Qazaqs are very proud of their knowledge of Qazaq, and plan to pass down the language to their children as much as they can. There is no broad trend on whether respondents have shifted more towards Russian or Qazaq in their daily lives, because this greatly depends on their social circle. However, many respondents expressed a desire to speak Qazaq more cleanly, or read more in Qazaq. Unlike Qazaq, attitudes towards Russian varied significantly between respondents. They did not express pride in speaking Russian, but many respondents emphasized how Russian allows communication between different ethnic groups and lets them access a broader variety of literature. Only a few respondents directly associated the Russian language with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however others expressed their negative feelings towards Russian by emphasizing its imperial history and their memories of its role in the oppression of Qazaq language. There is a very small body of sociolinguistic literature in English about Qazaqstan, and I hope to contribute up-to-date evidence showing that Qazaq is becoming a well-respected language in Qazaqstan, while public opinions on Russian are much more mixed.

Send message to Author

Abstract

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been linked to distancing from Russian and a stronger embrace of Ukrainian. This paper asks whether a similar, if less pronounced, reorientation is emerging in Qazaqstan, a society shaped by imperial and Soviet linguistic hierarchies.

The paper draws on forty semi-structured, in-depth interviews with ethnic Qazaqs in Almaty conducted in the summer of 2023. The sample is stratified by age cohort (18 to 30 vs. 50+) and by primary language environment, with half of participants reporting predominantly Russian use in daily life and half reporting predominantly Qazaq use. We analyze answers to parallel prompts asking whether the war affected attitudes toward the Russian language and toward the Qazaq language, and how respondents justified stability or change.

Findings show limited change among Qazaq dominant participants, for whom Qazaq is consistently framed as a stable marker of identity and everyday practice. By contrast, many Russian dominant participants report some shift in their relationship to Qazaq after 2022. For some, the shift is largely symbolic, expressed as a stronger association between Qazaq and sovereignty, belonging, and cultural continuity. Others describe efforts to increase Qazaq use while grappling with practical barriers, including diminished fluency after long immersion in Russian speaking schools and workplaces. Across the sample, Russian often retains instrumental value for work and interethnic communication, and several respondents explicitly distinguish the language from the Russian state. Together, the interviews suggest that geopolitical shock can politicize language and reshape linguistic repertoires even outside the battlefield.

Send message to Author

Abstract

This research explores the intersection of cultural globalization and gender identity among youth in Kazakhstan through a mixed-methods study conducted from 2015 to 2024. Combining quantitative surveys of university students and qualitative, semi-structured interviews, the study examines how multidimensional media consumption – covering music, cinema, influencers, and gaming – shapes contemporary constructions of masculinity and femininity in a post-Soviet context. The key findings reveal that youth identity in Kazakhstan is shaped by “nested globalization,” where Western, Asian (Hallyu), and Russian influences interact with local Kazakh “culture producers.” For young men, media consumption often reinforces “heroic” or hegemonic masculinity through genres like hip-hop, action cinema, and competitive video games. However, this masculinity is flexible; it is significantly influenced by shared nostalgia for Soviet and Western retro culture inherited from family environments. Young men act as “cultural omnivores,” navigating global trends while maintaining sustained ties to traditional family role models. Conversely, young women’s consumption has become increasingly individualized and empowered through digital development. While Western cinema remains dominant, Asian globalization, especially K-pop and Korean TV dramas, acts as a key driver for exploring diverse cultural stories and forming new gender identities. This mediated femininity enables women to challenge traditional norms by engaging with global celebrity “opinion makers,” thereby fostering a form of digital empowerment that blends global trends with local family values. This research explores how gendered aspects of globalization in Central Asia are shaped, an area that has been underexamined. By shifting the academic focus away from traditional topics such as nationalism, religion, and state-building, I argue that mediated gender identities are influenced by global flows but also renegotiated and localized. It offers a detailed view of how youth agency and digital media transform cultural citizenship in a post-Soviet society.