'City of the Future'

<ul> <li> First ethnographic monograph of Astana;</li> <li> Bringing together a focus on the materiality of the built environment with attention to the workings of discourses and representations; hence combining materialist and ideationalist ('social-constructivist') approaches to place and space in social science;</li> <li> Critically reading a range of heterogeneous literatures (urban anthropology geography political science area studies sociology phenomenology) through the lens of detailed ethnography;</li> <li> Exploring a diversity of situated perspectives on Astana - juxtaposing the experience of migrants (rural as well as trans-urban) lifelong residents and planners across boundaries of ethnicity and class.</li></ul>