Symbolism of Strategy for Affirmative Disobedience in Cultural Entrepreneurship: The Case of the Ethnographic Museum of Kendebay Karabdolov, Shymkent, Kazakhstan

Abstract

Research on the influence of traditions and religion on cultural entrepreneurship usually focuses on how religion and tradition support entrepreneurial activity. The questions of how traditional ideas and religion can support cultural entrepreneurship remain outside the scope of much research. To understand this phenomenon, where through entrepreneurship the symbols and structures of the national tradition, as well as the religious aspects of the ethnic group, are recreated, an ethnographic study was carried out. In the context of the study, an important place is occupied by the fact that we are considering a period equally divided into a 30-year hibernation of culture (during Soviet rule) and its dynamic revival with Kazakhstan’s independence. In the process of inductive research, a dynamic model of the process was identified, highlighting the factors of accumulation of material within the culture and starting the process of its working and retransmission. This model shows how cultural hibernation served as a trigger for the launch of the process of restoring culture and supporting the national heritage through entrepreneurship. During the period of special intolerance of the Soviet authorities, entering into suspended animation was able to preserve traditions in a state of non-manifestation, creating a shell for the accumulation of all centuries of experience. Gradually, this shell became permeable, and the process of cultural dynamics began. There the skills built in by the environment were transformed into actions and demonstrated through active practices. Thus, the relaying of cultural material could become the basis for supporting religion and tradition through cultural entrepreneurship. The study proposes to consider entrepreneurship as a means of preserving the intangible and material (through objects and processes) cultural heritage, which carries both archaic symbols and constructs and is clothed in a new layer of modern ethnic symbols.