Why Xinjiang is an internal settler colony
This essay is adapted from Darren Byler’s forthcoming book, Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City, published by Duke University Press (December 2021).
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Uyghurs in Ürümchi in protest
For nearly a decade, Uyghurs in China have been living in an extreme surveillance state. In the last few weeks, they have not been able to join the demonstrations in China against excessive COVID surveillance and lockdown policies, despite being the worst-affected group, and the victims of the Ürümchi fire that sparked the protests.
An anonymous letter from a Uyghur in China
A citizen in eastern China describes how Uyghur “mouths have been sealed” over the past five years.
[Podcast] On technology and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang
The camp system in Xinjiang — the largest internment of a religious minority since World War II — is the first to employ a comprehensive...
‘The atmosphere has become abnormal’: Han Chinese views from Xinjiang
Around 9.5 million Han Chinese live in Xinjiang, making up about 40% of the region's population. How do they view Beijing's policies of surveillance and Uyghur reeducation?
Uyghur ‘caretaking’ and the isolation of reeducation
In Uyghur society, lending money is more than capital exchange, it's part of a practice that social theorist AbdouMaliq Simone refers to as “taking care.” In Xinjiang, as China's "People's War on Terror" accelerated, money transfers across international boundaries were seen as a possible sign of extremism — just another way that Uyghurs were cut off from their support networks and isolated from one another.
The ‘bright future’ of Chinese life in Xinjiang
Life in the big city can be hard for Chinese migrant workers, but in Urumqi, economic incentives give them more opportunities than they'd get elsewhere. Provided that they are ethnically Han, that is.
The imprisonment of the ‘model villagers’: Two Uyghur sisters on what it means to lose their family and way of life
For the family of sisters Nursiman and Nur’iman, a local work brigade placed a small red plaque with five stars on it to the front gate of their house. The stars stood for “patriotism, honesty, education, hygiene, and harmony.” But in the end, that didn't stop the sisters' parents and brother from being sent to jail for reasons that remain murky to this day.
‘Uyghurs are so bad’: Chinese dinner table politics in Xinjiang
There was a time, not too long ago, when friendship was possible between the Han Chinese of Xinjiang and their Uyghur neighbors. But where there once was camaraderie, now there is suspicion, fear, and empty slogans.
His dictionaries taught Chinese to the Uyghur world. Then he was taken away
Hüsenjan was a Chinese state employee — and member of the Chinese Communist Party — tasked with creating dictionaries for the Uyghur language. His work couldn’t save him.