Waiting for Uighurstan: Negotiating peoplehood and place in the borderlands of the former Soviet Union and The People's Republic of China (a study guide for the companion video)

This thesis is written in the form of a study guide intended for educational use with the video documentary "Waiting for Uighurstan." However, its main body also stands on its own as an ethnographic work on the Uighur people of the Ili valley borderlands of the former Soviet Union and China. It examines the ways in which Uighurs have negotiated their national culture and identity in this border region where two state-mediated cultures come together. Using primarily interview material, it examines the roles of migration and border separation in creating Uighur "sub-ethnic" groups and the ways that these "sub-ethnic" groups presently negotiate a common culture and identity through contact facilitated by recent cross-border trade in the area.