Doctoral Dissertation Research: Financial Traders, Information Technologies and The State in Kazahstan

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Abstract

Yale University doctoral candidate Ainur Begim, supervised by Dr. Douglas Rogers, will undertake research on the practices and technologies of financial traders in Kazakhstan's burgeoning financial sphere. This project -- informed by recent developments in science and technology studies, social studies of finance, postsocialist studies, and the anthropology of the state -- examines traders' ambitions, goals, and routines in Kazakhstan, where the state plays an active role in promoting the development of financial markets. Ethnographic data will be collected through a variety of methods, including participant observation, semi-structured and unstructured interviews, life and technology histories, focus groups, targeted archival research, and newspaper analysis. These data will be analyzed with the goal of testing four major hypotheses concerning the sustainability of financial markets; the role of information technology in their development; the relevance of Kazakhstan's recent political developments; and the values and culture of Kazakhstan's traders. This study will be among the first to approach emerging financial markets ethnographically in the Central Asian context. It will shed light on the relevance of the different political experiences for contemporary financial practices as well as offer new insights into the nature and role of the state in the development of financial markets. This project presents a unique opportunity to question taken-for-granted understandings of markets as sites for calculating economic actors and high technologies devoid of the state. Through detailed descriptions of the ways in which economic and political institutions are organized and interlinked, the proposed study will not only supplement economic analyses of interest rates, inflation, and credit but enable a richer and deeper understanding of finance and suggest ways for better regulation of financial flows.