Kamila Smagulova
Kamila Smagulova is a PhD candidate at the Institute for History, Leiden University, working as part of Carolien Stolte’s project Reconciling Peace: International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918–1970 and the parallel project Peace Palms. Her research focuses on the anti-nuclear Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement in Kazakhstan, examining peace activism, colonial entanglements, and memory in Central Asia.
She studied Political Science and International Relations at Nazarbayev University, where she also completed graduate studies in Public Policy through a joint programme with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Before her PhD she worked for three years at the independent NGO and think tank Paperlab in Astana, researching civic activism and public memory while coordinating public discussions on gender reform and digital activism.
She has held research fellowships in Groningen and Warsaw, and contributed to Qazaq Roses, a narrative podcast on twentieth-century Kazakh women’s history.
Exhibitions
Exhibition: Between Fires – Irradiated Imaginations & Anti-Nuclear Solidarities
Curated by Fabienne Rachmadiev, the exhibition traces the intertwined histories of nuclear infrastructures, colonialism and resistance, presented in collaboration with Sonic Acts
Agenda
