UC Berkeley Library

This essay explores issues of citizenship and belonging associated with post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s repatriation program. Beginning in 1991, Kazakhstan financed the resettlement of over 944,000 diasporic Kazakhs from nearly a dozen countries, including Mongolia, and encouraged repatriates to become naturalized citizens. Using the concept of privileged exclusion, we argue that repatriated Kazakhs from Mongolia simultaneously belong due to their knowledge of Kazakh language and traditions, yet do not belong due to their lack of linguistic fluency in Russian, the absence of a shared Soviet experience, and limited comfort with the ‘cosmopolitan’ lifestyle that characterizes the new elite in this post-Soviet context.