The traders of Central Bazaar, Astana: motivation and networks

ABSTRACT

Trading in Astana’s Central Bazaar rests on mutually beneficial people-to-people contacts, or personal networks. Twenty-five years after the Soviet collapse, personal networks are pivotal in whether one succeeds in an informal market economy. I argue that networks cannot be disassociated from trader motivation, which serves as a measure of how these networks evolve over time. I describe how those traders who were driven primarily by lifting themselves out of economic precarity tended to build strong social networks; these strong social networks sometimes evolved into ‘unconditional’ social networks, by which I mean a trader supporting others even though doing so has no commercial benefit. At the other extreme were traders driven by ambition and goal attainment. I argue that such traders are less likely to establish and maintain social networks. Between these two extremes is a middle ground, where traders alternate between strong and weak social networks.

KEYWORDS:

• Kazakhstan
• Astana
• Central Bazaar
• motivation
• networks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 I approach social networks as an individual’s web of connections to others, which act alternatively as safety nets, mutual reciprocity obligations and support mechanisms. These were particularly important for traders who were shuttling goods domestically or internationally, given how mobility between two points added to their vulnerability. For the itinerant traders, cultivation of trust, establishment of reciprocity among members of the network, and the provision of safety nets were essential. I would argue that the establishment of social networks and the evolution of social networks over time cannot be disassociated from the motivation behind trading.

2 Until 2008 the bazaar was at the intersection of Ualikhanov and Seifullin Streets. The old bazaar remains idle for the most part, except for some street vendors outside the area of the old bazaar. In late April 2017, the company Constructive-A is planning to start construction of a residential complex on the territory of the old bazaar.

3 For example, I counted 34 rows in which only apparel was being sold. Interestingly, these were not subdivided into men’s, women’s and children’s clothes. Clothing gives way to shoes, which extend across 15 rows. Although clothes and shoes occupy the largest segment of the bazaar, there are other, smaller clusters too: jewelry, toys, carpets.

4 Conversely, entrepreneurs in developed economies might emphasize intrinsic rewards to a greater degree to realize personal potential, sometimes by avoiding taxation and regulations posed by the state (Bernabè 2002; Aziz et al. 2013).

5 In scholarship on independent traders, push factors are described as financial motives, such as increasing income, that come about through contractions in the labor market which incentivize people to look for their own employment (Yalcin and Kapu 2008, 188). Pull factors – similar to the intrinsic rewards described above – refer to the desire to elevate one’s own reputation and independence (Yalcin and Kapu 2008, 189). In reality, the combination of push and pull factors affects entrepreneurs’ economic and social behaviour, rather than each affecting behaviour in isolation (Alstete 2002). Although extrinsic and intrinsic and push and pull factors largely echo each other, one difference is that in the literature on push and pull factors, the emphasis is on flexibility of activities. The advantage of such flexibility, I think, lies in researching the role of family-based networks and motivations, in contrast to the frame of the literature on extrinsic and intrinsic rewards.

6 As a corollary, some people tried to use their existing skills for new employment opportunities. This explains, for example, the crafts industry in Kyrgyzstan, in which craftspeople have successfully used their artisanal skills (Botoeva and Spector 2013, 489–490).

7 Of course, the so-called second economy had always been present in the Soviet Union (Kaiser 1997; Ledeneva 2006; Spector 2009). But the magnitude of informal activity now increased because of declining state control over the economy; the other consequence of declining state control was rapid liberalization and privatization across the former Soviet Union (Chen 2007; Mogilevski 2012; Sik and Wallace 1999, 697–698).