POST-SOCIALIST DREAMWORLDS: HOUSING BOOM AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN KAZAKHSTAN Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Alima Bissenova January 2012 © 2012 Alima Bissenova ii POST-SOCIALIST DREAMWORLDS: HOUSING BOOM AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN KAZAKHSTAN Bissenova Alima, Ph.D. Cornell University 2012 This dissertation is based on 26 months, between 2007 and 2010, of official non- continuous ethnographic fieldwork in real estate development in Kazakhstan. During this time, I investigated the institutionalization of new housing “dreamworlds” and new modes of being urban in relation to the practices of government bureaucracy, the practices of the construction industry, and the housing strategies of residents. Even before the commencement of my fieldwork, I had personally socialized with people who moved into and made their homes in the newly built housing complexes of Astana. Drawing on my participant observations, research, and personal engagements with policy-makers, businessmen, and residents, I have written what can be called an anthropology of the boom (an exploration into the socio-economic conditions and forces behind the recent housing boom in Kazakhstan) an anthropology of the emergence of a new material environment, as well as an anthropology of the new social configurations and normative framework arising from the new material conditions. I have also followed some of the institutional developments that took place during the period of my fieldwork and earlier – during the “boom” period of the first decade of the 21st century. These developments chiefly include the planning and building of the new capital, Astana, the housing boom and post-crisis management of the construction, the rise and fall of construction companies, and the trajectories of state housing policies of that period. After the financial crisis of 2008, much like the United States and countries in Europe, the state in Kazakhstan also had to deal with the excesses of the boom period having to play a particular role in mitigating the financial crisis – bailing out banks, companies, and individual home owners threatened by bankruptcy and foreclosure. The necessity to design effective yet socially acceptable anti-crisis policies opened up the political space in unexpected ways: during the recent crisis, questions of “moral economy,” moral legitimation of wealth, social value and social needs have been creeping back into the public discourse. Put bluntly, in a time of crisis, somebody has to lose, and often it is up to politics to assign moral blame and decide who should lose. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Alima Bissenova was born in Astana (former Tselinograd) in 1974. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Kazakh Language and Literature from the Karaganda State University in 1995 and her Master’s degree in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo in 2005 where she wrote a thesis entitled “Islam and Nationalism in Kazakhstan.” In her PhD dissertation and current research, she investigates the social implications of economic development fueled by foreign and internal investment through the prism of the changing environment of Kazakhstan’s major cities and people’s housing situations and attitudes. iii To My Father Jumabay Muhamedjanuly Bissenov iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am immensely grateful to all of my committee members for their consistant guidance and advice in the process of writing this dissertation. I have been especially lucky to have advisors who, in addition to being from a broad range of disciplines and fields, have shown genuine interest in my work and who wholeheartedly supported me in my scholarly pursuits. With impeccable professionalism, my chair and advisor Marina Welker always promptly provided me with valuable feedback on every part of this dissertation, in whatever unstructured and crude form it happened to be at the time. Dominic Boyer initiated me into anthropological theory and kept in touch over the years remaining a tower of strength on which I could always rely and depend upon for advice and support. Andrew Willford, despite being swamped with the administrative work of the department, always spared time to read chapters and drafts of this dissertation and talked to me on many occasions, each time opening up new theoretical and ethnographic horizons for me. I am very grateful to Edward Schatz of the University of Toronto for showing interest in my work and agreeing to be on my committee. Over the years he has read many pieces of this work, e-mailed me his comments, and made arrangements to fit conversations with me into his busy schedule at the conferences of the Central Eurasian Studies Society and the Association for the Studies of Nationalities. I especially appreciate that he devoted time from his summer family vacation to give me many pages of detailed comments on the last draft. His comments were a great help to me in shaping and polishing the final version of this dissertation. During my time at Cornell, Susan Buck-Morss has always been an intellectual inspiration and has introduced me to a body of philosophical work from Kant to Benjamin encouraging me to apply philosophy even when studying apparently mundane, everyday things. She stands for me as an example of a public intellectual. In the early days of conceptualization of v this project, Jakob Rigi helped me formulate my approach to the exciting phenomenon of the construction boom unfolding before our very eyes. Many parts of this dissertation have been read by my colleagues and friends Anna Geltzer and Zhanara Nauryzbayeva. Parts of this dissertation have been presented in 2009 at the anthropology of the state workshop in Buxton, UK organized by Madeleine Reeves where it greatly benefited from the comments of fellow-anthropologists Judith Beyer, Johan Rasanayagam, Morgan Liu, Eve-Marie Dubuisson, Cynthia Werner, Sara Kendzior, Akasana Ismailbekova, Tomasso Trevisiani, and Mateusz Laszczkowski. In 2010, Laura Adams invited me to present one of the chapters at the Central Asian Circle at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. Her mentorship, friendship, and encouragement over the years of my PhD studies has been invaluable in helping me to complete this project. In many important ways this dissertation has been wrought and influenced by support from my friends, colleagues, and relatives in Kazakhstan. My conversations in Astana with Kul’shat Medeuova, Gul’mira Abel’dinova, Aliya Abeli’dinova, Svetlana Zavgorodnyaya, and Roza Nurgozhayeva helped me to crystallize my thoughts on the subject. My sister, Aigul Jumabay, has been indispensable in helping me to carry this project through. She kindly took upon herself the role of an unpaid research assistant – checking facts, scanning materials, helping me with tables, pictures, and many other small but important tasks that needed to be done during the research and writing process. My mother, Nelya Bissenova, always encouraged me in my scholarly career and supported me financially and emotionally throughout my study. My colleagues at the AstanaGenPlan and the Eurasian University, my cousins, second cousins and other members of extended family, my friends and acquaintances in Astana, Almaty and other cities of Kazakhstan participated in this project in various ways. This project would not have vi been possible without people who shared their stories and thoughts with me and whom I cannot mention here for considerations of confidentiality. Last but not least, I also want to thank my son, Syrym Tolesh, whom I love dearly and who, having to put up with a student-mother for many-many years, learned to be self-reliant from early childhood. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 The Problematic of “Anthropology at Home” ........................................................................ 4 Delineation of the Research Topic ......................................................................................... 10 Attachments to Modernity...................................................................................................... 21 An “Exemplary Center” and the Return of Utopia ............................................................. 24 “Fake It Until You Make It…” .............................................................................................. 28 Methodology and Overview of Chapters .............................................................................. 30 CHAPTER 1. THE MASTER PLAN OF ASTANA: BETWEEN THE “ART OF GOVERNMENT” AND THE “ART OF BEING GLOBAL” ................................................ 34 Enunciation of the Master Plan ............................................................................................. 37 Elaboration of Kurokawa’s Principles .................................................................................. 43 The Implementation of the Master Plan ............................................................................... 51 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 63 CHAPTER 2. FROM “COMMON YARD” TO CONDOMINIUM: THE TRIALS OF THE EMERGENCE OF THE NEW OWNERSHIP SOCIETY IN KAZAKHSTAN ........ 68 The Soviet Predecessors of Post-Soviet Desires: The Housing Question during and after Socialism