Paper abstract:

The focus of the paper is on the changing Chuvash perception of their own identity against the background of the ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine. Out of a wide definition debate on “ethnic identity” the author has turned to the interpretation by Benedict Anderson of an “imagined community”. According to this approach, each individual defines for themselves their self-identity. A person’s sense of ethnic group membership and evaluation for personal identity can change over time, as a result of exploration, and in the context of other social and institutional realities. The war in Ukraine has produced an immense impact on this development. Throughout the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods, the Chuvash people themselves were not open about their ethnic identity. The negative stereotypes were quite common, and many Chuvash in urban areas tried to conceal their identity. The census numbers showed a significant decline of Chuvash language speakers. The population was becoming more urbanized and assimilated into a predominant Russian culture. In order to succeed at studies or work in a federal government agency or business, a fluent level of Russian was required. Many parents did not teach Chuvash to their children. With the Russian aggression of Ukraine, the following tendency can be witnessed. The recruitment into “volunteer” battalions from ethnic minority regions lead to many questions among Chuvash concerning the need to fight in this war. The “partial” mobilization only exacerbated the already dire situation. Lots of villages were left without any conscription-age men, that vividly brought in memory the scenes from World War II. Some opposition groups have clearly called it genocide. The younger generation has started rethinking their identity. The war has served as a push to re-think the Chuvash identity.

The paper will focus on how young Chuvash themselves identify themselves. Through the discourse analysis of official government mass media, social media posts, and virtual ethnography methods, the author will present their view on the change in the perception of the Chuvash identity.

The current trend is growing despite the government's efforts to steal the ethnic identity agenda, but there are significant limitations to its growth.

Paper abstract:

Studies of national identity in the Soviet Union tend to either valorize local struggles for national liberation from an oppressive anti-nationalist state or portray the Soviet state as a creator of artificial national identities for its subjects. More recently, several scholars have highlighted the role of ethnic minorities themselves in defining their own nationhood. Among the most prominent of these is Francine Hirsch, who combines Benedict Anderson’s theoretical account of nationhood with rigorous empirical evidence. However, even Hirsch largely confines herself to the larger, “titular” nationalities. This paper extends her analysis to the Dungans, Chinese-speaking Muslim 19th century migrants to Russian Central Asia. Because the Dungans fit so poorly into Soviet definitions of nationhood, they are an important test case for Hirsch and Anderson’s theories.

This study seeks to determine to what extent Dungan nationality was imposed from outside or constructed by Dungans themselves. Sources include analyses of Dungan literature, petitions to Soviet authorities, reports by Party officials, and information contained in secondary literature. The paper first examines the creation of a standard Dungan vernacular language and the development of Dungan literature in light of Anderson’s ideas about “print capitalism.” The next part uses Anderson’s metaphor of “pilgrimage routes” to examine Soviet attitudes toward Dungan Islam and Dungans’ cultural connections to China, Moscow, and the rest of the Muslim world. The final part uses Anderson’s triad of Census, Map, and Museum to show how there were attempts to use each of these to create a Dungan national community. The paper concludes that while Soviet ideology limited the form that Dungan national identity could take, Dungans of all segments of society helped define its content. Everyone from intellectuals to unofficial imams to collective farmers helped imagine the Dungan nation as a unique community between China, the Muslim world, and the USSR.

Paper abstract:

In both international and Chinese academia, the so-called “ethnic issues” and “Xinjiang issues” are somewhat contentious and nebulous paradigms for discourse analysis. Some academics contend that the “Xinjiang issue” is identical to the ethnic and emphatically Uyghur issues, while others might question the existence of discourse analysis that can be titled as Xinjiang or ethnic issues. In this paper, I hope to provide my perspective from my years of fieldwork experiences in Xinjiang by highlighting some smaller issues within the larger discourse. I intend to dissolve the large framework of ethnic or Xinjiang issues, break up these “large issues,” and conduct discussions of some of the fragments.

This study will examine Xinjiang after the 1980s from the standpoint of social transitions and changes (represented as modernization brought about by the market economy), focusing particularly on the reform and opening up, the easing of the household registration policy, the implementation of the modern governance model, the impact of the market economy, social mobility, and the encounter between immigrants and local people. Discuss how the changes and encounters caused large-scale and frequent interactions amongst the population and how these changes and interactions brought about spatial and temporal changes in the lives of ethnic minorities, especially those in rural areas; and how the spatial and temporal changes impacted the minorities’ original lifestyles and values, and brought them unprecedented challenges, discomforts, and distresses.

I believe, as a province of China, Xinjiang does not have “exceptionalism” with regard to its social issues; it typically has the same or comparable issues as other regions of China. The causes of different social issues in Xinjiang are by no means linear, as their course reflects and responds to many historical, social, political, and religious issues and transitions in Xinjiang society. I hope this paper can provide readers with a more detailed and specific perspective on Xinjiang so that readers can better understand the current state of Xinjiang society and the challenges it encounters.