Territorial Belonging and Homeland Disjuncture: Uneven Territorialisations in Kazakhstan

This article evaluates the relationships among state-framed and alternatively territorialised narratives of identity and belonging in Kazakhstan. Using survey data from 2017 and 2018, we argue that collective identity among Kazakhstan’s citizens is negotiated not just in terms of balancing ethnic and civic forms of state-centric national belonging, but also through varied forms and scales of attachment to place. Our analysis shows how collective identity in Kazakhstan draws on both traditional state-framed models of territorialisation and vernacular conceptions of homeland. We find significant variation in attachment among different ethnic and social groups within Kazakhstan.