Douglas Blum – Cosmopolitan Kazakhs: A Case Study in How Globalization Works

On the basis of extensive fieldwork in Kazakhstan, Douglas Blum considers the experiences of young people who spent time in the US, asking what cultural “baggage” they brought home with them, and whether they were able to incorporate new values and practices into their lives. In answering these questions Blum combines insights from sociological and anthropological theory. On this basis he offers an explanation for how cultural globalization occurs, including the structural conditions, personal meanings, and social interactions linked to various outcomes.

Douglas Blum is Professor of Political Science at Providence College. He has published on a variety of issues, ranging from the connections between ideology and foreign policy to problems of energy, geopolitics, and environmentalism in the Caspian Sea region. In recent years, his research has centered on the connections between globalization and identity in the former USSR. His works include The Social Progress of Globalization: Return Migration and Cultural Change in Kazakhstan (Cambridge University Press, 2016), as well as National Identity and Globalization: Youth, State and Society in Post-Soviet Eurasia (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and a volume from the project he directed, Russia and Globalization: Identity, Security and Society in an Era of Change (Johns Hopkins University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center, 2008). He received his PhD in Political Science from Columbia University in 1990.

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