Lezing 'A fluid that sticks: notes on oil production in Kazakhstan'

Since its independence in 1991, Kazakhstan's economic growth has been largely driven by the extraction and export of raw materials, oil and gas in particular. This event starts with the screening of the 36’ documentary ‘The Other Side of Oil’ by Kazakhstani filmmakers Lukpan Akhmedyarov and Raul Uporov. The film features stories of villagers who live next to oil fields.

Then, Maurizio Totaro will discuss the social, political and environmental effects of hydrocarbon extraction in the western regions of Kazakhstan, where most of the oil and gas fields are located. Drawing from extensive research in the area, Totaro will show how oil extraction has shaped local identities, renovating forms of belonging and claims on underground resources. It also determined how workers' movements and public protests have erupted, have been repressed and managed and how both transnational and national capital has transformed landscapes and livelihoods, imaginaries present and past, and future horizons.

About the speaker

Maurizio Totaro is a PhD candidate at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies of Ghent University and a researcher at the Department of Sociology of the University of Milan-Bicocca.

He published, amongst others, in journals like Problems of Post-Communism, International Labor and Working-Class History and Zentralasien-Analysen.