Reconstructuring Kazakhstan: Creating boundaries and national identities. A Braudelian analysis

The subject of this thesis is the reorganization of national identity in Kazakhstan. The dimensions of change I examine concern the formation, legitimation, and reproduction of Kazakh national identity vis-a-vis post-colonial and post-Soviet histories. My scope will subsequently look at Kazakh relations with a substantial Russian population. I investigate the empirical levels of Kazakh tribal structure, the impact of Russian and Soviet colonization, and the post-independence period, which addresses how Kazakh identity is informed through official practices, in order to understand the diachronic process in Kazakhstan. I rely on Fernand Braudel's placement of history in short, medium, and long intercycles as the framework of my analysis. Additional theory is drawn from Max Weber and other scholars to articulate further interactions of ethnicity and nationhood. The utility of this theoretical approach is to extrapolate an alternative interpretation of identity reconstruction, which finds that Kazakh identity has both created and retrieved new forms of national power.