Economic growth and private sector development have been sluggish in China’s western regions, where ethnic minorities make up a sizeable part of the population. In the northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the state maintains a steady presence in the small but growing urban private sector, largely populated by Han-owned firms and entrepreneurs. A small group of minority Uyghur entrepreneurs have positioned themselves in markets where they hold a cultural and linguistic advantage, particularly in trade with neighbouring Central Asia and the production of Muslim foods. However, clustering in similar industries and markets limits the growth of Uyghur businesses in the private sector where they have little presence. To understand how these new entrepreneurs adapt to this environment, and their move toward ‘modern’ business practices, this thesis analyses the characteristics of Uyghur entrepreneurs and their role as ‘agents of development’ in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi. / Since the institution of China’s national economic reforms, Uyghurs have progressively engaged in traditional merchant and ‘bazaar’ economic activities, generally outside the registered, firm-type private sector. In Urumqi, the majority of new Uyghur entrepreneurs are disadvantaged in operating firms by a lack of management experience, skilled employees and start-up capital, so that they primarily rely on resources within the Uyghur community for support. Entrepreneurs who seek to modernise their business and ‘break out’ of traditional Uyghur market niches tend to broaden their networks outside the Uyghur ethnic group. Social networks with larger Han firms and government officials allow better access to resources and financing for Uyghur entrepreneurs. In this way, the shift to ‘modern’ business practices entails cooperation and networking with the majority Han, rather than within the Uyghur community alone. / This thesis presents Urumqi’s Uyghur entrepreneurs, traditionally operating on the fringe of the private sector, as agents of social change through business modernisation and cooperation with Han. In Xinjiang, where economic development is often conflated with the state and increasing numbers of Han migrants, Uyghur entrepreneurs are engaging in the market and contributing to the development of Uyghur society as a whole. This thesis demonstrates how these new entrepreneurs integrate into the Han-dominated private sector and thus participate in development in Xinjiang.

About eight million Uyghurs live in the People’s Republic of China. Many Uyghurs are hostile to Chinese rule. Xinjiang, the province in which most Uyghurs live, has long been a spot of violence and controversy. The Chinese government has employed a variety of means to pacify the Uyghurs and integrate them into mainstream society. It has used violence, propaganda, economic incentives, and education. This thesis will examine the use of education in that strategy. Chinese policymakers hope that education will raise Uyghur standards of living, support China’s preferred historical interpretations, and make Mandarin the common language in Xinjiang. This thesis examines three parts of China’s education strategy: preferential policies (傾斜政策), language education, and history education. This is done through examining Chinese White Papers, textbooks used in Chinese classrooms, publications by analysts, and studies done by academics. The goal was to discover how much success China has had in using education to integrate the Uyghurs. This thesis has found that while progress has been made, the PRC has not achieved its goal of using education to integrate the Uyghurs into mainstream society. In fact, its attempts have often had the opposite affect, alienating and angering many Uyghurs.

トルコ最大の都市イスタンブルは、中国から移り住んだ多くのウイグルが暮らす街である。そのイスタンブルに、改革開放後、宗教の自由を求めて亡命してくるウイグルが後をたたない。新疆ウイグル自治区で高まったイスラム復興が、ウイグルの新疆からの離散を通じて、トルコのウイグル社会にまで達している。それは、トルコのイスラム復興とも連動することによって、ウイグルの宗教的なディアスポラ・コミュニティを形成し拡大させているのである。そして、そのコミュニティはウイグルをはじめトルコ人やトルコの関係諸機関のネットワークに支えられ、重層的な広がりをみせている。 / Türkiye'nin en büyük şehri olan İstanbul, birçok Uygur'un Çin'den sürgün edilip yaşadığı bir şehirdir. Reform ve dışa açılma stratejisi başladıktan sonra din özgürlüğü arayışında olan Uygurlar artıyor. Sincan Uygur Özerk Bölgesi'ndeki İslami Reformun genişlemesini takiben, Sincan'daki Uygurların Türkiye'ye hicret(göç) ederek Uygurlar toplumuna kavuşmaktadır. Böylece, Türk İslami reform ile bağlantı kurarak Uygurların dini diasporası topluluğunu oluşturmakta ve genişletmektedir. Ve bu topluluk, çok katmanlı bir genişleme gösteren, Uygurlar da dahil olmak üzere, Türk ve Türk bağlantılı kuruluşların bir dayanışmalarıyla desteklenmektedir. / 博士(グローバル社会研究) / Doctor of Philosophy in Global Society Studies / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

This ethnographic study investigates the language ecology of Urumchi, Xinjiang with a focus on contextual factors as related to the language practices of Uyghur young adults. The thesis explores how the migration and settlement of Han Chinese, coupled with the expansion of Mandarin (and corresponding marginalization of Uyghur and other ethnic minority languages) in the Xinjiang education system has resulted in a punctuation of the linguistic equilibrium of the province. This study demonstrates how socio-political forces contribute to the devaluation of minority linguistic capital in a linguistic market, and how a language policy in the domestic field, as the primary structuring structure, may be utilized to stabilize diglossia and maintain the intergenerational transmission of a minority language. Participant observation, interview and documentary data were collected over an 18-month period of fieldwork in Urumchi. The analysis of interview data from 26 Uyghur adults, defined as early to mid-twenty years of age, who had been educated in Mandarin classes (mínkăohàn), Uyghur classes (mínkăomín), and bilingual Mandarin-Uyghur classes (shuāngyǔ) or a combination of these programs yielded four themes: context and language investments; expected returns; language choice; and linguistic anxiety. The data suggests a high degree of ambivalence among Uyghur young adults toward Mandarin; this form of cultural capital is conceived of as requisite for participation in the Han Chinese dominated economy, yet of a colonial nature and damaging to the demarcation of Uyghur social identity. Case study narratives are presented on four Uyghur young adults: one female educated in Mandarin classes (mínkăohàn); one male educated in Mandarin classes (mínkăohàn); one female educated in Uyghur primary and Mandarin-Uyghur secondary classes (mínkăomín/shuāngyǔ); and one male educated in Uyghur primary and Mandarin-Uyghur secondary classes (mínkăomín/shuāngyǔ). Each case study consultant completed a 94-item expressive vocabulary assessment. The data suggests that the expansion of Mandarin as the language of instruction in the Xinjiang education system has resulted in unstable diglossia among Uyghur communities, evidenced by Uyghur language attrition and Mandarin-Uyghur code-switching. Findings emphasize contextual factors that are contributing to the disruption of the intergenerational transmission of Uyghur and actions to support the vitality of this cultural heritage. / text

Like many before, this thesis uses the tragedy of the Holocaust as a historical comparison to an event occurring today, mainly in the Xinjiang region of the People’s Republic of China. Many historians have argued that comparisons to the Holocaust should be academically or intellectually prohibited. Many have stated that such an effort could minimize the perceived severity of or unintentionally raise other events to the level of the Jewish genocide. However, such comparisons should be permitted and are necessary to help prevent a similar atrocity from ever occurring again. There is much to be learned from Nazi policy and ideology that may be used to aid genocide prevention. Thus, this paper will discuss how policies or actions within two cases may be similar or different via comparative analysis. Such a discussion will be approached by examining basic principles of Nazi ideology and directly comparing them to the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. The secondary portion of this research will evaluate a direct comparison of the policies of Nazi Germany and the People’s Republic of China regarding the respective minorities in question. Furthermore, this piece's preliminary assumption is that the two cases will be vastly different. Like many complex cases throughout history, few show literal parallels- especially those birthing from different cultures and spanning separate eras. This thesis fundamentally tackles the uncertainty of dissimilarity between the two cases aforementioned.

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Master's thesis. / Database: Nordic Web Publications. Format: PDF.

Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

This thesis will analyse the identity politics of the Chinese party-state’s nation-building project in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It will examine how the party-state intends to overcome the barrier of ethnic boundaries in the production of a shared sense of multi-ethnic, national belonging. Uyghurs and Han can be thought of as belonging to different civilisations (Chinese and Turkic-Islamic) but in modern times they are often thought of as divided by ethnic boundaries. The party-state’s idea of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua Minzu) is a nation-building project to eliminate these boundaries so as to produce a multi-ethnic nation. Fieldwork was conducted after the riots of July 2009 engulfed the region. Ethnically targeted violence against both Han and Uyghurs destabilised the city of Ürümchi and challenged the party-state’s vision of China as a unified and harmonious nation. The official Chinese explanation was that this was an internationally funded and synchronised terrorist attack but Uyghur rights groups have blamed tensions on government policy repressing Uyghur culture and stoking Han nationalism. The theoretical framework employed draws from the concepts of production and performativity in Post-Structuralist and Critical International Relations (IR) theory, particularly the work of Cynthia Weber (1998) and David Campbell (1998). The critical approach adopted here takes security as a process of performative enactment of identity, which produces the units we take for granted as worthy of security. The analysis will examine official performances of what it means to be Chinese and Uyghur. It will then ask how these performances are received and (re)performed by members of the postulated nation. The party-state seeks to include Uyghurs as Chinese but it also excludes and securitises Uyghur Turkic and Islamic identities as ‘outside’ threats to the unity of the nation. The research is a result of one year of fieldwork (September 2009-August 2010) in Ürümchi, the capital city of Xinjiang. This was the first ethnographic study of responses to the violence of July 2009. Furthermore, the incorporation of Han perspectives has been very limited thus far in the literature on Xinjiang. The analysis uses a top-down approach, which employs discourse analysis of official texts to understand what type of national identity the party-state seeks to produce. However, these methods are coupled with a bottom-up analysis using ethnographic methods, particularly detailed, semi-structured interviews, to explore how these official discourses are received. The perspectives of Han and Uyghurs in Xinjiang can inform us how nation-building will unfold and what type of social dynamics it will engender. Analysing perspectives on the nation from below can help us understand the type of nation we expect to be produced in China rather than the type of nation the party-state narrates. The findings of this research demonstrate that both Uyghurs and Han are turning official Chinese nationalist discourses against themselves to articulate separate ethnic nations. Uyghurs frame China as an assimilationist transgression of ethnic boundaries for the benefit of the Han. Han frame their nation as under threat from Uyghurs and articulate China as a Han nation. The party-state’s nation-building project is unintentionally producing insecurity and reinforcing ethnic boundaries which remain obstacles to a shared sense of nationhood.

Recent reports on the forced sterilization of Uyghur women in the People’s Republic of China prompted experts to recognize the on-going situation as genocide. The aim of this thesis is to examine the different events that constitute the current genocide of the Uyghur nation in China, what led to it, and how it is likely to further develop. Based on Stanton’s 10 Stages of Genocide, a simple historical process research is conducted to analyse the causes and stages of the Uyghur genocide, and to make predictions regarding the ensuing stages and international intervention. By applying the theory of constructivism to the analysis, it becomes evident that genocide is a process that is produced by the social, economic, and political international structure, which renders many prevention measures ineffective. The thesis concludes that only immediate international intervention and prosecution of the perpetrator on the count of genocide conspiracy can prevent the irreversible destruction of the Uyghur nation.