Immobile populations as anchors of rural ethnic identity: Contemporary Kazakh narratives of place and migration in Mongolia

Migration to rapidly expanding global urban landscapes and the questions surrounding population growth in these places continue to fuel interest amongst academics, policy makers, and news outlets. Less attention is paid to those individuals who do not head for the big city, immobile populations in rural places. In this paper, we argue that rather than being “those left behind,” immobile populations play a key role in maintaining and perpetuating cultural narratives for ethnic minority populations by anchoring cultural narratives to place. These narratives become reinterpreted and reimagined by outmigrants but remain firmly connected to place through immobile populations. The concept of place elasticity allows us to imagine how these local narratives of place remain intact. It describes the ways in which individuals maintain a continuous, meaningful engagement with a place, even if they reside a long distance from that place. We utilise the case study of Mongolian Kazakhs, an ethnic minority population with strong place attachments as well as significant outmigration from their rural home region in western Mongolia, to explore the idea of place elasticity and evolving place identities for rural populations in developing and transitioning countries. Through analysis of our questionnaires and life history interview data, we find that nonmigrants (immobile) facilitate rural place attachments and identities for this population. This finding suggests that rather than being “left behind,” nonmigrants or immobile populations play an important role in perpetuating place identities and attachments for outmigrants.