The NUWG is a blog for English language writing at Nazarbayev University, created by the Graduate School of Education. Check out the How to Participate and the Blogging Guidelines pages to get started!Guild: n. /ɡild/
1) an association of people for mutual aid or the pursuit of a common goal.
2) a medieval association of craftsmen or merchants, often having considerable power.

Book Review #7.Why did the Ukrainian and Transcaucasian projects of 1917-1918 fail to achieve independent states?

It can be stated that despite certain failures (e.g. marginalization of Provisional Government, unreliable bases of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies after the February Revolution in Ukraine and Transcaucasus (Blauvelt & Tumis, 2020, p. 11)) and a challenging approach towards “nationality question” in both places, Bolsheviks decided to take a strategy of being closer, and even ally with local nationalists (Blauvelt & Tumis, 2020). This led to the shift of independent Ukrainian and Transcaucasian governments towards Bolsheviks, who in addition showed acceptance of concessionary policy towards local nationalism (Blauvelt & Tumis, 2020, p. 12). Despite that Georgian and Ukraine, earlier, were part of the German protectorate it seemed that not all the sides were pleasant in providing raw materials for the German wars (Blauvelt & Tumis, 2020, p. 12). Despite uncertainty in relation to the Bolsheviks, both Ukraine and the Transcaucasus vital factions were ready to cooperate with Bolsheviks considering them as a  lesser threat (Blauvelt & Tumis, 2020, p. 12). The reason for that might be that (excluding the capitals) in some regions there was a Russian-dominant population and more importantly, the industrialized regions to the east were seen as the strength of Bolsheviks (Blauvelt & Tumis, 2020, p. 2). It is important to mention that the resistance from nationalists was strong towards joining Bolsheviks in both Ukraine and Transcaucasus. In Ukraine, for instance, where they traditionally viewed their history as separate from Russian, intentionally highlight the lineage between 1917 and 1920 as the period of reaching the final goal of its history which is independent Ukrainian Peoples’ republic (Kappeler, 2014, p. 112). Taking into account all the mentioned factors we can say that the issue was the lack of a single, supported-by-everybody idea in both Ukraine and Transcaucasus which led to the divisions and disputes, hence failing independence projects in both places during 1917-1918. 

References

Blauvelt, T. K., & Tumis, S. (2020). Ukraine and the Transcaucasus in 1917–1918: parallels, 

interactions, influences. Caucasus Survey, 8(1), 93-105.

Kappeler, A. (2014). Ukraine and Russia: Legacies of the imperial past and competing 

memories. Journal of Eurasian studies, 5(2), 107-115.

Two paragraph summary of the books #1

“Anti-Asian Racism, Responses, and the Impact on Asian-Americans’ Lives: A social-ecological perspective” (Pamela P. Chiang)

“Business as Usual: Poverty, education, and economic life amidst the pandemic” (Ryan Parsons)

“Necroethics in the Time of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter” (Scott Schaffer)

“Psychological impact of anti-Asian stigma due to the COVID-19 pandemic: A call for research, practice, and policy responses.” (Misra Supriya, PhuongThao D. Le, Emily Goldmann, and Lawrence H. Yang.)

In their article, Misra et al. (2020) explain dangerous stigma and ongoing discrimination that affects negatively the mental health of Asians in the US. The authors provide three ways to deal with this problem through research, practice, and policy. In terms of research, the article suggests that mental health needs, COVID-related drivers of distress, and anti-Asian stigma are the most crucial areas that need to be addressed. The authors propose initiatives to combat misleading media coverage and challenge stereotypes such as Chinese-looking people are more likely to spread coronavirus. Misra et al. (2020) conclude with the notion that policy-makers should take actions at a legislative level toward harassment and violation against American Asians. Chiang (2021) reveals the results of the research and judges the stereotypes that continue to deem and treat Asian Americans as foreigners (due COVID-19), omitting the fact that Asian Americans were coming to the country since the 19th century (p. 224). Chiang’s (2021) main argument is that racism during the pandemic leads to deterioration of mental health. The author argues that COVID-19 is far more than just a health pandemic; it also involves anti-Asian racism and violence. Similar to Misra et al. (2020), the author calls the governments to respond to the different types of racial discrimination against people of Asian race to stop the spread and negative impact of this racism pandemic (p. 225).

In his article Parsons (2021) reveals different aspects of life affected by the pandemic in The Delta one of the poorest and most rural regions in the United States. Speaking of vulnerability and spatial inequality in Mississippi Delta the author claims that it is now the product of decades of decline and structural racism (p. 140). Parsons (2021) then discusses how COVID-19 came to Central Delta and how it responded in terms of leading business in those circumstances. The author concludes with the challenges in learning, in particular on an example of Aaliyah a student who (under current circumstances) joined a regional university with a less generous aid package. The author states that states should not ignore those spatial disparities, without which the broader implementation of pandemic response policies is destined to fail (p. 148). Schaffer (2021) mentions the necroethics of late-modern capitalism in his article as a set of ethical beliefs that underlie political, economic, military abilities that enable the creation of so-called “death-worlds” to which others should be exposed (p. 50). The author proposes that COVID-19, the protests against racism and police brutality made the necropolitical system a necroethics (p. 43). Schaffer (2021) further claims that those actions lead to death, directly through brutal weapon-laden attacks, the police violence for completely innocent activities, and indirectly through exposure to an economic order (p. 43). The author claims that the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement have only made these necroethics more obvious.

Three Questions:

P. 215. Chiang (2021) mentions that anti-Asian racial attacks included physical assault, school bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Apart from xenophobia what might the core reason for such attitude in people? Is it mainly because of the location from where the virus originated or is it because of misleading media coverage?

P. 142. Parsons (2021) states that data for this chapter comes from  informal assessments of the private sector’s response to COVID-19 and his work with the Leadership Institute, an afterschool and summer program that serves public school children in Central Delta county. To what extent data obtained can be used to provide an objective evaluation of COVID response in the region?

P. 47. Schaffer (2021) once mentions that those who are situated in lower-status positions (less educated, non-White, newcomers, etc). – are more likely to work in fields that require that they leave their houses to go to work, and very often face greater and more frequent exposures. While it is partially true, what facts lead him to make such an overgeneralization?

Three Insights:

P. 215. Reading Chiang’s (2021) article I was disappointed to find out that how careless and derogatory language (‘Kung-Flu’, ‘China Virus’) of officials during the briefings might have such a negative impact and consequences on the particular population in the country. 

P. 144. Parsons (2021) draws attention to the role that “essential workers” in his article. I found it important and I agree with the author that there is a necessity of analyzing that category as a social construct and a category marked by structural disadvantages.

P. 45. Thanks to Schaffer (2021) I got acquainted with the notions of necropower, necropolitics, and necroethics. I get to know now that the colonial occupiers were responsible for the creation of the “death-worlds” which exposed people to death or disappearance, whether real or simply social. 

Three Problems:

P. 223. I would argue that Chiang’s (2021) vision on gatekeeping and taking actions to limit misinformation might be applicable in the observable future. Although the suggestion seems ideal, to be a realist providing accurate data on coronavirus is very challenging as some countries might manipulate information thus (un)intentionally spreading slurs, rumors, and verbal abuse.

P. 142. As I stated in my question to Parsons (2021) article, I am doubtful  whether the personal work experience and individual assessments are enough to assess the response of the region to the pandemic.   

P. 45. I would disagree with Schaffer’s (2021) statement that the person who holds out the belief that some need to be sacrificed for the sake of protecting resources may be an elected leader like Donald Trump or a billionaire like Jeff Bezos, they do not hold their views on their own. Although I am not well acquainted with the stated people I can state that the claims of the author are too subjective and one-sided. I believe that this type of claim should be supported with strong evidence on the particular topic.

References

Chiang, P. P. (2021). Anti-Asian Racism, Responses, and the Impact on Asian Americans’ Lives: 

A Social-Ecological Perspective. COVID-19: Social Consequences and Cultural Adaptations, 215-29.

Misra, S., Le, P. D., Goldmann, E., & Yang, L. H. (2020). Psychological impact of anti-Asian 

stigma due to the COVID-19 pandemic: A call for research, practice, and policy responses. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy.

Parsons, R. (2021). Business as Usual: Poverty, Education, and Economic Life Amidst the 

Pandemic. COVID-19: Global Pandemic, Societal Responses, Ideological Solutions, 139-50.

Schaffer, S. (2021). Necroethics in the Time of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter. COVID-19: 

Global Pandemic, Societal Responses, Ideological Solutions, 43-53.

Book review #6

Official Nationalism and Imperialism (Benedict Anderson)

In his book, Anderson (1991) explains that initially, dynasties had nothing to do with nationalism as they could rule different and rivalrous states (e.g. Ottoman, Habsburg, Russian empires). However, when empires needed unification and universalism (instead of a nationalistic point of view) they attempted to stick to the particular vernacular language of the empire making a language-of-state. As the author continues usually the unifying language was an unselfconscious inheritance from the predecessors. An in example Joseph II preferred German over Latin as German had vast culture and literature and minority throughout Austro-Hungary. Furthermore, in many other empires, national identifications (like Hanoverians became English and, Hohenzollerns counted themselves Germans) started to be associated with a particular vernacular. Anderson (1991) clarifies that this ‘official nationalism’ was a reaction of power-groups in Europe to the threats of exclusion from  popular imagined communities (p. 110). Linguistic-nationalism served as a catalyst in this situation. Similar policies were pursued then, in Asia and Africa in the 19th century. The author states that the official nationalism was similar to litmus paper to see the differences of dynastic and nation realms (e.g. Slovaks-Magyarized, Indians – Anglicized, Koreans-Japanified, yet they were not allowed to administer Hungarians, English, or Japanese, because those were instinctively resistant to foreign rule). The other reasons for the official nationalism were not only racism but also the fact that every empire had a core nation in it. 

References

Anderson, B. (1991). Official Nationalism and Imperialism. London: Verso.

Book Review # 5

Language conflict in post-Soviet linguistic landscapes (Aneta Pavlenko)

The main argument in Pavlenko’s article is that public uses of written languages in Post-Soviet countries can be useful once it is viewed as dynamic phenomena and instigated from a diachronic context perspective. Although the author is sure that derussification and language shift since 1991 took place, nowadays Russian can be used as regional lingua franca, the language of interethnic communication can have minority language status in different Post-Soviet countries. Pavlenko arranges three problems of interdeterminacy in Post-Soviet countries: new coinage (e.g. Latin commercial signs in Baku), transliteration (e.g. Russian words are written in Latin in Uzbekistan), bivalency (e.g. kafe, bank, vokzal in Ukrainian and Russian). Am mentioned earlier derussification was a result of nation-building efforts and transition to new capitalist global economies of former Soviet states. The author then provides examples of an ongoing shift toward titular languages and English in those countries. Moreover, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (Kazakhstan in the process) preferred the Latin alphabet over Cyrillic. The main part of Pavlenko’s article is composed of five manifestations of the shift-in-progress which are language erasure (towards Russian and Cyrillic script), language replacement (English replacing Russian), language upgrading, and downgrading (changes in order, font size, color, and amount of information in Russian), language regulation (signs that attempt to regulate language use, e.g. “Kazakh, speak Kazakh with a Kazakh!”, one nation – one language ideology, and speaking of ‘pure’ language), and transgressive signage (manifestation of tensions in linguistic landscape). The author finalizes by stating that there could be differences between linguistic landscapes and language practices (because of bottom-up and top-down approaches). 

References

Pavlenko, A. (2009). Language conflict in post-Soviet linguistic landscapes. Journal of Slavic 

Linguistics, 247-274.

In the Moment: Identity Shift by Multiple Language Users (Gerald Wesley Johnson’s Dissertation)

Analysis

Johnson initially aimed to illustrate and describe the central components of identity shift, first of all by clarifying what did this term means and then exploring this phenomenon within multiple language users (hereinafter MLUs). His research involved twenty four multilingual participants who showed their transition in their identities from the usage of their mother tongue and during speaking the target language. The primary questions in his research were as follows: (1) “How do MLUs experience a sense of self?” and (2) “How are they perceived by others while functioning in their non-native languages?” followed up by other secondary sub-questions. Johnson’s connection to his dissertation to a certain extent helped to reveal this dissertation’s main communicative purpose. I have identified that the contribution the dissertation purports to make was established clearly, stating for whom it would be beneficial. The main contribution was aimed to be made to linguistics discipline. In particular, researchers, L2 Instructors, language-learning material developers, and L2 learners themselves were among those who were going to benefit from this contribution. Then it was argued for and clarified how exactly those mentioned can benefit from it. Moreover understanding the identity shift influenced by the language in positive ways, hence contributing to material development for second language acquisition (hereinafter SLA) was another significant contribution to the work. The main findings were that there were three types of identity shift that MLUs revealed throughout their interviews
1. Native language-induced identities,
2. Shifts to target language-constructed identities
3. Shifts to subsequent identities following target language use.
These three types were formulated by interviewees’ responses on identity shift, some claimed that identity shift was well-defined, some stated it was transparent, others mentioned that it even was nonexistent. Some respondents made strong yet limited statements that ethnicity played a rather important role in comparison to language in the process of an identity shift.
The dissertation follows a hybrid structure and does not strictly follow the IMRAD format. The dissertation is divided into five chapters followed by the References, Appendixes, Figures, and Tables. The author shows a clear organization and consistent structure in the dissertation. The author starts with the Introduction chapter where it was divided into four sub-sections. I observed that the author uses many personal anecdotes to show his own connection to this work. For instance, one of the sub-sections in the Introduction Chapter is named ‘Personal Connection to Topic’, where the author opens up the reader some glimpses into his life and what led him to choose this specific topic for writing this dissertation. He shows that even though his paper is structured, there is room for some fluency in it. This might be disciplinary reasons or the peculiarity of writing a dissertation in his disciplines, which I assume are Sociology and Linguistics. This might also be the author’s authentic style (it is difficult to say so, as I could not find any other academic papers from this author, which I could compare to this dissertation). The author starts with Move 2 (Establishing a niche) in the Introduction chapter:
Research and writing on second-language acquisition (SLA) is increasingly focusing on
the effects of language on identity and the effects of identity on second-language (L2)
learning and use. Yet researchers do not have a clear understanding of the phenomenon
of identity shift that occurs during language usage…(p. 1)
Then Johnson establishes a territory and finalizes the Introduction by presenting his dissertation. Throughout the dissertation, Johnson uses the structure of ‘from general to particular’ as it can be seen from the usage of the types of rhetorical moves. Apart from ‘Phenomenon of Language Use and Identity shift’ (Chapter four), all other chapters are given usual academic paper names, like an introduction (Chapter One), Literature Review (Chapter two), Methodology (Chapter three), and Results (Chapter five). From the classical IMRAD format, there were some elements of Discussion in Chapter four. Another observation I had made while analyzing the dissertation was that all the chapters except Introduction had a separate Conclusion (Epilogue in Chapter five) part at the end of them. Probably this was Johnson’s authentic structural remark representing his style in the dissertation. While analyzing Johnson’s argumentative sentences I came across Hayot’s Uneven U structure in some of them. One illustration of this is as follows:
The primary focus of this research was to uncover the shift phenomenon for language-structured identities (level 5). Problems arising out of cultural expectations, as identified by Bremer et al. (1996) and Schuetz (1945), surfaced when examining the three categories of shifts illuminated during this study (level 3). Shifts in identities associated with diverse language use supported B. Norton Pierce’s (1995) notion that social identity is not static but rather is a site of struggles that is subject to change (level 2). These struggles were readily seen from the evidence presented by Grasshopper, Sara, Gail, and Waltraut (level 2). Throughout this project, evidence from participants supported Alfred Schuetz’s (1944, 1945) notions of the “stranger” and the “homecomer” (level 3). Gail and Waltraut, as with the approaching stranger, realized that their “thinking as usual” was not grounded in vivid experiences and social interactions (level 3). The ineffectiveness of this thinking caused each of these participants to reevaluate her approach to communicating in the target language (level 4). (p. 119-120)
The disciplinarity in the chosen article is constructed by mixing different disciplines. The dissertation involves not only Linguisticsbut Sociology and Psychology to a certain extent. MLUs and SLA learners represent linguistics while identity shift, identity and different notions constitute Sociology and Psychology disciplines. As I have mentioned at the beginning of the genre analysis Johnson was not strictly following usual academic writing. By this I mean that he was not regularly using passive voice in the construction of his sentence, bravely and actively using pronoun ‘I’ all over the dissertation, for example ‘I reflected on my own psychology’, ‘I emerged from this research’. The author was using personal anecdotes, starting his sentences with phrases like ‘In my looking’, ‘According to my religious beliefs’, ‘My childhood emotional experiences’, ‘It was my perception that’. One of the aspects Johnson managed well in his dissertation is ‘hooking up the readers’, intriguing and engaging them by providing not only the content but also how the dissertation was written:
During the dissertation journey, I moved three times (one of which was international), divorced and remarried, had four different employers, was involved in a life-altering automobile accident, and had nine surgical procedures on my eyes (temporarily losing most of the vision in the right eye). These experiences were significant because of my understanding…(p.127)
While explaining the process of collecting data he makes certain moves that appreciate their participation:
I especially thank the 24 participants who gave so freely of their time, consideration, feedback, and suggestions. (p. vi).
Although this might seem like a small trick it was a new approach to me, and to a certain extent, this connected me emotionally to Johnson and gave some clues to his personality. I also assume that he iceberged the labor the participant had put in, at the same time not emphasizing his presence. The way he constructed the dissertation and the personal anecdotes navigating and guiding the audience on this dissertation were my takeaways. Johnson seemed to follow the advice, instead of an ideal dissertation he had written a mediocre book.


References
Hayot, E. (2014). The elements of academic style: Writing for the humanities. Columbia
University Press.
Johnson, G. W. (2007). In the moment: identity shift by multiple language users. Fielding
Graduate University

Contemporary imperial attitudes: support for imperial ambitions or simply nostalgia for greater power and influence

Response to question 2: “Do contemporary imperial attitudes, as reflected in discourses on the kresy and okrainy, suggest popular support for imperial ambitions or simply nostalgia for greater power and influence?”

I am leaning towards that the contemporary imperial attitudes of Russia and Poland are simply nostalgia for greater power and influence. There are two reasons for that. The first reason is that today neither Russia nor Poland is considered as countries playing a crucial role in the world’s decision-making process (e.g. G7, although Poland is a part of NATO). Apart from the period of colonization and empires, where the world used to be divided among different powers, thus being multipolar, the world evolved to become bipolar (during the Cold War), however, the world we live in today seems rather unipolar with set rules and regulations (with China’s objections to the state of things) in which countries can no longer play as fluently as they used to do. As we see in Kamusella’s (2019) article Russia refers to its western neighbors (Okrainy) as if those only were a part of the ‘Russian World’ (p. 5). One can not state that the modern revival of Russia’s 19th-century empire ambitions had not been successful as Belarus, Moldova, and especially Ukraine fiercely resist and fight for their territorial integrity. For instance, recently, as BBC reports, there were new signs of Russo-Ukrainian war with Russian transferring 20 000 troops closer to its western borders (Okrainy). However soon after Russia was told to lower its appetite concerning Ukraine, with the White House secretary’s “deeply concerning” claim and Angela Merkel’s “de-escalate tensions” warning to Russia (Ukraine conflict, 2021). In the case of Poland, today it seems to have even less influence (subterfuge or ‘fudging’ p. 10) on its eastern Kresy after it was forced to gave up control on those areas in 1945 (Kamusella, 2019, p. 9). 

The second reason is that Poland and Russia (which, besides, under sanctions) are not among hegemons in the world economy and they are not capable of affording their imperialistic ambitions for the greater influence on their neighboring areas. In the current circumstances greater power, conflicts, and possible wars do not pay off, and I doubt that countries that are not even in the top-60 (Poland – 62nd, Russia – 76th) by real GDP per capita (The World Factbook, 2019), will keep on pursuing their imperial ambitions. 

References

Kamusella, T. (2019). The Russian Okrainy (Oкраины) and the Polish Kresy: objectivity and 

historiography. Global Intellectual History, 4(4), 347-368.

The World Factbook. (2019). Retrieved from 

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/real-gdp-per-capita/country-comparison

Ukraine conflict: Moscow could “defend” Russia-backed rebels. (2021). Retrieved from 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56678665

Three reviews: COVID-19: The sociocultural aspects of a pandemic

Writing Review 1

COVID-19 and the other half of the story: the social (William Cockerham)

Professor Cockerham started his presentation by stating the social causes that caused COVID-19. He highlighted that we cannot consider COVID just from a biological perspective, we have to take into account the social aspect of it as well. It was important because considering both social interactions with biological ones would help us as a society to prevent experiencing similar cases in the future. Professor pointed out to history starting from the 1970s when we had infectious diseases appear one after another with HIV (involving chimpanzees) and Ebola (which began with bats). How does the social begin? COVID-19 is a big issue. It was widely known when SARS killed 8,000 people mostly in China and Vietnam. It was the recursing and warning. COVID-19 originated from bats and leaked to human beings. The story with consuming bats comes from the Chinese market’s key feature – freshness. Professor points out, then that those markets for instance have issues with sanitation and are not considered hygienic places (as animals live nearby garbage and in the same cages where they urinate, sleep, salivate). All those factors combined: lack of proper sanitation, feature desire for food delicacies, consuming exotic animals, snakes, birds, rare and exotic were the causal basis of the pandemic. After this case in the market, medical personnel attention in Wuhan attempted to warn the crowd or at least alert friends and colleagues. However, the government viewed these as if they made it up and that the warnings were not true. The pressure of information in Wuhan forced the city to be silent, sharing no alerts, they did not want to be perceived as if they were doing a bad job in front of the Chinese government. Even by December 30th, 2019 there was a  release to the central government staging that no human to human transmission was detected. Professor claims that as of December 31st and till late January 2020 there were 40, 000 people who traveled all around the world from Wuhan. There was a travel ban in Wuhan, information on the pandemic was investigated by locals. More investigation is needed, to prevent future ones. Dr. Cockerham evaluates that China had done relatively well after that as there were regulated strict actions on wearing masks and a lockdown. The social story remains important to investigate keeping distance, staying home, gender issues (as ones are slightly more likely to be infected and die from it). Professor sums up that we need to know more about pandemics. New questions appear as currently the most death from the pandemic is tracked in the US, Brazil, Mexico.  It is crucial to find out the reasons for the death anomaly from COVID-19 in the western hemisphere. It takes time, to reach full sociologically understanding as there is a necessity to develop new research questions and literature. 

I found the presentation by professor Cockerham very insightful and thought-provoking in a way that it helps you understand the pandemic from the social point of view. It was easy to follow the speaker along, as the topics were explaining what comes next in the presentation. Especially it was a pleasure to observe how he connected different notions with the main topic. As when he mentioned that urbanization, globalization, climate change, and closer contact with animals were the prerequisites of different catastrophes. However, the conclusion of the presentation seems to cut short and more attention was on the Q&A part. 

1. It was insightful how eating culture might impact unforeseen issues. Chinese have a desire for hyper fresh and unusual food (cats, frogs, bats) making medicine from animals, freshness is usually associated with recently killed animals and the flavor for the freshest possible food is believed to be the natural flavor.
2. There seems to be a clear connection and it leaves no doubt how the coronavirus appeared: The location coronavirus originated from was the market in Wuhan, it is justified so as from the first 40 candidates, 27 worked on that market including patient 0 who was a 55-year-old farmer.
3. Is it possible to establish an organization that is recognized worldwide, which will have the main function to identify and do everything possible to prevent any virus from spreading to crowds?

SOC725: COVID-19: The sociocultural aspects of a pandemic

Writing Review 2

COVID-19 and the law: surveillance and inequality (Glenn Cohen)

Professor Cohen reveals versions 1.0 and 2.0 of his topic mentioning vaccine recurring cycles in international regulations. So his version 1.0 would cover 6 months from the start of the pandemic and would mainly be discussing an immunity passport, whilst version 2.0 speaks about the situation with the outbreak today and reports on vaccine passport. The speech tells us of countries like Chile, Germany, the UK where the ethical values to travel are connected with license. The situation in May 2020 showed that people were eager to get a chance to show they were immuned. Life plans, support, using immunity licenses, gatherings, work, travel were all linked with so-called immunity passports. There was a dispute on whether to give privacy to schools, there was a need to share information on problematic immunity passports as it could cause inequality. The real and surprising concerns with this were that healthy people were discriminated against, while others were more advantaged (race, disability, etc.). Another dilemma was that would the US continue to pay money for the ones who stay at home.  The professor provided an example of the ‘Yellow fever’ which acclimated and privileged the healthy in the social hierarchy of the 19th-century. Furthermore, the discussion was about medical surveillance and contact tracing smartphone applications of Google, Apple, and other IT giants. The difference between contact tracing models which enabled rapid notifications not and traditional tracing was shown. The contact tracing app its downloading and usage was voluntary in many states and COVID-19 diagnosis was never revealed to individuals, but public health authorities. The app was different than contract tracing. Dr. Cohen then explained the centralized approach (Taiwan) and decentralized method (Apple, Google in European countries) of using the app. There is an ongoing debate on how much individual information should health authorities receive without the individual’s consent disagreement. On one hand the was autonomy and privacy of users while on the other hand there was the effectiveness of tracking. It was impossible to guarantee that people might not detect who the exposed person contacted previously in the first case, and the second case that in future governments will not use the app for other purposes, as systems that were designed for public health purposes might be used for identifying the workplace, law, immigration status, and others. Moving to April 2021 where version 2.0 starts with vaccine passports. The governments created a document that would help safer turn to more normal life (digital heath passes with mandate clarifications). The question here was: do all vaccines qualify for the health passports for international travels (as Sputnik V and Pfizer)? Professor has also mentioned that falsification of results occurs online in black markets. Although no state requires vaccination, it is needed just as a driving license, as unvaccinated have no right to risk others. The dilemma is that vaccines are not widely available to all as 70 countries have not even started the vaccination campaigns (mostly in sub-Saharan African countries). Are we justified then in closing the borders? Due to upcoming elections, it is unlikely that countries that have enough vaccine doses will give them away. More global justice-making and self-interest serve as the melting pot for surveillance and inequality. 

The presentation of Professor Cohen was well-organized and easy to follow along. The issues of surveillance and inequality were revealed in detail. Personally, this helped me a lot to understand the situation with vaccines and their scarcity, especially in the light of the recent situation in India. As a person who also had experience outside academia, he was very convincing in his claims and very clear with his arguments.

1. It was an insight for me to learn how traditional tracing worked. Traditional tracing involved reporting to our health department, assessing the risks, asking diagnosed patients whether they were contacted (by telephone call or in-person), and more importantly not disclosing private information to anyone.
2. Previously I assumed that those vaccinated were automatically listed in the common database, I figured that it was not always the case even in the US. Vaccines provide 1-2 years of protection and there is a need to create a database that would show the vaccine status, as in many countries there was a lack of database records in the US. 
3. Would it be possible in near future to create a type of ‘hybrid’ format of centralized and decentralized approach in terms of contact tracing? Or is it no more crucial issue after the vaccination campaign has been launched?

SOC725: COVID-19: The sociocultural aspects of a pandemic

Writing Review 3

Toward post-COVID-19 sociology (Sari Hanafi)

Professor Hanafi started with a hook on post-Covid premises. He drew an interesting parallel with a period of world war in France where a group of activists worked and prepared a report for the post-war period and named it ‘Happy days’. Similar to this, despite that, the COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet, he presented his post-COVID-19 sociology presentation. Further, typical of what Dr. Cockerham suggested in his speech, Dr. Hanafi explained that COVID-19 was not only a disease. To this, he related his visit to China 5 years ago where he witnessed eating various kinds of animals and bats which as he believes was an effective accelerator of the pandemic. He finalized his introduction with a text criticizing the post-colonial approach and highlighting that scholars play a major role in rethinking the paradigm of secularization and in post-Covid-19 sociology. He points out two issues: the logic of sociolinguistic analysis and the scope of sociology as a vocation. Dr. Hanafi emphasized the role of medical staff and nurses during the pandemic and all the sacrifices they have made. When we look at the scope of sociology as a vocation it starts from the ‘80s when a relationship comes from the distance and moving in, involving social inequality, struggle against neoliberal order, reinventing sociology, redefining and normalizing ethics, love, hospitality, solicitude, emotion, moral impacts, altruism, and solidarity. Professor believes that sociology is about standing with society. Expanding beyond civil society, engaging with non-civic and normative argumentation to the public were among key features. He pointed out that it was not enough to support liberals, but also important to listen to those who refuse to embrace these ideas, calling for a situated critical approach. It should be moved from describing to constructing, but without forcing to assimilate. He provided his observation from a French site where there was a  petition signed supporting de-colonialism and antisemitism. Dr. Hanafi concluded by marking the importance of collaboration of philosophy, other sciences to the International Sociology Association (ISA).  He sees global sociology in three things: declaration of the positionality of the author, biographies, geographies, that will affect the author’s vision; comparison of good methodology and using various rationale; and minding universalism. Dr. Hanafi states that historically there is no sociology without universalism. 

I really enjoyed the structure of Dr. Hanafi’s presentation. There were clearly stated introductions, main body, and conclusion. I have taken notes that we can write down in the slideshow many slides are in each part of the presentation. Although I was sadly discouraged from the text-heavy slides and that the author was just reading them to the audience, overall the presentation was very insightful. Even the presence of the topic regarding the post-COVID period allows us to believe and see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

1. From Dr. Hanafi’s presentation I found out that universalism consists of: 

• Universal concept quasi-cross-cultural consensus;
• Historical experience, democracy trajectory; 
• A universal concept as imaginary; e.g. democracy;

2. Another insight was that there was not a golden standard of democracy. Up until now,  I assumed that the American model was probably the closest to what democracy means. However, after the presentation, I found out that that may not be the case because democracy is rather imaginary. Various aspects need to be considered when a particular country establishes it. There is not a model that you can take and implement in your own country.
3. In the author’s declaration of the positionality of the author’s points, I agree with many aspects except declaring geography. Although I cannot deny that the setting plays an important role in forming one’s identity and positionality, one might move from the place where they were born, or one may dislike their surroundings and position themselves with people/ideas far from their geographies. Should we not consider all these nuances?

Novice Science Teachers: Expectations and Experiences

Genre Analysis

Watson (2006) investigates teacher retention problem in high schools in the US, prioritizing novice science teachers’ perspectives in the research. This project has evolved from informal meetings of the researcher with a group of novice teachers in North Carolina. Stating the conclusions of the analysis it is obvious that after interviewing three novice science teachers Watson revealed that at the start of their career, novice teachers all had similar problems: lack of preparation, endless paperwork, teacher substitutions, concerns regarding management and discipline issues in a classroom as well as lack of mentoring from their experienced colleagues (Watson, 2006). All the mentioned common concerns led to informal meetings of the novice teachers and the results of those meetings were that the teachers made presentations to the school administration. The main objective of this study was to collect data about what issues were faced by newly hired science teachers. The scholar believed that the insights collected would be used to make a contribution to further refine the science teacher education program at East Carolina University. This is because East Carolina University was the main provider of pedagogical cadres to the mainstream schools. Another important contribution was aimed towards teachers’ colleagues targeting that information gathered might also be beneficial to active teachers in the schools. The mentioned contributions are believed to be made to the education field, especially the secondary education pedagogy branch.   

Analyzing the genre of the article I paid attention that Watson strictly followed the standard IMRAD format with a single exception. Instead of a regular Discussion part at the end of the research article Watson favors the continuation of the results, summarizing the interview responses, and outlining the most common findings. The structure of Watson’s research paper is as follows: 

Introduction

Background and Purpose

Instrumentation (Sample)

Findings

Summary

Conclusions and Recommendations

I detected that there was a disciplinary reason for following the standard IMRAD format in this paper. I could also draw parallels in structure between my MA thesis and Watson’s paper. Hypothetically because we both followed the structure of the book ‘The craft of research’ (Booth et al., 2003). I consider the mentioned book as a favorable guide to construct one’s academic parer in the education field. 

Let’s have a look at Watson’s research article from the C.A.R.S model of Swales. Establishing a territory Watson demonstrated that a general area of research is important. For instance for opening up a topic, he starts by making a topic generalization (step 2). Watson starts with a strong statement sentence not supported by the literature. 

Teacher retention is a problem of national concern in our educational system today.

However, right after this move, he supports the statement with three research done in on the field, reviewing items of the previous research (step 3), thus problematizing his initial concern.

Researchers indicate that the greatest attrition rates are occurring with beginning teachers (Inman & Marlow, 2004; Patterson, Roehrig & Luft, 2003)… 

After using the evidence from the mentioned literature to support his argument Watson (2006) then and finally claims the importance of his own research (step 1).

‘Current research has begun to provide some understanding of the difficulties that beginning science teachers face in the education profession.

For Move 2 (Establishing a Niche) the author uses continuing a tradition. As it was previously illustrated Watson wanted to extend prior research to clarify his novice science teachers’ research problem. In terms of occupying the Niche, Watson outlined purposes, announced present research, and indicated principle findings. The only step bypassed by Watson in this Move 3 is that he didn’t indicate the article structure.

There were various rhetorical moves exploited in the research article. Below you can get acquainted with the most significant rhetorical moves used in the research paper:

Introduction	This project grew out of concerns; Specifically;
Background and Purpose	The purpose of this study was to; It was hoped that; It should be noted;
Instrumentation (Sample)	Interestingly; Although;
Findings	One even commented;  This is particularly notable because;
Summary	This may simply be a result;
Conclusions and Recommendations	Why were these teachers successful?; Finally; Where possible; If this is not possible; Research has indicated that;

I noted that there were not rhetorical moves connected with entering a debate as well as the ones critiquing another writers’ arguments. This is, as I mentioned previously because Watson’s research article neglects the Discussion part in its structure. Despite that, there are strong statements used in the paper they are balanced with appropriate hedging. Watson decisively refused to use the ‘I’ pronoun in his research article, which is another similarity to the scholars writing in the education discipline. This is seen in the rhetorical moves used throughout the article. The author had chosen cohesive, mostly short sentences in the paper. The flow and the structure of the paper are also apparent, as the reader is guided through the paper by the logical progression. Watson also tried to catch the attention of the audience by using questions form rhetorical moves at the beginning of the excerpts as can be seen in the conclusions and recommendations part of the research article.

To sum up, the above-mentioned analysis provides some insights into how educational disciplinarity is constructed in this article. Following the IMRAD model, it can be concluded that the current disciplinarity serves as an exemplary design of the structure of the research article.

References

Booth, W. C., Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., Colomb, G. G., Williams, J. M., & Williams, J. M.  

(2003). The craft of research. University of Chicago Press.

Watson, S. B. (2006). Novice science teachers: Expectations and experiences. Journal of Science 

Teacher Education, 17(3), 279-290.

Family language policy in bilingual society in Kazakhstan

Introduction: Aim and objectives

Family language policy is not similar to the language policy of the country where it could be regulated by laws and legislation. On the contrary language choice inside the family (just as in ethnic groups mentioned by Leon-Guerrero 2018: 123) varies from family to family mainly regulated by the standards, beliefs, religion, and ideology of the family elders. The situation becomes even more intriguing when discussing family language policy in bilingual society in Kazakhstan. There were two reasons for undertaking this research, first I wanted to explore what factors were important in defining the language policy of a family. Second, I wanted to determine the functions of the language that was chosen for speaking inside the family and among its members. Consequently, two of my research questions were: 

1) What are the factors that define the language policy in a family?;

2) What functions does the chosen language accomplish when spoken among the family members?;

The practical problem in this research is to find out the current situation of family language policy, how it evolves, and what factors influence and shape the choice and changes in this process. I could not find academically reliable sources to observe the issue related to the family language choice in contemporary Kazakhstani society. This is why I also conducted short media research in addition to the interviews I had with parents to collect data on the question of family language choice. There were enough resources related to the language policies in education in Kazakhstan but none related solely to the family language choice. This is the existing research gap and it is important to fulfill it in an academic paper. It is even more important to investigate the problem because as a researcher I believe that the language choice issue in families cannot be untended. Shedding light on this topic might help us to see the broader picture and analyze what direction our society is in from a sociolinguistic perspective. I anticipate that this research will be beneficial to family elders (grandparents and parents) as well as to the researchers working in the relevant academic field. My hypothesis for this research is that the language choice in a family is primarily defined by the ideological assumptions of the family elders and that the chosen language(s) might have various functions among its speakers. I am not in a position to define the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ family language policy, as I am aware of the myth that family and its failings lead to many social problems (Leon-Guerrero 2018: 254). They do not, because every family is a separate case and they have their own reasons to speak or not to spark a particular language. The sections of this research paper consist of Introduction, Literature Review, Research Methodology, Findings & Discussion, Limitations, Conclusion, and Reference chapters.

Literature Review

When we observe media outlets in Kazakhstan we can see that 1348 and 882 of them are published only in Russian and Kazakh respectively (Ministry of Information and Social Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan 2020 as in Laruelle 2021:101 ) Hence we can agree that Kazakhstan has a mainly bilingual society. As I mentioned earlier, due to the lack of academic resources I conducted media research and in this section, I tried to connect these findings with the core literature of the course. My personal experience and observations of popular social media platforms such as YouTube, and Instagram show that there is a tendency to shift towards the Kazakh language. Popular bloggers (NNN, Ave Adikus), modern singers (91, Kuandyk Rakhim, Amre), famous programs (Talklike, Qaz standup, Bizdin Show, Ozimiz goi), and many other entertainment programs that collect Kazakh-speaking audiences were a strong boost for developing the usage of Kazakh language among youth. I assume that all of these influence the choice of the Kazakh language in contemporary Kazakh families. On the other hand, across the younger generation in Kazakhstan, there seems to be another trend, this time towards choosing English as part of everyday language. For instance, the creators of Yuframe Arman Yusupov and Karina Oksukpayeva who were on the popular list of ‘30 under 30’ projects in Kazakhstan, planned that their son Alim will study English from the age of 3. He has done quite well and now can speak English interchangeably in a family. From this interactionist perspective (Leon-Guerrero 2018: 61) Karina and Arman are helping their children to maintain their social reality. Simultaneously in the situation where Alim started learning English from early childhood, it could partially be referred to as the assimilation process mentioned by Milton Gordon in 1964 (as in Leon-Guerrero 2018: 128).  Luykx (2005) adds that children could become socializing agents for adults by means of their spoken language. However, this is not the case with Alim yet due to his young age. It should be noted that the choice of the family language in Kazakhstan varies from region to region just as in any other country. Can we say that the trends toward the shift between Kazakh and English diminished the role of the Russian language? Probably not. There are controversial points regarding language choice in Kazakhstan society. For instance, I would disagree with Preety Sahu (as in Laruelle 2021: 146) who stated that the Kazakh-speaking people are given utmost priority in all sectors of public life in Kazakhstan. From the position of a Kazakhstan citizen, I would even add that in large cities Kazakh-speaking people might have been discriminated against since the Independence years. However, the situation is changing slowly over the last decade. If you can speak Russian all the doors are open to you in our society, maybe except in some rural areas in the country.

When we consider international experience, the Liverpool football club player James Milner revealed to the world that he intentionally speaks only in Spanish to his children. The main reason for that was that the English player was impressed with people who could code-switch between two or more languages (Marland 2022). His spouse, however, speaks English to their children, they believe that it was a ‘very good gift’ one could give to their children (Marland 2022). What James does seems to me as an innovative model of constituent components of the development of their children mentioned by Sen (1999: 5) and it can also be relevant to the development of freedom where both the evaluative and the effective reasons (Sen 1999: 4). This is because Milner’s children are teenagers now and they, themselves continue to interact with their father in Spanish. Below you can get acquainted with the definitions of the key terms used in this paper. It is challenging to compare the language choices in families of Kazakhstan and the UK, mainly because the countries are bilingual and monolingual respectively, however, this literature might shed light on why certain families choose the specific language for everyday speaking.

Extended families:  It is when two or more adult generations, related by blood, that live together in a single household (Leon-Guerrero 2018: 648)

Family:  The social unit based on kinship relations, a construct of meaning, and emotional and

Family language policy: it is an integrated overview of research on how languages are learned, managed, and negotiated within families (King et al. as in Schwartz 2010)

economic relationships (Leon-Guerrero 2018: 648)

Nuclear family: – it is when two parents and their biological children live together (Leon-Guerrero 2018: 252)

Research Methodology

As mentioned earlier I conducted media research and qualitative research including semi-structured interviews with 5 couples from the Southern region of Kazakhstan. I wanted to learn more about the factors that defined the language policy in their families and in what functions could the chosen language be used. I had prepared sub-questions that were directly relevant to the main research questions.

1) What are the factors that define the language policy in a family?;

• Who decides the language policy in a family?
• What are the internal or external factors that influence your choice of the language used?
• What else would you like to add regarding the factors that define the language policy in a family?

2) What functions does the chosen language accomplish when spoken among the family members?;

• Is mixing (code-switching) the language allowed while using the chosen language?
• What is the goal of choosing a specific language?
• Is there a certain time set to speak one language and then move to the other (after a certain amount of time)
• What else would you like to add regarding the functions of the chosen language in a family? 

I used the simple random sampling method and recruited my participant via Google form with the assistance of my gatekeeper-acquaintances who shared the information. The justification for this method is that every member of the parents’ population has an equal chance of being chosen by this method. A total number of 10 interviewees were interviewed (I have interviewed 5 couples (couples A, B, C, D, and E) including 3 nuclear families and the other 2 living together with grandparents (extended families as in Leon-Guerrero 2018: 253)). The semi-structured interviews were very helpful because the questions did not limit the interviewees, and vice versa allowing them to add more insights to their answers. The main criteria were that the participants were parents between the ages of 30 and 40 and that they were willing to participate in a Zoom interview. Anonymity and confidentiality were ensured to participants, there was no risk of participation and the interviewees were willing to participate voluntarily. The interview questions were available in three languages upon the request of the participants.  All the limitations of the research methods and findings are stated in the Limitations section of this paper. 

Findings & Discussion 

The responses show that there are different tendencies that vary from family to family in Kazakhstani families. For example, couples C and E, which are extended families living with their grandparents, claim that the Kazakh language is the mandatory language that must be spoken in a family. At least when the grandparents are present no one is allowed to use the other language in their speech. Couples C and E believe that it is not ‘right’ to mix the languages (for example Russian and Kazakh) and that pattern contradicts the family values. In both families, the main decision-maker on the language policy of the family was the grandfather and they claimed that no external factors affected their Kazakh language choice. The goal of choosing the Kazakh language for couples C and E was to teach children the sacred element (тіл киесі) of using the Kazakh language inside the family. In both families, C and E Kazakh language was a permanent language of speaking. It was important to mention that both couples were not against any other languages (they even welcomed learning English), but the role of the Kazakh language was dominant in these families. 

The case of couple B was more specific. For instance, the main language of speech in their family was Kazakh as well. However, the spouses were using the Turkish language at times when they wanted to talk about the things that other family members ‘should not know’. This was because other family members and their children were not competent in Turkish. At times when they had guests or quarrels with one another, they also used the Turkish language. Turkish served as an occasional language to them. Both of the spouses decided that the main language in their family would be Kazakh. If the children attempted to use other languages they were welcome as well. State attempts on recruiting the Kazakh language were an important factor to them (Жаңа Қазақстанда – қазақ тілімен). Their goal of choosing the Kazakh language was relevant with trier respect to their identity and ethnicity. The Kazakh language was spoken permanently in this family too. 

There were some common features in the case of couples A and D. The situation was quite similar to Karina and Arman’s family. The difference was that they used to speak certain days/weeks in one language and then switch to another language as the language of their family. Couple A did this by two days a week. For instance, Monday and Tuesday are the days to speak Kazakh, Wednesday and Thursday are the days to speak Russian and on the remaining days of the week, only English could be spoken in the family. Couple D practiced the same strategy for their family. However, they practiced one language during the whole week. It is vital to say that their children were old enough (school-age children) to understand and use the English language. This looks closer to the situation of James Milner, as both of the couples truly believe that they are helping their children to ‘become a better version of themselves and that their multilingual assets would help them in the future. Couples A and D were very flexible with the languages spoken in the family and even pleasant with so-called code-switching. During the interviews, I could learn that both of the couples spent some part of their lives abroad (in the UK and the US) and this factor might have affected their openness and celebration of the diversity of the languages used in their families.

My findings and the discussion of the paper partially proved my hypothesis. We can now see that the language choice in a family is not primarily defined by the ideological assumptions of the family elders. We can observe that the chosen language(s) have various functions among its speakers. As mentioned before there was no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ family language policy. I am now even more confident that every family is a separate case and they have their own reasons to speak or not to spark a particular language. 

Limitations 

There were a lot of limitations in this research. I could only explore the responses of participants from South Kazakhstan, I am unaware of the language choice situation in different regions of Kazakhstan. That is why the data obtained from this work cannot be generalized to the whole family in the country. More importantly, there were time constraints for more quality and broader research. I could only be interested in the topic for the period of one semester which surely is not enough to cover all the important aspects of the language choice policy in the families of our society. There were also issues related to the research sample and the number of selected participants. Lack of the previous research was another limitation. Nevertheless, I could shed some light on the issue and there could be a lot of suggestions for future research on the topic of language choice in Kazakhstani families.

Conclusion 

In conclusion, I can state that the situation with discussing family language policy in bilingual society in Kazakhstan is a unique case. Partially I could find responses to the two reasons I started this research. I know that political, cultural, and other factors were important in defining the language policy of a family. Second, the functions of the language that was chosen for speaking inside the family and among its members may vary greatly from being an occasional secret language up until being a tool for the future progress of the children. Consequently, I could find answers to my research questions.

Even though the practical problem in this research was to find out the current situation of family language policy, how it evolves, what factors influence and shape the choice and changes in this process, the fact that I could not find academically reliable sources to observe the issue related to the family language choice in contemporary Kazakhstani society was one big obstacle. I mentioned it at the end of the limitations but media research in addition to the interviews I had with parents to collect data on the question of family language choice helped me to understand the fact that the term ‘family language policy’ was a new phenomenon to our society. The existing research cannot be filled with this single academic paper yet it might show some directions for the future investigation in this field. 

Reference

Laruelle, M., 2021. Covid-19 pandemic and Central Asia. Crisis management, economic impact, 

and social transformations. The George Washington University

Leon-Guerrero, A., 2018. Social problems: Community, policy, and social action. Sage 

publications.

Luykx, A., 2005. April. Children as socializing agents: Family language policy in situations of 

language shift. In ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism (Vol. 1407, p. 1414). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Marland, D., 2022. “To His Children In Spanish, While His Wife Uses Another Language” 

Retrieved April 13, 2022 (https://www.sportbible.com/football/james-milner-only-speaks-to-his-children-in-spanish-20220211).

Forbes Kazakhstan, (2018) “30 under 30” Retrieved April 18 

(https://forbes.kz/leader/30_moloje_30_1525341811/ ).

Sen, A., 1999. Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Introduction

Schwartz, M., 2010. Family language policy: Core issues of an emerging field. Applied 

linguistics review, 1(1), pp.171-192.

Book review #4

The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism (Yuri Slezkine)

In his essay, as Slezkine claims, the author reveals nationalism as a sacred principle of marxism-leninism and how it was supported to create ethnic particularism. The author cites Vareikis (1924) that the “USSR was a large communal apartment” in which various republics represented separate rooms. There were “great power” (titular, civilized, oppressor) nations and small nations (backward, oppressed) despite Stalin’s contradictory claims. Slezkine continues that initially, Soviet ethnic policy believed that nationality had nothing to do with faith. The promoted national form was accepted because there was no national content. Throughout the Union, Marxist schools would have the same Marxist curriculum irrespective of the linguistic medium. The author, then, refers to Lenin who claimed that surest way to unity in content was diversity in form. Many communists (1918-1919) disagreed, appealing for the end of separatism, claiming there was no reason for supporting small backward ethnicities. However, recognizing national self-determinations was a “necessary evil”, which first became institutionalized ethnicity and then legitimized. The article claims that there were nationalities, not nations. “Free national development” was the only way to defeat backwardness, however, USSR acknowledged that after time passes eventually the local ethnicity would dominate Russians in their regions. After a certain period, nationality was mainly associated with a religious confession. Inorodtsy were equal to non-Christians or backward. Soon after aliens and Christians were replaced by narody (peoples), narodnosti (small and undeveloped peoples), natsional’nosti (nationalities), natsii (nations), and plemena (tribes). Thus, Central Asian sarts became “Tajiks” and Uzbeks were redefined to unite all Turkic speakers of Samarkand, Tashkent, and Bukhara. The languages were insufficient, and the 1926 census revealed two categories of “language” and “ethnicity” forcefully creating large numbers of people who did not speak their “own mother tongue” irrespective of whether their mothers could speak it or not. Slezkine finalizes that every Soviet citizen was born into a particular nationality, which was crucial in admitting to school and in employment. He then categorizes that all nationalities were ranked from tribe (oppressed) to nation (oppressor). In terms of ethnic particularism, from all of them, the most advantageous were titular nations who were residing in “their own” republics. Contradictorily in the USSR, there was a coexistence of republican statehood and passport nationality. The former claiming that, for example, all people living in Belorussia would one day become Belorussians, the latter opposing a view against it.  

References

Slezkine, Y. (1994). The USSR as a communal apartment, or how a socialist state promoted 

ethnic particularism. Slavic review, 53(2), 414-452.