Multiple agency and the collective paradox in grassroots language management: a netnographic study of the national language protection action in Kazakhstan

The critical and socio-cultural turns in language planning and policy have prompted extensive research on the relationship between agency and structure, highlighting the need for studies in diverse socio-cultural contexts to examine how agency is enacted in language planning. Recognizing the spatiotemporal essence of agency, this netnography-based qualitative inquiry situates agency in language planning and policy within a grassroots, bottom-up national language protection action in the Kazakhstani context, which features an intricate linguistic situation. Underpinned by agency theory drawn from social realism, it aims to identify the complex and dynamic agency enactment process by collecting in-depth interviews and netnographic observational data. The findings reveal diverse configurations of reflexive agency enacted by six language policy advocates individually and collectively, which were further complicated by the dual facilitative and inhibitory roles of collective agency emerging from the language management process. The study elucidates the paradoxical nature of collective agency, extending current understandings of this construct within language policy research. The discussion holds the potential to advance future agency study in language policy by interpreting an atypical relationship between agency and structure and a latent paradox in collective agency.