Profiteers or moral entrepreneurs? Bazaars, traders and development discourses in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Abstract

Drawing on recent ethnographic research, this article explores key aspects of contemporary discourses on the bazaar trade-development nexus in Kazakhstan. Wholesale traders at the Bolashak Bazaar in Almaty, part of the Barakholka bazaar agglomeration and one of the country's largest markets, have forged particular practices and visions of entrepreneurial development over the last two decades. These have been impacted by state-imposed modernisation agendas and their underlying goals. Using an actorcentred approach, I show how trade entrepreneurs' identities and social representation are challenged by statist developmentalism. However, I argue that traders also embrace a grassroots understanding of what socio-economic development should be like and thereby question the outcomes of seemingly utopian, state-led modernisation efforts on the ground. Through this focus it becomes apparent that the knowledge, aspirations and representations of actors in terms of social change constantly intersect, overlap and condition each other.

A cautionary tale: Bazaar trade and limitations to growth in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

“…Kazakhstan, a hydrocarbon‐rich country, projects itself as a rapidly developing Eurasian state capable of financing spectacular infrastructure such as a new capital, and in 2017, hosting the Expo. After the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan had been amongst the first countries to undertake aggressive fiscal reform such as introducing a new currency early and joining the WTO (Alff 2015; Marat 2009; Mitchell 2009). In all three countries, there was an attempt to not only leave Soviet economic legacies behind, but also move past the painful transition of the 1990s, when the bazaars we have described here first started proliferating.…”

“…The recent discourse of modernity and order in the marketplace in Central Asia and the Caucasus, that foreshadows state aspirations to transition from the bazaar to the modern market, is, of course, based on a developmentalist teleology not dissimilar to that which had been proposed by Geertz. Where firms have emerged, such as in the garment manufacturing sector in Kyrgyzstan, firm owners have sometimes capitalized on traffic through the bazaar to showcase their produce in wholesale and retail markets (Interview with Dordoi director August 8, 2016; Alff, 2015;Botoeva & Spector, 2013). 2 When we last visited Kara-Suu bazaar in 2017, the nearby border crossing with Uzbekistan was still closed.…”

Migration and justice in the era of sustainable development goals: a conceptual framework

“…In some cases, migrants also develop inventive economic niches and create new jobs. At the same time, migration from Kyrgyzstan also makes evident how many people are selfemployed in the whole region, straddling between formality, informality and uncertainty, often running several businesses at once (Alff 2015(Alff , 2016Berner et al 2012). In regions with a population deficit or decreasing population, immigration is also a way to ensure critical population size to maintain social services and generate an influx of economic resources and investments.…”

Quality of Urban Space in The Eurasian Context

“…Within the above mentioned theoretical framework, many scholars specifically focused on the Kazakh case, highlighting in particular patterns of urban evolution in post-soviet time with reference to major cities as Astana and Almaty [12,13,14,15,16,17], or focusing on specific aspects as, for example, access to housing [17] and health care [18], personal security and crime [19], daily life, social relations and conditions [20,21,22,23], social configuration [24], economy [25,26,27] and environment [28,29,30], communications and infrastructures. Though encompassing crucial topics, still a few works [31] tackled the problems of urban asymmetries as a limit for sustainable, long term city's development.…”