Event Recap: Center for Asian Studies Roundtable on Xinjiang: Perspectives from the field on China’s mass incarceration of Turkic Muslims
On March 21st CAS hosted a roundtable on the current imprisonment of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghurs Autonomous Region. The roundtable featured five speakers, all major scholars of Xinjiang. Rian Thum, a Senior Research Fellow at the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Nottingham and author of The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History (Harvard ³Ô¹ÏÍø Press), provided an overview of the evidence that we have regarding the systematic incarceration of Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, ranging from personal accounts to satellite images. James Millward, professor of History at Georgetown ³Ô¹ÏÍø and author of Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (Columbia ³Ô¹ÏÍø Press), provided an insightful account of the ways in which China has been dealing with (ethnic, religious, cultural) difference in the past, offering a stark contrast to today’s approach in Xinjiang. Darren Byler, a lecturer in Anthropology at the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Washington and author of several widely read articles on the current situation in Xinjiang, focused on the technological and economic aspects of the securitization of Xinjiang. Sarah Tynen, a graduate student in Geography at the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado Boulder who recently defended her dissertation and conducted two years of fieldwork in Xinjiang’s capital city of Urumqi, spoke of her experience living with Uyghur migrants in the city and of their daily struggle with bureaucracy and surveillance. Lastly, James Leibold, Associate Professor at La Trobe ³Ô¹ÏÍø and an expert on China’s ethnic policies, focused on the political changes underpinning China’s current approach in Xinjiang. The event was introduced by Tim Oakes, director of CAS, and moderated by Alessandro Rippa, a postdoctoral fellow at CAS. The roundtable attracted a standing-room only audience in the Flatiron Room in the Center for Community and generated engaged debate with the public. Footage of the event will be posted on the CAS video page when it comes available.
