Paper long abstract:

Studies on the remittances to Kyrgyzstan usually examine mode of expending but not determinants, that are mostly gender-specific. This article assesses the importance of gender to explain a migrants' remitting behavior based on panel study data "Life of Kyrgyzstan of 2013 wave". In this research, the model offered by Manuel Orozco, B. Lindsay Lowell, and Johanna Schneider was applied. Firstly, we build the profile of male and female migrants by individual and household characteristics. Further, we analyze the determinants of the remittances. Our results indicate that durability of migration is significant for male migrants' remittances: the longer men have been sending money, the more they remit. We do not find a clear evidence that education and accumulation of migration experience had influenced on the remittances of female migrants. This finding may be explained partly by unequal access to opportunities of labor market in destination in terms of occupational attainment. Therefore, return to human capital for men and women may differ, but this hypothesis requires verification.

Paper long abstract:

Among Muslim immigrants who have been arriving in Canada in recent years, Uyghur immigrants from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China reveal many special features. Their religious identity, language and other cultural rights have been facing serious threats under the current Chinese system (Bovingdon, 2010; Kanat, 2015). Thus, the intention of immigrating to Canada, including that of the highly educated and skilled Uyghur immigrants, to a great extent, is triggered by the necessity to protect their collective identity and cultural rights (Shichor, 2006). As such, this comparative study explores the identity reconstruction experiences of recent Uyghur immigrants in Quebec and English Canada.

Since early 2000s, Critical Race Theory has been applied to studying Muslim identities as Muslims have been subject to the old-fashioned race relationships under the growing discourse of islamophobia in the West (Gotanda, 2011). Accordingly, this article, through the lens of Critical Race Theory, as well as post-colonial perspectives, studies how the highly-educated (skilled) Uyghur immigrants reconstruct their ethnic and religious identities in Canada. The data of this qualitative study is obtained through 12 in-depth interviews conducted in Quebec, British Colombia, Ontario and Alberta. The data is analyzed through Critical Narrative Analysis which is an organic combination of Narrative Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis (Souto-Manning, 2014). The initial findings show some different positions in Quebec and English Canada. Uyghurs in Quebec seem to feel discriminated more often than their counterparts in English Canada as the racial "Other", both in terms of ethnicity and religion. Meanwhile, this article tries to elucidate the subtle interactions between systemic discourses and everyday narratives of Uyghur immigrants in Canada.

Paper long abstract:

Relatively little scholarly attention has been given to the gendered dimensions of language change and national identity in the 'Stans of Central Asia. In the Republic of Tajikistan, one of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world (Reeves 2015: 121), large numbers of men must pursue both seasonal and long-term employment opportunities in the Russian Federation. This phenomenon of outbound migration of Tajiks to Russia has not only consolidated the Russian language as valuable cultural capital (Bourdieu 1979), but has also left the women who remain in Tajikistan largely responsible for the transmission and maintenance of the Tajik language and other cultural practices. However many Tajik women, particularly those residing in the capital city of Dushanbe, must also take on primary roles in the Russian-language socialization of their children. Thus the pressure on women is to embody "Tajikness" through the use of a semiotic register that extends beyond language to include sartorial practices, indexing a nationally imagined traditional ideal. This paper draws primarily upon four months of preliminary ethnographic research in Tajikistan during the summers of 2017 and 2018 an analysis of the hit three-part Tajik film series Aroosi Zamonavi ('Modern Bride'). In these sources of data, a woman's failure to embrace Tajik national dress ( libosi milli) is indexed with frivolity, selfishness, and lack of competency in household affairs. I ultimately argue that in post-Soviet Tajikistan, women face distinct pressures prompting them to both performatively embody the paradigm of a "true" Tajik woman while having to bilingually socialize their children in both Russian and Tajik, operating as agents between the socially consequential loci of "pride" and "profit" (Duchene and Heller 2012).