Abstract

This study examines transnational protests in Kazakhstan by Chinese women from the Uyghur and Kazakh ethnic groups to draw attention to what some scholars have described as “cultural genocide” in China’s western region of Xinjiang.

A small group of elderly and middle-aged Xinjiang women has been protesting in neighboring Kazakhstan for 600 days (2021-2024) to raise awareness about the incarceration of their relatives in the infamous Chinese “re-education camps.” The little media attention from the local Kazakh media outlets, which are also stifled by the authoritarian state, made women’s quest for greater visibility more difficult. Kazakhstan, positioned between Russia and China, is also navigating the complex geopolitical landscape cautiously, preferring to avoid supporting protesting groups and instead arresting or fining them.

The study examines news coverage by selected independent Kazakhstani media outlets in Kazakh and Russian languages and aims to conduct in-depth interviews with some Xinjiang women.

The research questions are the following:

• What frames are used in the local (Kazakh) media to represent Xinjiang women?

• How did Xinjiang women communicate to the media their cause in the social movement, and what strategies did they use to reach their goal?

• In what ways do Xinjiang women understand and experience their activism, and how do they resist the structural inequalities?

The main limitations of the study are a small sample of news items due to limited media coverage of women’s protests in Kazakhstan, and ethical considerations regarding interviews with Xinjiang women, as some of them may find the process emotionally taxing.

The preliminary findings suggest that the Kazakhstani media, in both Kazakh and Russian, reported on the women’s 600-day protests only occasionally, particularly when arrests and violence occurred, confirming the protest paradigm elements. The study also confirms the ongoing invisibility of marginalized women in media representations within social movements. Some peculiarities of local media coverage in comparison with international media coverage are discussed.

The study aims to add new empirical data on the transnational social movements of this understudied group in Kazakhstan and to deepen understanding of the disempowerment they continue to experience both in China and abroad.