Mariya Levitanus

University of Edinburgh | UoE · School of Health in Social Science

This article aims to understand how the (im)possibility of emigration impacts queer post-Soviet identities, narratives, and everyday life. It is based on two studies: one biographical interview study conducted in Russia, and one conducted in Kazakhstan using in-depth narrative interviews. As a result of the high rate of homophobia, queer people fro...

Recent years have seen the development of new approaches to the study of gender and sexuality in childhood, with attention given to socio-historical, cultural and political contexts. This chapter aims to contribute towards a limited field of research on queer childhood and youth in Central Asia by considering how narratives of queer childhood in Ka...

Western queer politics aspires to increase the visibility of queer subjects who have been highly regulated in Kazakhstan and Russia. Drawing on three interview studies conducted in 2017 and 2018 in Kazakhstan and Russia, respectively, this article examines and compares narratives on queer activism in both countries. Our findings reveal how visibili...

Based on in-depth interviews of eleven people who identify as non-heterosexual and/or non-cisgender and live in Kazakhstan, this chapter seeks to shed light upon the effect of Soviet gender and sexuality discourses on the everyday narratives of queer people in Kazakhstan. The findings show the pervasive impact of the general silence around gender d...

Queer lives in Kazakhstan remain legally unprotected and characterised by fear and societal homophobia. Existing research in the region indicates that the culture of shame or uyat is one of the key regulatory practices of gender and sexuality within families and broader communities. Shaming in Kazakhstan is often used for maintaining ‘traditional’...

This article focuses on the everyday lives of queer people in Kazakhstan, exploring how they express agentic power and negotiate their queer identity. This research is based on a Foucauldian-informed narrative analysis of in-depth interviews with 11 people who identify as queer and live in Kazakhstan. Findings show that the choice and ability to re...

There is a limited amount of academic research within social sciences investigating the experiences of queer people in post-Soviet Central Asian countries. My study aims to address this gap in the literature by focusing on the everyday narratives of queer people in Kazakhstan within a framework of power and agency, primarily using the theories of M...