Affiliation
Assistant Professor, Nazarbayev University, Astana
Biography
Ulan Bigozhin graduate from Indiana University (2017) with a Ph.D. degree in Social-Cultural Anthropology. His dissertation’s title is Shrine, State and Sacred Lineage in contemporary Kazakhstan. In 2012, he had obtained a Master Degree in Central Eurasian Studies (CEUS, Indiana) and, in 2002, finished the BA in History programme at the al-Farabi Kazakh National University. His major areas of academic interests include Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia; sacred families and their symbolic capital; shrines and pilgrimages in Kazakhstan; nationalism and religion in modern-day state-building.
Publications related to the project’s theme
Ulan Bigozhin, ‘Sacred Geographies in the Eurasian Steppes: Aqkol Shrine as a Symbol of Kazakh Ethnicity and Religiosity’, Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics 13/2 (2019): 131–3
Ulan Bigozhin, ‘“We love our Country in Our Own Way”: Youth, Gender, and Nationalism’, in M. Laruelle, ed., The Nazarbayev Generation Youth in Kazakhstan, Lexington Books: 89-109
Ulan Bigozhin, ‘“Where is Our Honor?’ Sports, Masculinity, and Authority in Kazakhstani Islamic Media’, Central Asian Affairs 6/2-3 (2018): 189–205
Ulan Bigozhin, ‘Local Politics and Patronage of Sacred Lineage Shrine in Kazakhstan’, Central Asian Affairs 5/3 (2018): 233–52
Ulan Bigozhin, ‘Nation-Building and a School Play in a Kazakh Saint’s Jubilee’, Central Asian Affairs 5/1 (2018): 16–31
Ulan Bigozhin, Shrine, State and Sacred Lineage in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan, unpublished PhD dissertation, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Ulan Bigozhin, Wendell Schwab, ‘Shrines and Neopatrimonialism in Kazakhstan’, in M. Laruelle, ed., Kazakhstan in the Making: Legitimacy, Symbols, and Social Changes, Lexington Books, 2016: 115-32
Ulan Bigozhin, ‘Religion and the Nation-State in Kazakhstan: Some Insights from Fieldwork in Aqkol’, Central Eurasia–Religion in International Affairs (CERIA): http://ceria initiative.org/?p=293
