Opportunities and Burdens: Women’s Labor, Caregiving, and Bodily Experience in the Altay Kazakh Pastoral Region During the Process of Modernization

Abstract

In parts of the Altay pastoral region, livestock management and seasonal transhumance have long defined daily life, with limited access to healthcare, transportation, and commodity markets. In recent years, the expansion of the primary healthcare system, infrastructure improvements, and non-agricultural employment at the county level have expanded women pastoralists’ access to healthcare services, employment, and mobility opportunities. Yet these developments have not reshaped existing gender-based divisions of labor or caregiving responsibilities. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Burqin County and the summer pasture area on the mountainside of Tolehaite in Xinjiang, this study uses participant observation and semi-structured interviews to explore how opportunities and burdens are redistributed among women pastoralists amid the process of modernization. Findings reveal that while some younger women enter the urban workforce, older women who remain in the pastures continue to shoulder heavy livestock and domestic duties. Meanwhile, female primary healthcare workers face conflicts between professional demands and childcare responsibilities. Furthermore, although modern medicine can mitigate some physical harm caused by labor, it does little to change the underlying burden of work. This paper argues that understanding pastoral society’s modernization requires attention not only to increased resources but also to how labor, caregiving responsibilities, and bodily costs are reallocated across different groups of women pastoralists.