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Diasporic Stances: Comparing the Historical Geographic Antecedents of Korean and German Migration Decisions in Kazakhstan

This essay explores the historical geographic antecedents of migration decisions among Koreans and Germans in Kazakhstan as evidence of the importance of space-time approaches to socio-political phenomena. Both groups came to Central Asia under similar circumstances as ‘punished peoples’ but reacted very differently to Kazakhstan's independence. Koreans have largely opted to remain in Kazakhstan and re-imagine themselves as hybrid members of the Korean diaspora and the Kazakhstani civic nation. The majority of Germans, by contrast, have opted to migrate to Germany and abandon Kazakhstan. I argue that despite significant similarities in their historical geographic experiences within Tsarist Russia and the USSR, the unique spatio-temporal biographies of each group have configured their respective homeland conceptions differently. Contingency, rather than some a priori pattern of territorialisation, is clearly evident in each group's receptivity to migration possibilities.