Gulaged Identities: Engaging with the Kazakhstani context to understand students’ critical participation

Sara M. C. Felix; University of Sussex

Abstract

The implementation of British and American university programmes in Kazakhstan have encountered challenges, as students seem unwilling to engage critically in the classroom. This may be because practitioners have not considered the impact of context and identities on students’ in-class participation. This paper uses Bauman to understand the impact of one aspect of the Kazakhstani context, the Gulag, on identity formation. Then, using Foucault’s and Butler’s theories of capillaries of power and identities as performative acts, I examine how these new identities could influence students’ performance. I use three students in an academic writing and research methods course as case studies, analysing both their in-class participation and interviews where students discuss how they see themselves in Kazakhstan’s society. I conclude that by engaging with students’ contexts and identities, practitioners can better understand students as they attempt to engage critically in the classroom.

(142 words)

Outline

As higher education becomes internationalized, ‘global’ universities are investing more in branch campuses – exporting their courses and approaches to knowledge to new contexts. This includes Kazakhstan, where in the last three years, at least five British and American universities have been invited to set up academic programmes.

I was involved in one of these programmes – teaching academic writing to Kazakhstani students entering social sciences and the humanities. One element of the programme was to encourage students to critically engage with academic content, the self, and their social contexts. However, British and American lecturers found their Kazakhstani students unwilling to critique, make arguments, or deconstruct their assumptions. This seeming unwillingness does not necessarily mean these students are unable to think critically; only that they do not seem to respond to their lecturers’ expectations. The question is why.

To answer this question is to examine students’ own context and identities, since these directly affect how they engage with knowledge and critique. What identities and histories could contribute to an unwillingness to participate critically in the Kazakhstani context? In this paper, I explore the identities shaped by the Gulag (soviet political prisons and exile camps located mainly throughout the Kazakh Siberian steppe) as one of many elements in Kazahkstan’s complex context. Using Bauman, Foucault and Butler, and three students as case studies, I consider what identities were formed in the Gulag and how subsequent dynamics of power and identity can continue to influence students’ unwillingness to engage critically in the class.

The Gulag was initially intended for political dissenters and their families. They were sent to the Siberian steppe of Kazakhstan and labeled zeks (Rossi, 1989). Solzhenitsyn (2002a) argues that this new identity was dominant, cancelling out any other identities. By being forced to accept an identity that they may resent, these zeks became what Bauman (2004) calls the bottom of the social hierarchy.

During WWII, however, a new category joined them: those nationalities that were perceived as an inner threat to the USSR. Stalin expelled ethnic Koreans (Pohl, 1999), Volga Germans (Conquest, 1960), Tatars, and Chechens (Applebaum, 2003) to the Gulag for fear that these populations would be loyal to the Japanese and Germans. In conjunction with expulsions, these populations were denied cultural existence; they were no longer allowed to speak their languages and their ethnic identities were removed from official documents (Applebaum, 2003). By being erased culturally, these ethnic minorities became part of what Bauman (2004) calls an ‘underclass identity’ (p. 40). This underclass was below the bottom of identities classes – becoming in effect invisible and excluded from social hierarchies.

The Gulag consisted of populations that were either forced to endure an identity they did not want or were denied the right to a separate identity altogether. At the periphery of the USSR, Kazakhstan became the home to the lowest identity classes and disempowered portions of soviet society. This is particularly important when considering 36.4 percent of Kazakhstan’s population is made of ethnic minorities (ASRK, 2010).

Foucault’s (1980) and Butler’s (1990, 1997) theories of power and performative acts offer a way of understanding how these subjugated identities endured through subsequent generations and may inform current concerns regarding students’ own performative identities.

Foucault (1980) is concerned with the way power permeates society through ‘techniques’ (p.97): everyday actions and the subjects’ own subjugation allow power to endure, and social hierarchy to be maintained as it is internalised by all including those at the bottom.

Butler (1990, 1997) further explores the performative aspect of power dynamics, arguing that identity is a performance – a series of acts conformed to what is expected of those who claim or are assigned that identity. The process of subjugation creates identities, and identities maintain themselves through performative acts. However, Butler (1997) notes that ‘to operate within the matrix of power is not the same as to replicate uncritically relations of domination’ (p.79). While members of subordinate identities internalized during the Gulag may operate within that power dynamic, they may be critically aware of it.

My own class seems to illustrate performative identities reminiscent of a culture shaped by the Gulag.

In the first case, a Chechen student expressed critical awareness of how his background is received in Kazakhstan and where that places him within Kazakhstani society. In class, he acts as a cynical renegade with a voice subjugated to an identity moulded by the Gulag – in accordance with Solzhenitsyn’s (2002b) and Applebaum’s (2003) descriptions of how Chechen’s were viewed in there.

In contrast, the second case study is that of a silent voice in class. However, in one last interview, she demonstrated an awareness of her place as an other. Her use of ‘us’ and ‘them’ illustrated a conscious subjugation – she was operating within power while being aware of it. Therefore, her silence in class was not a lack of criticality but possibly a performative act of a subjugated identity.

The last case study illustrates a Kazakh voice that equally internalised the hierarchy of Kazakhstan society. The student explicitly expressed the view that these other identities were guests in Kazakhstan – as guests, they were welcome to stay, but did not belong.

The Gulag accounts for one of many dynamic factors in a complex context. However, examining it closely and theorizing its place in cultural developments of social hierarchies allows me as a practitioner to better understand my students in their context. The history of the Gulag and its implications on identity formation can then serve to understand students’ performance and seeming reluctance to engage with criticality.

A sample as little as three students already shows the importance such context plays in understanding how these students act. Therefore, a course that focuses on criticality and reflection should engage students’ context while considering how to address these performative identities. It means that practice should be reshaped when importing courses from the UK or USA to new environments. And it means constant practitioner reflexivity on how this knowledge is changing our practice as we attempt to engage students in our own critical reflections. This is a proposed starting point for practitioners to begin to examine our own courses and the assumptions we hold about how to encourage critical engagement with students.

(1000 words excluding references)

Reference List

Agency of Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2010) The Results of the National Population Census in 2009. Astana, KZ; ASRK. Available from: http://www.eng.stat.kz/perepis_nasl/Pages/n1_12_11_10.aspx (accessed 24 August 2012).

Applebaum, A. (2003) Gulag: A History. London: Penguin Books.

Bauman, Z. (2004) Identities: Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.

Butler, J. (1997) The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Conquest, R. (1960) The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities. London: Macmillan.

Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972- 1977, ed. C. Gordon. New York: Pantheon.

Pohl, J.O. (1997) The Stalinist Penal System. London: McFarland & Company.

Rossi, J. (1989) The Gulag Handbook. New York: Paragon House.

Solzhenitsyn, A. (2002a) The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956 Vol 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation. Scranton, PA: HarperCollins Publishers.

Solzhenitsyn, A. (2002b) The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956 Vol 3: An Experiment in Literary Investigation. Scranton, PA: HarperCollins Publishers.

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