Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora

Ten women narrate their struggles as ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang, their turning points that prompted them to leave China, and the emergence of a new Uyghur-Muslim feminism.

Presenting the life stories of ten Uyghur women, this book applies the techniques of narrative analysis to explore their changing worldviews and conversions to political engagement. Born and raised in East Turkestan/Xinjiang in the 1970s-90s, each woman, after personally experiencing incidents of ethnic discrimination, chose to leave China before 2005. Settling in a western country, they strive to become the voice of the Turkic people who are silenced or detained in the “re-education” camps. The narratives are based on interviews conducted online between 2020 and 2021, collected as a form of oral history. The book focuses on the escalating tensions, turning points experienced in their youth, and the religious, political and psychological factors that prompted their transformations in self-identity, ideology and the emergence of a new Uyghur–Muslim feminism. Through the women’s stories, the book describes how women activists are navigating the competing reality constructions of the dire situation in the Uyghur Homeland and actively restorying a genocide to bring about social and political change.