SEDENTARIZATION BEYOND HISTORICAL DESCRIPTION: SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND ANALYTICAL DIMENSIONS

Abstract

Purpose – to propose an integrative sociological model of sedentarization that explains not only the transition to permanent settlement but also the transformation of the spatial regime of social reproduction.

Methodology – a critical narrative review of Kazakhstani and international scholarship published in Kazakh, Russian, and English. The works were compared by their causal mechanisms, levels of analysis, and interpretations of power, mobility, and social agency.

Originality and value – the approaches of J.C. Scott, K. Polanyi, J. Urry, and P. Bourdieu are connected with the arguments of N.E. Masanov, M.K. Kozybayev, K.S. Aldazhumanov, Zh.B. Abylkhozhin, and T. Omarbekov within a shared causal model. Kazakhstani scholarship is treated as an independent body of explanation that refines the limits of international theory rather than merely illustrating it.

Findings – sedentarization operated through restrictions on mobility, redistribution of resources and property, changes in economic and kinship networks, increasing dependence on new institutions, and the formation of new bases of social inequality. The state is conceptualized as a multilevel system of central and local institutions and intermediaries. A two-axis typology is proposed that distinguishes the degree of choice from the principal driver of change.