CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Arystanbek, Aizada |
|---|---|
| Title | Trapped Between East And West: A Study Of Hegemonic Femininity In Kazakhstan's Online And State Discourses |
| Summary | This thesis explores how standards of hegemonic femininity are established for modern Kazakh women, and how these standards are enforced upon women in different spaces, specifically on social media platforms and via official state discourse. This study investigates how standards of hegemonic femininity are utilized by the state to police women’s bodies, glorify national culture, and normalize violence against women who do not conform to these standards. Building upon the legitimacy established through state discourses, online discussions further reinforce the normalization of violence. Drawing upon discourse analysis as the primary method for examining available comments on Facebook and Instagram and Nursultan Nazarbayev’s speeches, among other sources, this thesis is one of the first studies of modern Kazakh nationalism from a critical gendered perspective that situates discourses about Kazakh women in the context of sexual violence. The main significance of this work is uncovering how colonial and Soviet heritage affect the notion of Kazakhness today and the way these ideas, as an amalgamation of postcolonial and nationalist politics, perpetuate harmful standards of behavior for Kazakh women. By studying the discourse, I aim to demonstrate the narrow liminal space between the East and the West in which Kazakh women are being placed today for the sake of preserving the uniqueness of national culture that leads to ‘weaponization’ of women’s bodies and naturalization of violence against them. |
| Supervisor | Jones-Gailani, Nadia |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/arystanbek_aizada.pdf |
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