| This research is focused on understanding the ways in which the community orientation of the Kazak ethnic community in Istanbul, Turkey have contributed to their economic success which in turn encourages strong community, and the nature of their community-based support networks for providing material and cultural support. It examines the role of social capital and cohesion in maintaining the community with its positive implications for the continued building of wealth or sourcing of funding on a community level. The theoretical concepts relevant to this project are based on the ideas that the shared values of a community are a positive force that allow communities to achieve common goals and is particularly important in the context of an economy that favors cheap labor and a highly mobile workforce, both factors that negatively affect the asset building and place-based rootedness that communities require for their stability. Key community entrepreneurs and leaders were the main sources of information for this research. The findings of this thesis suggest that it is a combination of factors such as the failure of the community to maintain its stable economic position through unfortunate business practices and choices coupled with external market forces that slowed this community economic development and disabled its continued growth. |
