China Kazakhs' Emigration to Kazakhstan from a Modernity Perspective

Crossroads Asia Lecture by M. Shanatibieke, 23 September 2015 in Bonn

The lecture will start at 11am c.t. at ZEF (Center for Development Research), Walter-Flex-Straße 3, room 3.032.

Mayinu Shanatibieke is a a Ph.D. candidate at Institute of Geographic Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin and is writing her thesis about "China's sedentarisation policy and its impact on the life and livelihood of Kazakh pastoralists in Xinjiang". She received her BA in Social Work at Renmin University of China in 2007 and MA in Ethnology at Minzu University of China in 2010.

Abstract of the presentation:

The case of China Kazakhs' cross-border migration is instructive in a modernity theoretical sense. The presentation will discuss the case in the light of modernization policies and ethnic policies in North-West Xinjiang. China is rising, but the development gap between affluent East China and remote minority regions has been widening. As a result, cross-border minorities in Xinjiang orient towards the Central Asian republics, especially those carrying their ethnic identity marker.

Kazakhstan is currently also rapidly developing due to the oil wealth and economic ties to Russia and this makes Kazakhstan a suitable object of identification and a desirable goal for China Kazakhs. I want to give an insight into the role of cultural identity and narratives of modernity in China Kazakhs' migration practices.