Epigenetic Alteration: Identity transformation of an iconic Soviet circus in post-Soviet Kazakhstan
通过六年民族志研究，揭示了后苏联时期哈萨克斯坦国家马戏团如何在环境模糊性下，通过共享感知、集体发现、协商编织和谨慎强化四个机制，实现身份的表观遗传式重构，为组织身份理论提供新视角。
Environmental disruptions such as geopolitical upheavals, war, deglobalization, and resurgent nationalism increasingly unsettle organizations and their identities. Existing research on organizational identity largely focuses on environmental complexity, overlooking ambiguous environmental conditions where dominant logics erode rapidly, and substitutes remain underdeveloped or fragmented. How do organizations respond to identity threats in such ambiguous conditions? We conducted six years of ethnography at the Kazakh State Circus (KSC), an iconic Soviet cultural organization that became destabilized in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Our inductive process theorization shows how organizational identity reconstruction unfolded through epigenetic alteration: a collective, negotiated, recursive process that retains options for reversibility. Four mechanisms – shared sensing of identity threats, collective rediscovery of sedimented meanings, negotiated weaving of identity carriers and logics, and cautious reinforcing of emergent identity - enabled the circus to reconfigure identity elements, regain stakeholder support, and reposition itself as a Kazakh cultural entity. We contribute by theorizing epigenetic alteration as a process that reconstructs identity without rupture and is stabilized through cautious reinforcing amid continued environmental ambiguity.