Maurizio Totaro is a Marie Curie Ph.D. Fellow at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies under the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of Ghent University. He holds a BA in Politics from the University of Bologna and obtained his M.Sc. in Development Studies with Special Reference to Central Asia from the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. His research focuses on the relationship between oil extraction, space, and subjectivity in Mangystau province in western Kazakhstan.