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Kaziev S., Mogunova M., Starchenko R. Ethnicity and Dangers of Group Trust in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan

S. Kaziev
Non-profit limited company “Manash Kozybayev North Kazakhstan university”
Petropavlovsk, Republic of Kazakhstan
ORCID: 0000-0002-1613-1211
E-mail: sattarkaz@mail.ru 

M. Mogunova
Non-profit limited company “Manash Kozybayev North Kazakhstan university”
Petropavlovsk, Republic of Kazakhstan
ORCID: 0000-0002-1613-1211
E-mail: sattarkaz@mail.ru 

R. Starchenko
Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Moscow, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0002-6361-0194
E-mail: starchencko.roman@yandex.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. This article attempts to analyze the phenomenon of group trust in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan and the processes of its generation and dissemination. The authors presume that group trust is based on group identity and solidarity. Particular attention is paid to such features of group trust as its reliance on clan and ethnic communities in the context of intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic relations. The Kazakh political system is influenced by pre-national forms of ethnic consciousness, such as zhuzes and ancestral relations. These forms underlie group trust and solidarity, coupled with mistrust of the outsiders. A significant part of the article studies the role of pre-national identity in the Kazakh society, the reproduction of trust, and its “embeddedness” in the identity of modern Kazakhs. The authors focus on the zhuz and tribal identities and their significance in the past and present of the Kazakh people. The authors believe that the zhuz structure provided ethnic consolidation of tribes based on “imagined” kinship and common ancestry of all Kazakhs. In the conditions of political domination of the Chinggisids — the tore — zhuz division was not a hierarchical structure based on the principles of genealogical precedence. Soviet modernization contributed to the formation of the modern Kazakh nation, but pre-national forms of identity remained in the southern and western regions. In the context of the crisis of confidence in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, group solidarity was turned into an instrument of personnel policy.

 

KEYWORDS: juzes, Kazakhs, Chingizids, clannishness, shezhire

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8600-2024-1(23)-237-259
UDC 316.4(574)

 

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