Russian Empire-Building and the Kazakh Kinship System: The Chala-Qazaqs of the Kazakh steppe | WorldCat.org
This thesis examines the phenomenon of Chala-Qazaqs: groups of mixed ethnic origin who lived in the Kazakh steppe. Chala-Qazaqs, or "half-Kazakhs," emerged as a result of the rigid kinship system and patrilineal succession adopted by the steppe nomads. Since Kazakhs inherited their tribal identities from their fathers, they placed the progeny of Kazakh mothers and non-Kazakh fathers in the hybrid category of Chala-Qazaqs. Chala-Qazaq could serve as a transitional status on the way to becoming "fully" Kazakh. This "Kazakhification" was evinced by their incorporation into Kazakh tribal genealogies. This paper reveals that this process stopped in the nineteenth century due to the transformation of the Kazakh kinship system and the emergence of Chala-Qazaqs as a distinct social category - two inter-related shifts connected to Russian imperial expansion. Chala-Qazaqs present a fascinating case that exposes ethnic processes in pre-colonial and colonial settings and demonstrate the agency of Muslims under the Russian rule
Downloadable Archival Material, Undefined, 2019
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School, 2019