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Abstract

This paper offers a preliminary exploration of how Kazakh oral poetic traditions, particularly aitys, are represented and framed in contemporary China. Drawing on publicly available materials related to cultural festivals and official discourse, it seeks to reflect on the institutional contexts in which these performances take place and the meanings they are encouraged to convey. Rather than providing a definitive account of the current state of the tradition, the paper aims to open questions about its role within broader narratives of ethnic representation and cultural policy.

Based on the analysis of recent media reports, policy texts, and festival materials from 2019 to 2024, the paper considers how aitys in China has undergone a process of folklorization. This process reflects broader trends in Chinese minority cultural policy, where performative traditions are selectively preserved, depoliticized, and presented as harmless displays of ethnic diversity. The akyn becomes not a commentator, but a cultural symbol—part of a staged performance of unity. At the same time, these developments raise important questions about the tension between cultural continuity and state-managed representation.

Although this paper is based primarily on secondary materials, it will also outline the direction of my upcoming fieldwork in western China, planned for autumn 2025. This research aims to explore more closely the current forms, functions, and meanings of aitys in Xinjiang. It will contribute to understanding how oral traditions persist, adapt, or are reframed under political and institutional constraints, and how performers navigate the space between heritage and control. More broadly, the paper seeks to reflect on the role of oral poetry within shifting regimes of identity, authority, and cultural expression in post-Soviet and Sinophone Central Asia.