The Nazarbayev Generation: Youth in Kazakhstan

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

This social and cultural analysis provides a new understanding of Kazakhstans younger generations that emerged during the rule of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been presiding over Kazakhstan for the thirty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Half of Kazakhstans population was born after he took power and have no direct memory of the Soviet regime. Since the early 2000s, they have lived in a world of political stability and relative material affluence, and have developed a strong consumerist culture. Even with growing government restrictions on media, religion, and formal public expression, they have been raised in a comparatively free country. This book offers the first collective study of the Nazarbayev Generation, illuminating the diversity of the countrys younger generations and the transformations of social and cultural norms that have taken place over the course of three decades. The contributors to this collection move away from state-centric, top-down perspectives in favor of grassroots realities and bottom-up dynamics in order to better integrate sociological data.

Reviews

This impressive and timely volume provides us with survey data and cross-disciplinary analysis of Kazakhstans independence generations. Its focus on social transformations of the last three decades is an important contribution to breaking with established, and increasingly irrelevant, narratives about the region of Central Asia. -- Nargis Kassenova, Harvard University

Author Bio

Marlene Laruelle is research professor, director of the Central Asia Program, and associate director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at the Elliott School of International Affairs of George Washington University.