9. How are global or extranational issues (including foreign policy, international investment, imported starchitects, etc.) reflected in the built environment of Astana?

Astana, both in physical form and conceptual brand, was always intended to project beyond the borders of Kazakhstan: “The planners of Astana have built a city that is meant to speak to an international audience” (Anacker, 2004: 530). Indeed, it was one of the first cities to be constructed from scratch under such consciously global aspirations. Passing the test of being considered a global city requires a certain level of deception. The general appearance of the city, which can be traced back to Kisho Kurokawa’s master plan fundamentals, is described as ‘stylistic chaos,’ but is actually “the product of a single, tightly managed state plan. The chaos, in other words, is artificial, mobilized by the state in order to manipulate foreign investors into thinking that Astana is on its way to becoming a ‘global city’ (520). The result is that the city adopted a quasi-Western ordering structure (particularly the Jeffersonian capital mall), yet with just enough local flavor to promote national identity among the citizenry and appear sufficiently ‘foreign’ to foreigners. As in the case of Dubai, then, national and cultural identity itself is employed as a means to attract foreign capital, the two projects being merged whenever possible.

But for Nazarbaev, Astana was not just about seeking money from the outside world or nation building from a domestic perspective: just as important was achieving respect and recognition on the world stage for the nation of Kazakhstan. This third project is also clearly visible in the city: “The central image etched into Astana’s design was Kazakhstan’s place as a legitimate member of the international community. The symbolic face of Astana was built to underscore the outward-facing, international aspect of the city…Just as the state took out full-page advertisements in the New York Times to proclaim membership in the international community, the emerging architecture of Astana was intended to broadcast the same message” (Schatz 2004: 127). These aspirations fall within Nazarbaev’s ‘multivector’ style of foreign policy, which seeks to build the greatest number of alliances possible internationally (both governmental and non-governmental), an undoubtedly post-Cold War concept.

One might be tempted to think that with so many famous international architects’ work dotting the Astana landscape, the Left Bank would look like Las Vegas: no cohesion, just a mélange of various styles and forms. And while a ‘stylistic chaos’ is present, a certain level of cohesion is visible, likely because the president himself is the ‘client’ for every major project. Therefore, a set of criteria restricts pure architectural freedom: “Even the star-architects ‘who win construction assignments because of their reputation as the cultural avant-garde, have to compromise the independence and the culturally liberating practice that give them their social legitimacy. At some point the artistic autonomy invoked by these world-famous architects has to submit and adapt to a symbolic language that is read-made and controlled by a political elite’ (Jensen 2009)” (Talamini, 2011: 54). Sir Norman Foster’s Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, the giant pyramid, was conceived as such by Nazarbaev as a fitting form for hosting an international conference on world religions. In this case, then, the president’s determination to have the rest of the world perceive Kazakhstan as neutral host to international affairs is writ upon the Astana landscape—while the conference meets once every three years, the locals are confronted daily with a giant glass pyramid, a platonic whim that became a reality.

Astana, projected to the outside world

8. What does Astana tell us about the prospects for democracy in post-Soviet nations?

For all the effort that the President Nazarbaev has put into solidifying control over Kazakhstan’s citizenry and his political rivals, while attempting to instill hope in the future, there is much anxiety about the future political situation. The longer the president stays in power, the higher the levels of anxieties grow, as a smooth transition out of authoritarianism seems less and less likely. As the first and only president of Kazakhstan, Nazarbaev has such a stranglehold on power that the most likely scenario is that he will handpick a successor once his health starts to deteriorate. Despite regular elections, this story is cliché, made even more ridiculous by Nazarbaev consistently receiving 95% of the vote.

Westerners are frequently surprised and discouraged to learn that most Kazakhstani citizens continue to support Nazarbaev despite his reputation. At this point, international (Western) watchdog groups are much more critical of the state of democracy than Kazakhstani citizens themselves. Besides lacking a functioning democracy in the form of fair election processes, the public voicing of dissent is limited, if not explicitly banned (journalists who challenge Nazarbaev frequently are imprisoned or go missing). Some hope does lie in the fact that, in order to qualify for international aid and investment, Nazarbaev has been compelled to follow certain democratic guidelines. But, as we have learned from recent world events, if democracy is going to gain a foothold in Kazakhstan, it will have to come from the people themselves—democracy cannot be exported through ‘liberation.’ In this sense, there is less hope when it comes to the current level of popular dissent against semi-authoritarian rule. The Arab Spring, as well as long-term public protests in Europe and the United States, does not appear to have a Kazakhstani equivalent at the moment. In the summer of 2010, the semi-authoritarian ruler of neighboring Kyrgyzstan was granted amnesty by the Kazakhstani government when he was ousted by rioters.

The general placidity of the population likely has to do with the fact that Nazarbaev has done an extremely thorough job of placating his enemies (on certain occasions quieting them through more violent means) and constantly reminding the populace of his accomplishments, including Astana. For their part, the populace has enjoyed political stability, though at the cost of building a long-term democratic process. And let’s face it: despite its drawbacks, the Nazarbaev regime is closer to a democracy than any regime under Soviet control. One of Nazarbaev’s successful strategies has been in creating the illusion that decision making in Astana is a public process: “[E]lite visions of Astana have a vested interest in appealing to popular opinion, ‘but not to cede actual control’ (Forest and Johnson 2002: 537) of its form to the public” (Koch 2010: 773). In this sense, democracy exists in its most limited form—at minimal, representative levels. While certain ‘everyday,’ democratic moments may take place in urban spaces, the actual process of space making remains off limits to the democratic process. As is the case under any authoritarian rule, “People always ‘subvert, lucidly or practically, the intentions of states and their planners, and cities are partially constituted through the very resistance their built environments provoke.’ (Houston 2005: 103)” (Koch 2010: 784).

It is here in the built environment—Astana as it exists tangibly, not merely in iconic form—that a struggle will inevitably develop. The question is whether or not individual moments of subversion will attain a critical mass, leading to a groundswell of popular dissent that is currently spreading through so many other nations. In his article on materiality in Astana, Victor Buchli (2007) discusses current expressions of dissent in Astana. The government’s inability to maintain the city’s pristine image (i.e., the shoddy use of cheap materials to spruce up building facades) has exposed limits to their control. The image of Astana that the elite worked so hard to construct is impossible to sustain, its eternalness has been revealed as fallible. And in the physical imperfections of the built environment there are embedded ‘public secrets’ that, “permit subdued criticism of political life and become the opposition texts literally to be pointed at and read from the crumbling walls with the discussions and rumors they elicit” (47). It may sound subtle, but this form of criticism is only likely to grow over the coming years, as Astana reaches a certain age of maturity.

7. What does the project of Astana reveal regarding the role of state power in the process of national identity formation or transformation?

As a case study, Astana has much to do with the concept of power, particularly how it is constructed and writ upon the built environment. Strolling the Left Bank of the city indeed must feel like a pleasant walk through a Foucauldian illustration: panopticons surround vast, open spaces lacking in civic activity, and one is never quite sure whether or not they are being watched. More significantly, what was recently a backwater town is now front and center in regional geopolitical discussions; meanwhile, citizens who decades ago lived under communist rule are driving themselves to a shopping mall under the world’s largest tensile structure. Discussions of power structures and Astana, therefore, are not limited to the built environment and the city-making project per se, but are manifested in the process of how collective and individual identities are being shaped during this historically significant rupture.

In Shonin Anacker’s article “Geographies of Power in Nazarbayev’s Astana” (2004), he breaks down the different classifications of power (coercion, authority, manipulation, and seduction) and how each is employed by the Astana regime toward various ends: “The capital is both a site of proximate power relations (coercion and authority) and a symbolic resource that can be mobilized through the far-reaching strategies of manipulation and seduction” (516-7). Thus, power can be analyzed via its scalar qualities, as it can be produced and experienced at the urban, regional, national, and international scales. Even before construction of the capital began, the relocation project itself was a power play in that it, “was intended to marginalize the rivals to Nursultan Nazarbaev, bolster his supporters, and simultaneously to gain access to important sources of international capital” (Schatz 2004: 124).

If nothing else, the national government certainly has been systematic in its multivalent and multiscalar application of power. Perhaps the most subtle and insidious form of power employed by Kazakhstani elites has been by preying on the hopes and dreams of its citizens, what Gianni Talamini (2011) calls the ‘architectonic apparatus’ that functions by, “[P]rojecting an image of a golden future in the lack of ideals left by the collapse of communism, capturing in a standardizing image, deceptive production of a subject and illusion of individual freedom” (56). Considered as filling the post-communist void, it is easy to see how these manipulative forms of power can take hold. Yet despite its allure, it would be cynical to assume that the apparatus is simply consumed by an unquestioning and naïve populace. There is hope in the reality that, as Danzer (2009) reminds us, “[A]lthough the state can supply identification opportunities, it cannot control whether and how artifacts are appropriated” (1564).

The view from the Panopticon

6. How do the concepts of ‘growth’ (as a quantitative concept) and ‘development’ (as a qualitative concept) factor into discussions on Astana?

Adopting Karl Marx’s terminology, the geographer Henri Lefebvre, in his writings on urbanization, highlights the distinction between the terms ‘development’ and ‘growth’. In State, Space, World he writes, “Contemporary experience shows us only too well that there can be economic and technological growth without real social development, without the enrichment of social relations” (139). In The Urban Revolution, Lefebvre goes on to write, “[F]or Marx, the growth (quantitative) and development (qualitative) of society could and must occur simultaneously. Unfortunately, history shows that this is not the case. Growth can occur without development and sometimes development can occur without growth. For half a century, growth has been at work just about everywhere, while rigid social and political relations have been maintained. Although the Soviet Union underwent a period of intense development between 1920 and 1935, objective ‘factors’…soon took their revenge” (168).

And Stalin’s ‘revenge’ is likely fresh in the memories of many Astana families. Today, it seems by most accounts that Kazakhstan is focused almost entirely on quantitative growth, on attracting capital investing, selling natural resources, etc.—that development only enters the equation as a means to attract more growth. In other words, Nazarbaev’s attempts to quell ethnic tension, and his talk of a modern, collective identity, are considered as simply socializing techniques to attract capital and broaden his political base. This is not entirely the case, however. It is clear that, while economic factors (and, no doubt, political power) seemingly take priority, the construction of a Kazakhstani identity, and with it a civil society, is a qualitative aspiration. Still, while recent economic growth has already dramatically altered the face of Kazakhstan, many citizens are frustrated that the wealth has yet to trickle down to the neediest populations. These economic disparities threaten to undermine development goals.

And it goes without saying that limitations on public dissent and open political discourse have enormous impacts on socio-political development. Looking forward, the national government has published their “Kazakhstan-2030” program, made widely available to the general public. This program “is used as a ‘subtle legitimization of the current restrictions it lays upon political freedoms in return for economic growth and prosperity in the future’ (Matveeva 2009: 1109)” (Koch 2010: 772). Of course, part of the reason that growth is featured more heavily than development is that growth is much easier to express, package, and sell. Development, on the other hand, can be difficult to describe and, furthermore, can come across as heavy-handed when coming from the state. While it can be considered a truism that everyone wants growth, development goals must confront social differences that, in Kazakhstan, tend to run up against contradictions and historically-rooted tensions.

A sign of growth in Astana

5. What can we learn from Astana/Kazakhstan regarding multiculturalism and national identity, particularly in post-colonial contexts?

At its independence, Kazakhstan was unique among the post-Soviet, Central Asian nations in that, “less than 50% of the total population were ethnic Kazakhs” (Danzer, 2009: 1559). This heterogeneity was not, at the time, considered a reason for celebration. Rather, it was a liability: a century of ethnic tension between European/Slavic settlers and the Kazakh peoples led to the young nation being described as the ‘tinder box of Central Asia.’ In this context, “[T]he threat of ethnic cleavage was used as a legitimizing tool for the development of a semi-authoritarian political system in Kazakhstan” (1560). Also within this context, Astana was declared the new capital, partially as an attempt to alter the ethnic geography, reducing the swath of land in which Kazakhs numbered in the minority.

While a certain level of ethnocentrism can be construed in many calls for Kazakhstani nationalism, those with the power to shape constructions of national identity do often highlight the multicultural facet of Kazakhstan as one of its cultural assets. However, as is the case in any multicultural nation, this balancing act takes a high level of skill: difference cannot be overemphasized as this could promote division, but Soviet-style attempts to construct a unified history and future (see Buchli 62) by eliding all difference are just as hazardous. In this sense, nation-building processes are a delicate art and science, as they “face the risks of promoting perceived exclusion, emotional retreat and real resistance” (Danzer, 2009: 1575).

In many regards, these processes have been successful so far in Kazakhstan: levels of violence have been relatively low over the past two decades, and for many citizens, the future looks brighter than it did under Soviet rule. But in one sense, Astana reveals the contradiction of a multicultural nation; in some cases, it is necessary to favor one ethnicity over another, despite the consequences. In surveys conducted in Astana, “[E]thnicity is presented as the determining factor in access to resources and thus becomes projected onto the built environment…and their symbolic worlds of meaning” (Danzer, 2009: 1569, my emphasis). The fact that “[T]he perception of space is filtered through individuals’ personal ethnic identity and biography” (1558) cannot be escaped. So, as Anacker (2004) puts it, while, “There is no reason to assume that the government is insincere in its promotion of a civic nationalism based on the inclusive category of ‘Kazakhstani’…it is the Kazakhs who hold the right, through their eternal connection with the land, to define the concept of ‘Kazakhstani’ (530). In other words, historic truths have wrought a certain type of multiculturalism, unique to post-colonial nations like South Africa with highly heterogeneous societies and a titular ethnic majority, in which ethnic inequality in the distribution of power and resources is considered defensible to construct an inclusive national identity.

The children are our future

4. To what extent does Astana reflect a certain form of regionalism, or is it truly ‘Nowheresville’?

In the title of his April 2011 New Yorker article, Keith Gessen refers to Astana as “Nowheresville.” While this term evokes the barren geography of the steppe, it also could reflect the eclectic, imported quality of the new portion of the city. Yet, the labeling of Astana as “Nowheresville” also reveals the relativity and subjectivity of the labeler themselves. In what is now being considered a ‘globalized’ world, where cities compete for international investment, Edward Said’s notion of ‘orientalism’ has in many ways been flipped on its head. Now, cities like Astana are consciously designed with outsiders in mind, in this case to make them feel a certain level of comfort. As Anacker (2004) writes, the planners of the new Astana intended to “convey the ‘economic openness’ of Kazakhstan to an audience of international investors. In the mayor’s words, every foreign visitor should be able to see ‘his own native city’ in the built form of Astana (Dzhaqsybekov, 2000)” (519). In this sense, Astana is more ‘everywhere’ than ‘nowhere,’ acting as a mirror to the outside world. Or more specifically, it takes on a generically ‘Western’ appearance throughout much of its newer sections to limit the extent to which orientalizing might occur.

However, Astana is obviously not a Western city, neither in its conception nor its physical form. This is due to a) its other obligations of intersubjectivity, specifically those relating to regional and national identities, and b) its history prior to being the national capital. Astana must not only “speak to an international audience” (Anacker 2004: 530), it represents contemporary and future ideals of Kazakhstani society: “How it looks to bureaucrats, presidential officials, and planners is extremely important for getting the project of Kazakhstani independence and modernization right” (Buchli 2007: 42). President Nazarbaev has also made it clear that, just as Kazakhstan must take its place at the head of Central Asian nations, Astana must project as an urban beacon beyond its own national borders. If these goals seem mutually exclusive with the goal of promoting national identity, they are to a certain degree. Or, at the very least, the various goals cancel each other out, reducing the city to its ‘forced’ appearance. As Danzer (2009) points out, “This non-authenticity poses a nontrivial challenge to the construction of a Kazakhstani nation. While the invention of a new iconography is required if the national texture is not to serve ethnic Kazakhs exclusively, the lack of a neutral frame of reference naturally constrains the success of this project” (1572).

Eventually, in Gessen’s article, he discovers that there is, indeed, an existing portion of Astana on the north side of the river. Thus, unlike Brasilia or Abuja, Astana has a historic footprint, a section of the city that was built for a purpose other than as a national capital. This Soviet portion of the city has received a facelift recently as part of the capital relocation project, not to blend in with the Left Bank, necessarily, but to at least appear less ‘Soviet’ in foreigners’ eyes. This has consisted mainly of inexpensive undertakings like installing vinyl siding over concrete towers. Despite this shift in aesthetics from the Soviet Era to the present, old habits die hard, as the process of city-making has changed very little: “Grandiose new buildings now dot the urban landscape, visually (albeit not functionally) representing a complete rupture with Kazakhstan’s Soviet architectural heritage” (Koch, 769).

In the Introduction to Disappearing ‘Asian’ Cities, William S. Logan problematizes what he refers to as the ‘Asian-ness’ of East Asian cities (i.e., their historic typologies and aesthetics). While many in the West condemn the speed and apparent indifference with which the historic urban fabrics are being supplanted with quasi-Western buildings and forms designed in large part by Western architects, Logan warns against such simple interpretations. Not only is historic preservation itself a Western (and extremely recent) concept, but to consider the latest wave of architecture to be ‘Western’ may be a misinterpretation, as contemporary international trends are likely to be considered Asian in hindsight. Nevertheless, Logan does admit that modernization is “producing sameness and blandness that denies indigenous distinctiveness” (xiv). In Astana, regional symbols and references are not completely absent (for a discussion on cultural symbolism and motifs visible throughout Astana, see Buchli 2007: 62). For the most part, these symbols are repackaged in a post-modern fashion, with the most blatant example being the Kazakh yurt transformed into a giant Norman Foster shopping mall tent. This example shows how domestic and international objectives can be merged using form and materiality.

Bayterek Tower, a Kazakh creation myth come to life

Khan Shatyr, yurt for the 21st century?

3. What role does history play, particularly as it is inscribed on the built environment, in the project of constructing Kazakhstani national identity?

As the new capital, Astana plays a particularly significant role in the nation-building project. As Wolfel (2002) notes, “capital cities are icons that help with the rewriting of the history of a country. The relocation of a capital city can embrace, reconstitute or disown the history of a country” (487). As much as Astana, true to its modernist conception, intends to focus its attention on the present or the future, collective identities are inherently formulated from historically-constructed notions of subjectivity. The project of constructing a Kazakhstani national identity, thus, must confront historic identities and tensions. This includes the repackaging, reframing, and/or glossing over of identity-forming urban surfaces, symbols, and forms, as the case may be, to generate notions of subjectivity that converge with notions of ‘progress’ and ‘modern’. This does not just include the erasing of history; in fact, history is often employed in the project of modernism.

Toward these ends, “urban space is used as a means of the narration of history and the creation of a national heritage by the nationalizing state” (Danzer 2009: 1574). While urban forms in Astana—from the most opulent to the everyday—relate differently to each observer, the government has been careful to avoid installing explicit political monuments within the new urban core. According to Anacker (2004), this is because, “the regime is not certain which aspects of history to commemorate” (521). Thus, while the newest sections of Astana are understood by all citizens to be politically motivated (every building is sanctioned by the president himself), indeterminate or ethnically-neutral forms are used so as not to ignite tensions. Such is the difficulty of constructing a collective identity when few historic elements or events exist to draw upon that can be interpreted singularly and collectively.

Thus, again, a balance act has to be performed in which history is employed toward particular ends but not in ways that might ignite ethnic tension or foster excessive nostalgia. Pre-colonial history, often ‘discovered’ in archaeological digs, has recently been employed as a way of claiming historic territoriality over the land, primarily by challenging notions of the Kazakhs as a nomadic people, providing examples of pre-colonial permanent settlements (see Buchli, 2007: 61). And while many rural Kazakhs still live a nomadic lifestyle, notions of Kazakhstani ‘progress,’ projected most clearly by Astana itself, implicitly excludes these members of society from being part of Kazakhstani identity going forward: “The ‘non-modern’ is often coded as a certain ‘backwardness’ rooted in a historic past” (Koch 2010: 771). Given the many levels and dimensions of contradictions inherent in regional history, government leaders have been extremely successful in delicately employing history toward the construction of national identity, their ethical basis notwithstanding.

Present-day Kazakh nomads

2. How have notions of ‘emptiness’ or ‘tabula rasa’ shaped Astana’s conception?

Unlike Brasilia and Abuja, Astana was constructed adjacent to (and superimposed over) a pre-existing city. Therefore, when it came to the role of the Khazakstani government, “efforts to construct governing apparatuses and create popular national identification occurred not on tabula rasa but on terrain littered with the partially viable edifices from previous state-building and nation-building experiences” (Schatz 2004: 131-2). Nevertheless, the notion of a tabula rasa, as it relates to modernist urbanism, was still at play in Astana’s conception. Not only was it central to the thinking of Astana’s most recent incarnation as the national capital, some notion of tabula rasa has been present throughout much of the region’s imperial and colonial history: “Russian settlers and administrators had often justified colonization on the grounds that the steppes were “empty” prior to their arrival (Diener, 2002)” (Anacker 2004: 517). Victor Buchli (2007) traces notions of ‘emptiness’ and ‘bareness’ back to Russian descriptions of the Kazakh steppe, which often were confusing and contradictory as they considered the land empty and inhabited at the same time. According to Buchli, these contradictions reveal Russian perceptions of what were deemed ‘normal’ and ‘human’ behavior, in terms of how humans inhabit the built and natural environment, as well as ‘proper’ notions of personhood, nationhood, and social progress (46-47). Imposing this worldview on the landscape during the process of colonization granted the Russians, in their minds, a basis, “for ascribing value and the terms of legitimacy” (45).

The trope of ‘nothingness’ continued through several more historic periods, each time being employed to “legitimate the exertion of power to shape political and social life” (Buchli 2007: 48). Following decades of ethnic strife between settlers and Khazakhs, Khrushchev enacted the Virgin Lands Campaign, which unapologetically followed the line of reasoning of ‘emptiness’, in this case imposing the Soviet-based value on the land, as opposed to mere claims of ownership. Even following independence, when Kazakhstani leaders were charged with constructing a nation, “state planners likely preferred a ‘blank slate’ for its nation-building project—where the population could be ‘shocked’ and would lack the ‘social resources for resisting and refashioning the transformation planned for it’ (Scott 1998: 256). In Almaty, ‘the presence of so much past’ threatened to get in the way ‘of offering singular interpretations’ (Agnew 1998: 237) of Kazakhstan’s new symbols of statehood” (Koch 2010: 773). Thus, although Astana may not have been a true tabula rasa, it functioned as such from the point of view of those charged with relocating the capital. The ability to design and control ‘singular interpretations’ of the built environment is never fully achievable, however; in fact, the starkness of such government-backed conceptions may indeed invite particular challenges in the form of subversive or satirical reinterpretations and readings.

Recently, the notion of emptiness has emerged again as government officials are now funding large-scale archaeological digs in the northern steppe in an explicit attempt to prove that “the ‘virgin lands’ were not actually ‘virgin’ at the time of the Russian settlement” (Anacker 2004: 529), that there was ‘something there’ (Buchli 2007: 60). In so doing, they hope to reconstruct historic notions of the largely-nomadic Khazakhs into an urban, settled populace, thereby laying cultural and ethnic claim, in retrospect, to the hinterland with present-day Astana at its center.

The Kazakh Steppe

1. How does Astana compare to other 20th Century capital relocation projects?

Astana, at least in terms of it being an object of academic inquiry, certainly has everything to do with its 1997 designation as Kazakhstan’s capital. Comparing it to other capital relocation projects of the modern era, we can contrast various motivations and tactics for such momentous national undertakings—most notably Brasilia, constructed in the 1950s, and Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, consecrated in 1991. While there are undoubtedly aspects that link these projects to one another, their varied cultural, geographic, and historic contexts serve to distinguish them, particularly in terms of the patterns and management of their growth. While these projects were each undertaken in post-colonial contexts, it should go without saying that the vast majority of fledgling post-colonial states did not relocate their national capitals in the 20^th century. Thus, these cities reflect a self-selected category of examples in which a capital relocation project was considered a critical element to the concurrent nation-building project.

Brasilia was “designed to express to ordinary people the meaning (however established) of modern statehood” (Schatz 2004: 121). With this task in mind, it is easy to see why aesthetics and location were critical motivating forces, as ‘modern statehood’ could not be expressed within historic context but required a blank slate. This symbolic and literal break with the past in its physical form was also a way to enact control and promote unity among a diverse population. As Koch (2010: 773-4) notes, Brasilia was, “supposed to be a source of progress to spread throughout Brazil’s territory. The city’s modernist architecture is marked by a utopian temporality, which ‘presupposes to regenerate the present by means of an imagined future’ (Holston 1989: 56). The past is thus seen as an impediment, while ‘the present is the platform for launching plans for a better future’ (Scott 1998: 95). Ultimately, this ideology stems from a worldview that hints at environmental determinism, insofar as it presumes the ability of the urban environment to create a new social order (Holston 1989). Like Brasilia, which was seen as capable of ‘propelling’ Brazil into an idealized future, the urban landscape of Astana has rapidly become a central site for inscribing desired visions of the future of Kazakhstan.”

Schatz (2004), on the other hand, has found that, “Kazakhstan approximates the model of capital relocation that comes from post-colonial African contexts,” (112) for example, in the case of Abuja, Nigeria. Both nation-building projects were, “built through the self-conscious efforts of elites to minimize or balance the alternative allegiances of a culturally plural population” (121). And more than was the case with Brasilia, the construction of Abuja and Astana were conceived as a means of solidifying control over particular tensions that posed a challenge to state power and progress. Thus, in Astana, as in Abuja, significant effort has been given over to design techniques that “stimulate such feelings of national pride and identity. It has been a focal point of ubiquitous nationalist propaganda, also designed to combat the challenges of nation-building given Kazakhstan’s significant demographic diversity” (Koch 2010: 770).

The publically-expressed motivations behind the decision to move the capital of Kazakhstan from Almaty to Astana have been widely documented—ranging from economic reasons of spurring growth and international investment, to political goals of quelling potential ethnic tensions, to the sociocultural intention of promoting a post-colonial, collective national identity. So while the aggregate knowledge gained from the successes and failures of Brasilia and Abuja may have been invaluable, when it comes to the range of issues that are to be used as benchmarks of success, these two examples pale in comparison to the accomplishments of Astana. Beyond the obvious cultural particularities, what makes Astana unique in this discussion (and thus worth analyzing for its own sake) is its historic context, specifically that the project was consciously undertaken within the framework of a globalized world. More than any other capital relocation project, Astana’s motivation, and therefore its success, has hinged on international considerations: in order to guarantee international investment and political legitimacy for the nation of Kazakhstan, Astana has been designed and constructed to please and impress international clientele. To achieve this while at the same time focusing on domestic concerns of identity that are ripe with contradiction is no small feat.

Within a discussion of contemporary urbanization of mid-sized cities, why should we study capital-building projects specifically? The answer is that they present an opportunity to critique what Koch (2010) refers to as symbolic landscapes that reflect “prominent elite conceptions of the nation” (770). Not only do they reflect elite conceptions, the ephemeral quality of young capitals that is palpable to the inhabitants themselves tends to heighten conscious notions of identity among the populace. In Astana, “Everything is on the verge of falling apart. No one knows whether the capital will succeed or for how long” (Buchli 2007: 50). Thus, in their infancy, these cities serve to alter or at least shed light on spatial-temporal notions of their citizens. Nation-building efforts also leave capital cities imprinted with loaded conceptions of identity—and nowadays in particular, they are physical artifacts that must fuse the seemingly contradictory objectives of a unified national identity with global receptivity. Thus, they warrant further analysis as microcosms or physical manifestations of these complex, contemporary geopolitical concerns.

Kurokawa’s Master Plan, 2001

Upcoming Final Blog Posts

Over the next week, I will be writing 8-12 blog posts, each of which will focus on a topic that arose from my research on Astana. It was decided that this format, as it lacks a cohesive ‘thesis’ required from a term paper, would  better reflect the  topic of urbanization as disparate, but related, units of knowledge. Thus, while I will post them in the order I wrote them, they can be read in any order as they are not intended to be linear in progression.

I will be grouping my posts under headings of questions that arose from my research. The questions are meant to be open-ended, and while the research certainly prompted the questions, I tried to not simply plagiarize other researchers’ questions.

Lastly, please refer to the two older posts that include bibliographies when referencing any citations that I include in the final blog posts. That being said, there likely will be quotes that are citations within citations, which I will not necessarily have in my bibliographies. The details of these will themselves of course lie in the individual bibliographies from the sources that I cite. I apologize for any confusion.