Blurring boundaries and negotiating subjectivities - the Uyghurized Han of southern Xinjiang, China

Joniak-Lüthi, Agnieszka (2016): Blurring boundaries and negotiating subjectivities - the Uyghurized Han of southern Xinjiang, China. In: Ethnic and Racial Studies, Bd. 39, Nr. 12: S. 2187-2204

Abstract

Negotiations of collective subjectivities among the Han living in ethnic minority areas of the People's Republic of China have so far received little attention. This article explores one such process among the Uyghurized Han' living in southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, an area in which Han make up less than one-fourth of the population. Based on research material collected during long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this article suggests that Uyghurized Han creatively construct a sense of belonging in Xinjiang by positioning themselves at the interface of Han-ness and Uyghur-ness. They do so by engaging in contradictory but nonetheless simultaneous processes of blurring and fixing boundaries of identity vis-a-vis both Uyghur and other Han. The aim of the present article is to discuss the ways in which their collective subjectivities are produced in the process of boundary negotiation.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Kulturwissenschaften > Department für Kulturwissenschaften und Altertumskunde
• Themengebiete: 900 Geschichte und Geografie > 900 Geschichte
• ISSN: 0141-9870
• Sprache: Englisch