‘City of the Future’: Built Space, Modernity and Urban Change in Astana

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.

Reviews of ‘City of the Future’: Built Space, Modernity and Urban Change in Astana

"Drawing upon the case of Astana, which remains unfamiliar to many scholars, this book makes a valuable contribution to the study of urban transformation and power in the post-Soviet countries and beyond. Despite the city representing an example of phenomena often too broad in scale to be empirically analysed, having numerous inter-subjective and experiential qualities, the book skilfully carves out the multiplicity and complexity of time- and space-making relationships. Furthermore, it introduces numerous new perspectives that should be elaborated upon by future research." Europe-Asia Studies