Dungan Ethnicity in Transformation: From Totalitarian Control to Contemporary Adaptation
- Academia
- Summary created: 2025
This research examined how totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and China shaped the ethnic and national identity of the Dungan minority. Drawing on historical analysis, fieldwork and oral history, it traces the evolution of Dungan identity under political, social and economic pressures, and shows how the community has adapted to post-Soviet realities in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
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The Dungans, a Muslim community of Chinese origin settled in Central Asia after nineteenth-century uprisings in China, have long lived at the intersection of Chinese and Islamic traditions. During the Soviet period, their identity was strategically constructed as part of nationality policies, which oscillated between limited cultural autonomy and harsh repression. In China, their counterparts, the Hui, experienced parallel pressures of Sinicisation. These contrasting but related trajectories illustrate how totalitarian regimes attempted to redefine ethnic belonging. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Dungans in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan faced new challenges: pressures to assimilate into titular national identities, renewed marginalisation, and ambivalent perceptions linking them to China. This historical context frames the analysis of how political power has shaped and reshaped Dungan identity across regimes and into the present.
Insights
Totalitarian regimes alternated between granting the Dungans limited cultural rights and enforcing harsh assimilation, creating a fluid and unstable ethnic identity.
Evidence
Archival research and 95 in-depth interviews (2011–2019, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan) revealed that Dungan schools were first introduced in the 1920s, abolished in 1938 with executions of teachers, and partially reinstated in 1954. Respondents recalled both repression and temporary openings, describing these shifts as decisive for how their identity was formed.
What it means
These oscillations show that ethnic identity is not a fixed inheritance but a product of constant negotiation under state power. The Dungan case illustrates how minorities adapt through resilience and selective memory, a pattern relevant to understanding minority survival under authoritarian and post-authoritarian regimes.
In post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Dungans face renewed marginalisation, as their perceived “Chineseness” provokes suspicion and hostility despite over a century of settlement.
Evidence
Analysis of more than 6,000 online comments (YouTube, VK, Reddit) combined with interviews in Dungan villages showed a clear contrast: while interviewees highlighted shared Soviet history and wartime solidarity with Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, online debates often portrayed Dungans as “Chinese outsiders” or even “agents of China.” Negative perceptions increased after violent clashes in Kazakhstan in 2020.
What it means
This highlights the fragility of minority integration in contexts where geopolitics shape public opinion. It shows that ethnic identity is continuously reinterpreted not only by state policies but also by collective memories and digital discourses, which can reinforce exclusion or open pathways to coexistence.
Proposed action
Promote inclusive minority policies in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan that reduce ethnic marginalisation and address negative stereotypes linking Dungans to China.
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