Timothy Grose (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)

This lecture introduces the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to re-make Uyghur communities in its own image. Officially, the Party-state celebrates ethnic and religious diversity in China. However, the CCP regards Uyghur ethno-national identity—especially one that is grounded in Islam—as a public threat and national security risk. Through a spatial exploration of public places, private spaces, and individual bodies, this talk will present the often violent measures the CCP has taken to uproot Islam from Uyghur imaginings of their homeland and expressions of their identities as the Party “levels” and “benches” the terrain to connect it—geographically and culturally—more seamlessly with the Chinese interior. It will demonstrate how desecrating religious sites, altering soundscapes, “standardizing” life-cycle rituals, and policing Muslim bodies seek to erase indigenous histories, memories, identities, and cultures and replace them with generic symbols of secular modernity.