Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora: Restorying a Genocide

Presenting the life stories of ten Uyghur women, this book applies the techniques of narrative analysis to explore their changing worldviews and conversions to political engagement. Born and raised in East Turkestan/Xinjiang in the 1970s-90s, each woman, after personally experiencing incidents of ethnic discrimination, chose to leave China before 2005. Settling in a western country, they strive to become the voice of the Turkic people who are silenced or detained in the ＂re-education＂ camps.

The narratives are based on interviews conducted online between 2020 and 2021, collected as a form of oral history. The book focuses on the escalating tensions, turning points experienced in their youth, and the religious, political and psychological factors that prompted their transformations in self-identity, ideology and the emergence of a new Uyghur-Muslim feminism.

Through the women’s stories, the book describes how women activists are navigating the competing reality constructions of the dire situation in the Uyghur Homeland and actively restorying a genocide to bring about social and political change.

Susan J. Palmer is an Affiliate Professor at Concordia University, and a Lecturer and Researcher at McGill University. She has authored or co-edited many books on new religious movements.

Dilmurat Mahmut is an independent researcher, and his research interests include Muslim identity in the West, immigrant/refugee integration and Uyghur diaspora identity.

Abdulmuqtedir Udun is a Uyghur researcher, journalist and interpreter based in Ottawa, Canada.