20 June 2012
Congratulations to Katharina Buck, who was awarded her PhD on 18 June.Thesis title: Nationality and National Identity in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
Recognising that the newly-independent state of Kazakhstan did not experience the kind of large-scale interethnic violence and national disintegration that were widely expected during the 1990s, this thesis critically examines the narratives of interethnic and 'inter-national' stability and 'harmony' in the country. Grounded in in-depth ethnographic research, it scrutinises the authoritarian regime's constructions of ethnic and national identity and the claim that President Nazarbaev has fostered the prevailing climate of interethnic stability.