Special Aspects of Kazakhstanis’ Identity in the Context of Multicultural Society

Special Aspects of Kazakhstanis’ Identity in the Context of Multicultural Society


Nysanbayev A.N.

Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Dr. Sci. (Philos.), Advisor to the Director, Institute for Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies of the Committee of Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan iphp@inbox.ru

Burova Y.Y.

Dr. Sci. (Philos.), Prof., Chief Researcher of the Institute for Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies of the Committee of Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan Almaty, Kazakhstan bee1958@bk.ru

Sailaubekkyzy A.

Research Fellow of the Institute for Philosophy, Political Science and Religion Studies of the Committee of Science of the Ministry of Education and Science оf the Republic of Kazakhstan; PhD student, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan kzsaia@gmail.com

ID of the Article:


The article was supported by KN MES RK, project No. AP05131998.


For citation:

Nysanbayev A.N., Burova Y.Y., Sailaubekkyzy A. Special Aspects of Kazakhstanis’ Identity in the Context of Multicultural Society. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2019. No 7. P. 37-47




Abstract

With the independence of Kazakhstan (1991), the Republic of Kazakhstan entered a period of transformation in all spheres of life. The transition to a mixed economy, the democratization of the political system, the emergence of a market society, world view pluralism and other factors had a decisive influence on the qualitative change in the social structure, migration processes and employment. The redefinition of the vectors of state development coincided with the search for identification strategies of Kazakhstani people. Over the years of sovereign development, a new generation of citizens has grown and entered into an independent life. Despite the fact that Kazakhstan is still a multicultural and multiethnic society, the majority of citizens share common value paradigms, in mentality (consciousness and behavior, belief and purposefulness) manifest discrepancies and fixed binary dispositions on «sensitive» issues. According to experts, some of these issues can cause increased risk of disintegrating of the society. Based on the formation and development of national sociology, the possibility of interpreting the socio-cultural landscape of Kazakh life has opened up. Research has fixed the state and dynamics of trends in civil, linguistic, religious identity, which occur at different stages of independent development. State policy and practice of influencing the formation of identity in conditions of sovereignty exhibit a high degree of complexity of the process, requires dynamism, competent decisions making, taking into account many factors to exclude social risks in the implemented state policy. Designing effective social and political management technologies is possible only through the identification of trends, the detection of specificity, the analysis of the general and the particular in the modern mentality of various groups of socially heterogeneous Kazakhstani society. It is important to keep in mind that modern Kazakhstan, due to its resource, cultural, territorial and other features, is located in the area of intersection of various global interests. The trends of globalization show that modern Kazakhstan cannot avoid the influences connected and contributing to the loss of traditional (historically established in the culture) identity.


Keywords
Kazakhstan identity; Kazakhstan nation; language identity; religious identity; religiosity; secularism

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Content No 7, 2019