ADI Lunch Lecture - Ildiko Beller-Hann

Ildiko Beller-Hann will give a lecture on "Household economy and community cohesion in rural Xinjiang" on 15 September.

Abstract: Household economy and community cohesion in rural Xinjiang

Since 2000 the western provinces of China have been targeted as the focus of a massive development campaign. The ‘Develop the West' project aims at securing the stability of minority regions through encouraging economic growth and prosperity, although local people in many areas interpret this as a barely disguised effort to Sinicise minority populations and integrate them more closely into the Chinese polity. This is the background to the research project to be introduced here, which was carried out in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Situated in China's northwest, this area has been often characterised as China's "Wild West". Much scholarship hitherto has investigated inter-ethnic conflict or the efforts of the centre to "tame" its exotic periphery. My current project looks instead at the everyday strategies of Uyghur villagers in Eastern Xinjiang to muddle through the under conditions of the ‘socialist market economy'. Increased exposure to market forces has created new uncertainties and insecurities for many rural households; villagers combine old and new forms of social support, drawing on the state as well as kinship and religion to ensure social reproduction on both the household and the communal level.

Future lectures

The lectures and the following discussions take place on the third Wednesday every month from 12.15-13.30 at:

NIAS - Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
Leifsgade 33, 3rd floor
2300 Copenhagen S

You are welcome to bring your own lunch - ADI will provide a small snack.

*Because of the autunm holidays the October lunch lecture will be on the second - not the third - Wednesday.