Immobile populations as anchors of rural ethnic identity: Contemporary Kazakh narratives of place and migration in Mongolia

Abstract

Migration to rapidly expanding global urban landscapes and the questions surrounding population growth in these places continue to fuel interest amongst academics, policy makers, and news outlets. Less attention is paid to those individuals who do not head for the big city, immobile populations in rural places. In this paper, we argue that rather than being "those left behind," immobile populations play a key role in maintaining and perpetuating cultural narratives for ethnic minority populations by anchoring cultural narratives to place. These narratives become reinterpreted and reimagined by outmigrants but remain firmly connected to place through immobile populations.The concept of place elasticity allows us to imagine how these local narratives of place remain intact. It describes the ways in which individuals maintain a continuous, meaningful engagement with a place, even if they reside a long distance from that place. We utilise the case study of Mongolian Kazakhs, an ethnic minority population with strong place attachments as well as significant outmigration from their rural home region in western Mongolia, to explore the idea of place elasticity and evolving place identities for rural populations in developing and transitioning countries. Through analysis of our questionnaires and life history interview data, we find that nonmigrants (immobile) facilitate rural place attachments and identities for this population. This finding suggests that rather than being "left behind," nonmigrants or immobile populations play an important role in perpetuating place identities and attachments for outmigrants.

Fluidity and persistance of cultural narratives: Heritage tourism and cultural narratives for insiders and outsiders in Western Mongolia

“…Further, beyond just household economic diversification, diaspora tourism has a strong influence on contemporary identity and narratives of "nation" and "community", particularly for members of the community who live far away. The perception amoungst interviewees is that coethnics residing in Bayan Ulgii will preserve traditions and lifeways while those, including themselves, with more urban and global lifestyles, will struggle to keep traditions [2]. Thus the remote rural province of Bayan Ulgii is seen as a place of cultural heritage preservation for Kazakhs while at the same time, it is seen as an "authentic" expression of local culture by outsider tourists.…”

THE ROLE OF NOSTALGIA IN (RE)CREATING PLACE ATTACHMENTS FOR A DIASPORIC COMMUNITY

“…In Bayan-Ulgii, Kazakhs comprised nearly 88.6 percent of the total population in 2015, making the province an ethnic minority-majority area (NSOM 2016a, 28, 40). Mongolian Kazakhs are recognized by the state as a separate nationality and maintain an ethno-cultural territory in an isolated region of the country, where they maintain a strong presence, despite successive and sometimes extensive migration flows to Kazakhstan (Diener 2009;Werner and Barcus 2009) and more recently to Ulaanbaatar (Barcus and Shugatai 2018). Holly Barcus and Cynthia Werner (2015) argue that regardless of the ebb and flow of migrants from this region, Mongolian Kazakhs continue to maintain strong place attachments to western Mongolia.…”

“…These place attachments take the form of religiosity, kinship ties, and language versatility-elements visible on the landscape in the form of mosques, and Kazakh language business signs (Barcus and Werner 2015). As migration trajectories shifted towards Ulaanbaatar in the later 2000s, many Kazakhs continued to remain in place, acting as cultural anchors of place attachment and ethnic identity for those who migrated away (Barcus and Shugatai 2018).…”

“…So we often organize Kazakh religious and cultural events" (LH_36_0051). From our questionnaires, we know that 82 percent of respondents attended at least one Kazakh festival in Ulaanbaatar in the year preceding the interview and only 2 percent had no knowledge of Kazakh festivals (Barcus and Shugatai 2018).…”

“…Werner and Barcus 2009;Barcus and Shugatai 2018). Interviews and ethnographies are important qualitative means of collecting information about place and migration and in particular, about the nuances of both the migration process, outcomes, and insights into home and place(McHugh and Mings 1996;McHugh 2000;Mendoza and Morén-Alegret 2012).…”