Maize-farming Forever?

Based on qualitative and ethnographic field research in the Panfilov District of Almaty Region, Kazakhstan, and selected supportive quantitative data, this contribution explores the dynamics of agricultural transformation along the former Sino-Soviet border since the mid-1990s. It particularly scrutinises path dependency, as well as friction, in cultivation patterns navigated by local agricultural actors in the face of changing irrigation water and infrastructural access, commodification schemes and alternative employment opportunities that are produced by emerging transborder (and increasingly globalised) infrastructures. Therefore, how do agricultural actors in Panfilov District make sense of and negotiate past and current agricultural development at the local level? The article aims to provide a reflection of what the analytical ‘post-Soviet’ category might still mean from an everyday life perspective in a borderland context affected by socio-political neglect and newly evolving connections alike.