‘City of the Future’. Built space, modernity and urban change in Astana

Author
Mateusz Laszczkowski

Publisher
New York: Berghahn

Year of publication
2016

ISBN
978-1-78533-256-2

OPAC

Abstract
Astana, the capital city of the post-Soviet Kazakhstan, has often been admired for the design and planning of its futuristic cityscape. This anthropological study of the development of the city focuses on every-day practices, official ideologies and representations alongside the memories and dreams of the city’s longstanding residents and recent migrants. Critically examining a range of approaches to place and space in anthropology, geography and other disciplines, the book argues for an understanding of space as inextricably material-and-imaginary, and unceasingly dynamic – allowing for a plurality of incompatible pasts and futures materialized in spatial form.