The "depoliticisation" of the Uyghurs in China
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講綱：
This paper intends to tackle some of the gradual and systematic changes that have led to massive arbitrary arrests and detentions of up to a million Uyghurs in Northwest China. I start with a quick overview of the significant changes in Chinese ethnic policies that took place in the past few years. Although not officially endorsed by the Chinese State, the “second generation” ethnic policies advised by key scholars and policymakers have been largely implemented, targeting Uyghurs in and outside China. Aiming at ethnic ronghe or “fusion, assimilation”, such measures to “de-politicize” the Uyghurs have gradually shifted into severe violations of human rights through arbitrary detentions and massive internments in camps, affecting in particular officials, educators and other influential figures. I then draw from an intensive (and still on-going) 4-month fieldwork among the Uyghur community in Belgium to map out the continuous violations of privacy, close surveillance and repeated intimidation. I argue that these daily experiences for the Uyghur business and intellectual elites, often silenced for fear of retaliation, can be linked to the “depoliticization” process of the Uyghurs the Chinese State gradually engaged in after the 2009 confrontations. （Vanessa Frangville is Senior Lecturer, Chair Holder in China Studies and Director of EASt, research center on East Asia, at the Universite libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She was previously Lecturer in China Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research deals with discourses on ethnicity and identity construction through films and audiovisual productions. She also coordinates a project on Youth and Public Spaces in East Asia that includes 4 postdoctoral and 3 doctoral fellows.）
演講語言： 英文
This paper intends to tackle some of the gradual and systematic changes that have led to massive arbitrary arrests and detentions of up to a million Uyghurs in Northwest China. I start with a quick overview of the significant changes in Chinese ethnic policies that took place in the past few years. Although not officially endorsed by the Chinese State, the “second generation” ethnic policies advised by key scholars and policymakers have been largely implemented, targeting Uyghurs in and outside China. Aiming at ethnic ronghe or “fusion, assimilation”, such measures to “de-politicize” the Uyghurs have gradually shifted into severe violations of human rights through arbitrary detentions and massive internments in camps, affecting in particular officials, educators and other influential figures. I then draw from an intensive (and still on-going) 4-month fieldwork among the Uyghur community in Belgium to map out the continuous violations of privacy, close surveillance and repeated intimidation. I argue that these daily experiences for the Uyghur business and intellectual elites, often silenced for fear of retaliation, can be linked to the “depoliticization” process of the Uyghurs the Chinese State gradually engaged in after the 2009 confrontations. （Vanessa Frangville is Senior Lecturer, Chair Holder in China Studies and Director of EASt, research center on East Asia, at the Universite libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She was previously Lecturer in China Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research deals with discourses on ethnicity and identity construction through films and audiovisual productions. She also coordinates a project on Youth and Public Spaces in East Asia that includes 4 postdoctoral and 3 doctoral fellows.）
演講語言： 英文