https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/65203525156
Meeting ID: 652 0352 5156

Opponent/discussant:

Dr. Rune Steenberg, a postdoctoral researcher at Palacky University Olomouc in Czech Republic.

Dr. Steenberg Rune is an anthropologist who focusses on Xinjiang and Uyghurs.

He received his PhD from Freie Universität Berlin, has worked at Bonn University, Columbia University and University of Copenhagen, and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Palacky University Olomouc in Czech Republic. (https://sinofon.cz/our-team/)

He has researched and published on kinship, economy, narratives, and mass incarceration. The areas where he has conducted fieldworks cover Xinjiang, Kyrgyzstan, mainland China and also Indonesia. He is a co-editor of Voiced & Voiceless Xinjiang.

Supervisors:

Professor Irmy Schweiger, Professor of Chinese Language and Culture, Stockholm University
Professor Jenny White, Professor Emerita at the Institute for Turkish Studies (SUITS),  Stockholm University.

Abstract

This dissertation explores mínzú (ethnic, national) agency demonstrated by Muslim (Hui) cadres in the production of local propaganda literature in China. Using a typological analysis of the Xinjiang-based literary magazine Kāidū River, I identify statements that encoded three salient modes of thought. That is, I illustrate how Huí writers in the early- to mid-2010s used language derived from Neo-Confucian cosmology, Republican race theory and Maoist thought transformation, which gave their texts the imprimatur of "truth", while allowing variation in interpretation of such "truth". The discourse allowed the authors to address concerns expressed by Party leaders, but also to express their own concerns for the Hui as a mínzú, even in the restrictive political environment of Xinjiang. Through a careful study of what it meant for Kaidu River writers to make specific statements related to the formulation of Huí identity, my thesis shows that mínzú as a category of academic analysis remains highly relevant in today's China.

Kim Jarle Wroldsen is a PhD candidate in Chinese Language and Culture at Stockholm University.