Studying Kinship in Southeastern Kazakhstan: Positionality, Colonialism and Acting like Diaspora

This presentation is dedicated to Zarina Mukanova’s PhD dissertation on kinship and gender in the rural areas of southeastern Kazakhstan for which she focused on several key layers, including Shezhire (genealogy), ruw (lineage), kinship-based networks, the hierarchy of women within the Kazakh kinship system today, and the ethnic repatriates (oralman-kandas). She will discuss the differences and commonalities between Kazakh ethnic returnees and local Kazakhs in the area by explaining the concept of Qazaqness, which denotes belonging to a particular lineage. As such, the coping mechanisms and survival strategies of the oralman-kandas ethnic Kazakh returnees from Mongolia and China will be demonstrated, with an emphasis on community-building through marriage strategies and kinship-based networking. This talk will also explore the role of women in Kazakh patrilineal descent, the researcher's positionality, the application of decolonial lenses, and research ethics.

The speaker is Zarina Mukanova, who holds a PhD in Social Anthropology and works as book translator, documentary filmmaker and curator.  

Join the lecture via MS Teams: meeting ID: 314 359 738 021, password: cRtma7.