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Abstract

The proposed paper examines gender relations in the Buryat-Mongolian community, focusing on women’s agency in sustaining Buryat-Mongolian identity amid Eurocentric hegemony in the 21st century. The Buryats, a Mongolic people, pursued a nomadic way of life in Central Asian steppes before their lands were colonized by the Russian Empire in the 17th century. The Soviet regime fueled the erosion of their livelihoods and ethnonational identity by interfering in the local economy and social structure, eliminating the traditional Mongolian script, and prohibiting religious practices and Buddhist learning. The collapse of the Soviet Union marked a new era for the Buryat-Mongols that opened opportunities to revive its ethnocultural tradition, while bringing new challenges posed by globalizing Western modernity.

I argue that amid these shifts women’s agency has emerged as a de facto underlying force that has helped sustain collective Buryat-Mongolian identity. This is seen in the creation of matrilineal genealogy as a way to ensure clan’s vitality despite persistently patriarchal structures; feminization of lay Buddhism to support the post-communist revival of the Buddhist tradition; reconfigurations in intrahousehold work and care arrangements under market-based economic conditions; and women’s leadership and social organization in preserving Buryat-Mongolian language and cultural heritage. The scope of women’s agency, however, has been constrained by colonial policies of the authoritarian state, as well as broader geopolitical and socio-economic forces. Nonetheless, women have leveraged power structures, transnational networks, and community-based mechanisms to navigate Eurocentric hegemony and sustain Buryat-Mongolian identity.

In existing scholarship, the history of Buryat-Mongols has largely been relegated to the margins of Eurocentric hegemonic discourse with little consideration of their agency, whereas the gender lens of this history has been nearly absent. To address this gap, my study—based on over 200 interviews and fieldwork conducted in Buryatia, Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and India between 2019 and 2024—offers a gender perspective on the Buryat-Mongolian community by illuminating gender strategies and practices that support its vitality. This research seeks to challenge conventional conceptions, Eurocentric approaches, and patriarchal narratives by moving away from the marginalization of women towards recognizing their agency, power, and resilience in a decolonial context. In doing so, it serves to shape a more holistic ethnocultural landscape and create a more granular understanding of gendered experiences in Eurasia, while contributing to the decolonization of knowledge and thinking.