Whose Nation Is It Anyway? Towards Methodological Cosmopolitanism in Studies of Nationalism and Nation-Building in Kazakhstan

Scholarship on nationalism and nation-building in Kazakhstan has been dominated by a social constructivist approach that privileges the civic–ethnic dichotomy. Even when critiques of this binary have emerged, they have often substituted proxy categories that reproduce the same dualism. This article argues that such reliance constitutes a form of methodological constructivist nationalism, which not only misrepresents the complexity of lived identities but also inadvertently reinforces regime strategies of legitimation. Addressing this puzzle, the paper offers a theoretical and ontological intervention that advances methodological cosmopolitanism, rooted in Bhabha's notion of vernacular cosmopolitanism. Drawing on existing studies of everyday nationalism, sociolinguistic practices and translocal identities in Kazakhstan, it proposes an analytical framework that foregrounds
hybridity, mobility and multilingual practices as constitutive of belonging. In doing so, the article provides a roadmap for moving beyond essentialised civic–ethnic categories and capturing the fluid, plural and multivocal nature of nationhood in Kazakhstan and beyond.