Abstract

Historically, geographical names have undergone a history of bestowing, changing, and terminating processes, and it is apt to be an object of reform project by socially dominant subjects particularly in the process of nation-state building. Almaty, as a center of culture and education for the former capital of Kazak SSR, is a representative city where the two distinct values and symbols conflict. The past prosperous Soviet fades out in the process of reconstructing indigenous history. This paper examines how the subjects inscribe ethnic identity by renaming streets and taking back the past cultural symbols. In conclusion, it confirms that renaming streets is a site of politics that generates a mechanism of inclusion and exclusion among contested cultural meanings, and is accompanied by a power subversion of subjects.