The “Nazarbayev generation”—the subject of this book—is the generation of young Kazakhstani citizens who came of age during the presidency of Nursultan Nazarbayev. Nazarbayev assumed the presidency when Kazakhstan became a newly independent state, and maintained strong political control over the country for nearly three decades. During this period, Kazakhstan experienced economic growth, social stratification, increased consumerism, and a shift towards Kazakh language and identity, in addition to infrastructure development and global technological innovations. This edited volume provides the first comprehensive look at the generation of young Kazakhstani people who had no direct experience with the Soviet state.
Generational theory, which serves as a loose framework for this volume, is based on the idea that generational groups, such as the “Baby Boomers” and “Gen X,” are defined as a cohort of youth whose lives were shaped by the same set of social experiences, political events, and technological innovations. While the lives of Baby Boomers were influenced by growing economic prosperity and social unrest over civil rights, the lives of Gen X were shaped by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Challenger disaster, and the emergence of personal computers.
The scale of political, economic, social, and technological change that help explain key differences between these generational groups, however, pales in comparison when a generational approach is applied to a post-socialist, post-independence country like Kazakhstan. The generation that came of age during the late Soviet years experienced Communist Party rule, a strong welfare state, Russian language dominance, closed political borders, and shortages of consumer goods. In contrast, the Nazarbayev generation came of age at a time when there was a major shift in cultural politics and the political border was relatively open to the exchange of goods and ideologies, even if political freedoms were relatively limited.
The book contains an introduction and fifteen chapters written by scholars from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, film studies, geography, political science, and sociology. The book's editor, Marlene Laruelle, is a specialist on Russian and Central Asian politics and history and known for research on national identity politics in post-Soviet spaces. At a time where there are increasing calls to decolonize academia, it is impressive to see that the list of contributors is balanced towards scholars who originate from Kazakhstan.
In their approach to the Nazarbayev generation, each chapter is unique in terms of methodology and geographical scope. Methods range from social science approaches that utilize national survey data, surveys conducted among university students, focus group interviews, and individual interviews to more interpretive approaches that examine film, art, and social media texts. In terms of geographical scope, the first three chapters, including the introduction, cover the entire country, while the other chapters are based on research conducted in one or more regions of the country.
The introduction sets the context for the volume by describing the economic, political, and social transformations that took place during the three decades that Nazarbayev led the newly independent country as a “soft authoritarian leader.” Laruelle notes that the “Nazarbayev generation” actually consists of two distinct generations—Gen Y (born in the 1980s and 1990s) and Gen Z (born in the 2000s). Similar to youth around the world, Kazakhstani youth have come of age in a globally connected, digital age, and this comes across in several chapters of the book, such as Daniyar Kosnazarov's chapter on political activism via social media sites. Yet, within Kazakhstan, this generation's identity has been shaped by the constant tension between a civic national identity and a Kazakh ethnonational identity. The editor emphasizes that the Nazarbayev generation is diverse and has polarized views towards national traditions, gender, sexuality, and religion.
Most of the chapters focus on the Nazarbayev generation. In contrast, the opening chapter by Azamat and Barbara Junisbai draws comparisons between the Nazarbayev and earlier generations, and finds that that the values of the Nazarbayev generation are distinct from older generations, but not necessarily in ways that would be expected. Interestingly enough, younger people on average are more willing to accept social inequality and nepotism, and are less interested in democratic principles.
A key strength of the book is the way that multiple authors add nuance to the simple dichotomy between civic and ethnic nationalism that characterizes earlier scholarly works. Dina Sharipova finds that Kazakhstani youth are proud to be from Kazakhstan, whether or not they are ethnic Kazakhs, yet this does not translate to a strong “Kazakhstani” civic identity. Similar to Sharipova, Reuel R. Hanks concludes that state efforts to create an ethnonational, or Kazakhstani, identity have had limited success in the three regions that he examined, as evidenced by the average number of respondents who would be willing to have a non-Kazakh as a president, spouse, or friend. Aziz Burkhanov, in contrast, identifies a shift towards a civic understanding of national identity, and growing conflicts between traditional and global views towards gender and family relationships. Diana J. Kudaibergenova focuses on how post-Soviet elites use art to explore shifting critiques of modern-day “mankurts,” while Sabina Insebayeva finds that popular music is a site that reveals cultural conflicts between traditional and globalized views of Kazakhness.
Shifting ideals about gender is another theme that comes across in several chapters. Ulan Bigozhin, for example, argues that elite youth at a western university identify strongly with the Kazakh nation, yet do so in a way that challenges traditional gender ideals. In a study of Kazakhstani youth who study abroad, Doug Blum finds that male students return with more progressive views towards gender equality in the workplace, but those ideas do not extend to the home. Karlygash Kabatova's study demonstrates that Kazakhstani society is resistant to the idea of introducing sexual education to the public school curriculum.
Although the volume spans a variety of geographical regions within Kazakhstan, it has a strong tilt towards research conducted among urban, university-educated youth. As a result, the volume does not give adequate attention to the voices and experiences of rural and working-class youth. Given the volume's focus on young adults, there were also some topics that deserved more coverage and analysis, including changes to the higher education system, trends for employment, and attitudes towards marriage and parenting.
This book is of particular interest to those who specialize in Kazakhstan and the broader region of Central Asia. Although the book was published before the political protests and violence that took place in January 2022, the volume is immensely useful for understanding the social, economic, and political context of these tragic events that signal the end of the Nazarbayev era.
