ABSTRACT
As James Scott notes, the state has always been an enemy of ‘people who move around’.1 Before their incorporation within modern political systems, nomadic societies were noted for their self-sustaining social structures, sociocultural homogeneity combined with horizontal and vertical mobility, and a distrust of formal, centralized authority. Up to the late nineteenth century, in the absence of technological prowess and centralized political authority structures, pastoral nomadism remained the basic economic and social framework in the Kazakh steppe region (now known as Kazakhstan) among the steppe nomads.
