Congrats to Özge for passing her PhD viva!

Congratulations to our student Özgecan Kesici-Ayoubi who passed her PhD viva this term. Well done! Her research titled "Attaining Modernity through Nationalism: The Kazakh Alash Orda Movement" was supervised by Prof. Malesevic. Below is an abstract of the PhD thesis:

Title: Attaining Modernity through Nationalism: The Kazakh Alash Orda Movement

The analysis of the first Kazakh national movement, the Alash Orda movement, has traditionally been confined to strictly historiographic interpretations. By broadening the analysis through macro-sociological lenses, this dissertation examines the modes in which Kazakh nationhood was first conceptualised by a Western educated elite in the Kazakh Steppe. It argues that the Alash Orda movement resorted to nationalism in an attempt to speed up the process of modernising the nation. This argument is developed through an in-depth analysis of the literature on the legacies left behind by the Kazakh intellectuals. It demonstrates that the modernist intellectuals built upon previous Kazakh intellectuals’ work in promoting self-awareness and enlightenment. Moreover, their modernist ideas are exemplified through the discourse around sedentarisation of the traditionally nomadic Kazakhs, and increased self-determination of women. The thesis also examines the practice of nationalist movements that are traditionally engaged in myth-making and national history writing, and provides an analysis of the cultural and national ‘infrastructure’, in the forms of national education or literature that the intellectuals envisioned for Kazakh nationhood. Finally, it examines the demise of the movement and the legacies it left behind for modern Kazakh nationhood. Modernity was not achieved with the emergence of the movement. However, with the implementation of the Soviet Nationalities Policy, a layering process took place. The foundations of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic were placed on understandings of Kazakh nationhood that the Alash Ordists had previously envisioned; modernity later ensued with the establishment of the Soviet Union. The dissertation hence argues that nationalism is not necessarily the result of modernity, but rather, could strategically be deployed as an attempt to attain modernity.