Uyghurs in Chinaʼs labour migration Chinese labour migration, and the emergence of a new division of labour along rural-urban divides, are typically explained in literature with reference to structural components in China’s policy of labour migration. Authors bring to bear the collusion of the state … Read More →
Category Archives: English
The global and the regional
The politics of integration in Chinaʼs autonomous areas Global circulation of ideologies, and regional practices associated with these ideologies – an outside-in approach – such is Duaraʼs thesis on Chinaʼs nation-formation. The two above-mentioned quotes summarise these ideas with reference to Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet-state … Read More →
An identity for Kashmir
“I am a Kashmiri to whom Kashmir has always been the dearest of treasures, and suffered for it. To me the nationalism of today is nothing but a garbled version of the majority-communalism directed towards a definite end.” (Jia Lal Kaul Lalali quoted in Zutshi, … Read More →
Models of conflict
The case of Xinjiang, China The conflict between Han Chinese ʻsettlersʼ and ʻindigenousʼ Uyghur inhabitants of Chinaʼs westernmost province, Xinjiang, is oftentimes explained by the dominance over and suppression of the later by the former; the ruling Han and the oppressed Uyghur. Economic arguments – … Read More →
Entitlement and extortion
How institutional factors foster behaviour in state actors The Weberian thesis has often been explained as the relevance of motivational factors for the development of the capitalist mode of production. In its traditional form Weberianism stresses the importance of the protestant work ethic in bringing … Read More →
Zheng Chenggong and nationalist historiography
Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga or Coxinga) has variously been depicted as a Chinese pirate, an opportunistic general, and a Ming loyalist. Zheng Chenggong was born in a small village near present-day Nagasaki, Japan, to a Chinese father and a Japanese mother. His father oversaw a large … Read More →
Geographies of ignorance
In focus through process metaphors “The hegemony of modern geography, mapping, and the geo-body of a nation is far stronger then perhaps we are prepared to realize. It reproduces itself to subsume us under its regime.” (Winichakul, 1994: xi) It’s been said that modern maps … Read More →
Ethnic violence in Ürümqi to flare up again?
(Updated 22:30 – False rumours?) Unrest seems to again have taken hold of the streets in Ürümqi, in western China. Uyghurs announce more violence after 18:00 o’clock on Monday 7 September. The government has ordered businesses to close and people to stay at home. Two … Read More →
Slanted reporting won’t help the Uyghurs
The Chinese aim threats at western journalists. Again the western media comes under criticism in China. Nobody gains from slanted journalism, not the Han, not the Uyghurs, and not the West. Until late at night on Sunday the 5th of July, when protests broke out … Read More →
Is Uyghur resentment boiling over?
* This post will be updated as I hear more news. I’m not in Ürümqi myself so all I write is alleged by friends that I am currently in touch with. // Newswire services have started picking up on the story and the situation seems … Read More →
State power and personal sovereignty in the Cultural Revolution
How do people cope? How do different people cope differently with the biopolitical projects of state? These questions are the subject of this paper. I will attempt to answer these in the context of the Cultural Revolution, Chinaʼs period of violent political upheaval and socialist … Read More →