Abstract
This chapter explores the political economy of ethnic repatriation in Kazakhstan through the experience of qandas, ethnic Kazakhs who have returned from abroad to their historical homeland. While the state presents repatriation as a patriotic and strategic policy aimed at reversing the demographic consequences of Soviet-era displacement and strengthening national identity, the actual processes of integration reveal complex contradictions. Focusing on the Zhetysu region as a key site of resettlement, the analysis examines how repatriation policies interact with uneven regional development, labour-market dynamics, resource allocation, and hierarchies of belonging. Despite their formal recognition as members of the titular nation, repatriates often experience bureaucratic exclusion, social marginalisation, and economic precarity that position them as strangers at home. The section applies the concepts of migration regimes and assemblage migration to show how repatriation in Kazakhstan functions not as a coherent state policy but as a fluid and contingent configuration of actors, institutions, and practices. Within this assemblage, state structures, local bureaucracies, kinship networks, and informal economies intertwine, producing contradictory outcomes of symbolic inclusion and material exclusion. By using this theoretical lens, the chapter argues that repatriation in Kazakhstan illustrates how migration governance both integrates and stratifies populations, creating new boundaries of citizenship and inequality. The experience of qandas in Zhetysu demonstrates that returning home is not a straightforward restoration of belonging but a process of continuous negotiation within a complex assemblage shaped by post-Soviet nation-building, economic transformation, and everyday survival.