After the riots of July 2009, few could doubt the extent of hostility to Chinese rule among Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Yet with resistance remaining sporadic and disorganized, and opportunities for field research highly constrained, the conflict in Xinjiang presents challenges to the traditional methods of political scientists. This book is introduced as a study of “representational” politics in two senses of the word: the first is delegation, i.e., who has the right to speak in Xinjiang. The second is representation itself: the conflicting narratives of Xinjiang's past and present, which are pitted against each other in the competition for local and international opinion. The book's source material consists of a wide variety of such representations, ranging from internal party bulletins and scholarly position papers, to Uyghur counterclaims as expressed in everyday speech, subversive songs, and on the Internet. These are supplemented by vignettes from the author's fieldwork in Xinjiang in...
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