Post-Soviet Chaos: Violence and Dispossession in Kasakhstan

by Joma Nazpary

In the 1990s the former states of the Soviet Union underwent dramatic and revolutionary changes. As a result of enforced, neo-liberal reforms the fledgling republics were exposed to the familiar effects of globalised capital. Focusing on Kazakhstan, where violence and corruption are now facts of everyday life, Joma Nazpary examines the impact of the new capitalism on the people of Central Asia. Using in-depth interviews and material gathered over more than a year's fieldwork, Nazpary explores the responses of the dispossessed to their dispossession. He uncovers the construction of 'imagined communities', grounded in Soviet nostalgia, which serve to resist the economic order, as well as the more practical survival strategies, especially of women, often forced into prostitution where they are subject to violence and stigma. By revealing the extent to which Kazakh society has disintegrated and the cultural responses to it, Nazpary argues that dispossession has been a stronger unifying force than even ethnicity or religion. Comparing the effects of neo-liberal reforms in Kazakhstan with those in other regions, he concludes that causes, forms and consequences of dispossession in Kazakhstan are particular instances of a much wider global trend.

232 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

Reviews

[Viola Briatková · Rating 2 out of 5]

not recommended. the book does contain a few really interesting and valuable anthropological entries, but they are overshadowed by the trotskyite rhetoric of the author.

[Tom Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

my reading has fallen off a cliff...first book read since July something...finished October something...notes I scribbled while reading: the political/economic events reminded me of our own failings...rich ever richer at the expense of the middle and the bottom..."wild capitalism"...ethnic strife which amounts to our racial battles...my three stars are for the noble effort...the writing needed an editors sharp knife...the theme, "two objects of strife, women & money" pg. 168 - worth pondering how that same issue pops up in our own Land of the Free (and Benighted)...we are better off, not having your life savings wiped out by fiat (the transition from the rouble to the tenge) is no small matter. all in all a depressing read - Kazakhstan has moved on without civil war (as long as the strongman Nazarbaev lives) wonder what will happen here. Cripes, we have millions following a pied piper honking on a duck call. Lord love a duck (face palm)...

[OnurU · Rating 4 out of 5]

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