19901990SS IN KAZAKHSTAN: IN KAZAKHSTAN: COUNTRY CHANGED, COUNTRY CHANGED,

LIVES CHANGED. LIVES CHANGED. Darya BukhtoyarovaSHSS Seminar Series

March 2012

DECEMBER 1991 – DISSOLUTION OF THE SOVIET UNION

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, 1991

KAZAKHSTAN IN 1991 – THE LAST TO LEAVE USSR

• Lithuania – March 11, 1990• Latvia – May 4, 1990• Georgia – April 9, 1991• Estonia – August 20, 1991• Latvia – August 21, 1991• Ukraine – August 24, 1991• Belarus – August 25, 1991• Moldova – August 27, 1991• Azerbaijan – August 30, 1991• Kyrgyzstan – August 31, 1991• Uzbekistan – September 1, 1991• Tajikistan – September 9, 1991• Armenia – September 21, 1991• Turkmenistan – October 16, 1991• Kazakhstan – December 16, 1991• Russia – December 24, 1991

“independence… thrust upon Kazakhstan” (Bhavna Dave, 2007)

Referendum in March 1991: 94.1% of population voted for remaining in the Soviet Union

ETHNIC DIVERSITY

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth.html

LARGEST CITIES

CIA Map of Kazakhstan 2001

SHYMKENT IN 1991

• 3d largest city in the country• population = over 600,00 (735,000 as of

2010)• developed industrial center: oil, metallurgy,

rubber, concrete, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, etc

• regional center but still a periphery compared to Almaty

• higher percent of the population ethnically Kazakh than in other oblast’; large percent of ethnic Uzbeks

• high rural population, constant migration to the city

• often stigmatized in the rest of the country, nicknamed…

• “Texas”

CRISIS OF THE 1990S

• Industrial production decreases dramatically: by 40% between 1991 and 1996

• Unemployment skyrockets: 12% in 1996, 24 % in 1997, 35% of population lives below the poverty line in 1996

• General sense of uncertainty: political, ethnic, economic…

DOESN’T THIS REMIND YOU OF SOMETHING?...

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• How did Kazakhstani residents perceive and experience the 1990s in general? How is this time described today?

• What were some of the major challenges and how did people deal with them in everyday life?

• In dire economic conditions and with a rapid change of an economic paradigm, how did people in Kazakhstan make their living?

• How did factors like gender, ethnicity or class/family background shape their experiences?

ANTHROPOLOGICAL METHODSANTHROPOLOGICAL METHODS• 2 months of research in Shymkent in summer 2009

• 12 in-depth interviews – life histories with particular focus on 1990s• 42 - 71 years old• 9 women and 3 men• different ethnic backgrounds• snowball sampling

• 20+ short conversations

FROM LIFE HISTORIES TO MAIN FROM LIFE HISTORIES TO MAIN THEMESTHEMES

• “awful conditions:” lack of utilities;

• unemployment and professional change;

• change of personhood: importance of self-reliance;

• networking and mutual support

““ABSENCE OF CIVILIZATION ABSENCE OF CIVILIZATION GOODS”GOODS”

• Shymkent – problems with gas, electricity, heating and water, especially in 1996-1998

• One of the most difficult aspects of 1990s, a “monstrous experiment on people”

• Increased burden on women (cooking, washing, ironing…)

• Metaphor for degradation and backwardness• Electricity and heating become the most valuable

commodities• But also humor and warmth when remembering

community life and mutual help

UNEMPLOYMENT AND JOB UNEMPLOYMENT AND JOB CHANGESCHANGES

• Unemployment: 12% in 1996, 24 % in 1997 (Vermer 1998; Isteleulova 1996), welfare – practically non-existent

• 7 out 12 informants changed their work sphere after 1991, often more than once

• Bricolage – making creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand (Levi-Strauss 1961); working a lot of small jobs

• Making non-professional skills into business: sewing and knitting, cooking, cleaning, home repairs, language skills

• Importance of small-scale trade (street, market, door-to-door, direct sales)

GENDER-SPECIFIC PROFESSIONAL CHALLENGES

• Women faced discrimination if they were pregnant, had small children, or were simply young

• Men working in industrial sector were in a particular risk group

• It was more psychologically difficult for men to switch to petty trade or performing house chores (seen as non-masculine) or even start earning with their hobbies (manhood was very closely tied to profession)

• Stories of families working in a join effort of surviving, not individual professionals excelling in their careers

CHANGE OF PERSONHOOD

• Elizabeth Dunn: ethnography of Polish workers becoming “self-activating, self-directed, self-monitoring beings”

• Self-reliance became very important, especially for those in business

• But many still feel a sense of nostalgia for certainty of the Soviet era

• Neoliberal market VS controlling state – some sense of agency, but it’s not complete

NETWORKSNETWORKS

• People in the city receiving help from auls and “living on credit” from family (current financial crisis in Greece – people also moving out to family farms in the countryside)

• Professional networks• Moral support and a sense of community

NARRATIVES AS CONSTRUCTIVENARRATIVES AS CONSTRUCTIVE

• Nancy Ries: discursive world doesn’t reflect social action, but helps construct it.

• Common themes show how people interpreted and used these changes in Shymkent.

• The dominant narrative about the 1990s tells us something about the world today

““STRANGE KIND OF NORMALCY”STRANGE KIND OF NORMALCY”

• Nancy Ries’s 1995 visit to Moscow: a “ritualistic transitional period has come to a close, and Moscow life, however drastically rearranged, now takes place on a plane of a strange kind of normalcy”

• Experience of Shymkent residents – like, yet unlike others in postsocialist world

• Ethnographic perspective is crucial to understanding periods of change, uncertainty: understanding large processes at work in everyday life.

THANK YOU!QUESTIONS?