Young Uyghur Moslem Women in China: Making Choices

In the Spring of 2011, I did research on a group of young Moslem women, Students at Minorities University of China

This is an introuction to the overall scope of the study

As a Research Professor in the Center for Ethnic Studies at Minorities University of China I have had the opportunity to conduct a research project with young Uyghur women students in Beijing. Most Uyghurs were raised in rural areas, and few Uyghurs have been outside of Xinjiang province. In general, Uyghur families are Moslem, and the parents, especially the Moslem father, is said to play a very protective role in raising their daughters. The Uyghurs are a Turkic people of North West China, closely related in language culture and ethnicity to their Kazakh, Uzbek, and Turkmen neighbors. Although they are a small group in terms of China’s 1.3 billion population, they are actually quite numerous, numbering 8.3 million. Formerly obscure, the Uyghurs are part of a wealthy and increasingly powerful modern China, and are a critical party of “Islamic China”.

The object of this story is to show, based on interviews, the institutions that foster effective social change in China. It looks forward to a modern China whose future is not the domination of one ethnic group over another ethnic group. Rather, if successful, it is the story of the merging of cultures into a pluralistic, multi-ethnic modern Chinese society. In this article I would like to show examples of young Uyghur women to make their effort to become active participants in life in China and Xinjiang.  I am investigating how Uyghur women, Chinese Moslem women deal with the barriers to cultural assimilation.