CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Anar, Richard Can |
|---|---|
| Title | Chinese Re-Education Camps in Xinjiang: Biopower and Governmentality in Chinese Ideology |
| Summary | Historically China has been using different types of controlling and disciplining techniques on its minorities for many decades. Uyghurs, a Turkic-Muslim minority, has been brutally oppressed in the last decade due to riots in the country's Northwest. The Chinese state swiftly mobilized several securitization policies within the region, most notably: re-education camps. Re-education camps operate on a fine-tuned system of Chinese biopower, one that aims at transforming and assimilating Uyghurs to generate productive and trustworthy bodies that fit in the state-capitalist machinery of the Chines polity. Prominent scholars have argued that Chinese biopolitics utilizes perpetual exclusionary practices where Sino-Uyghur relations are bound by endless oppression and punishment. However, the data suggests that Chinese biopolitics creates conditional integration possibilities, in other words, a paradoxical existence for Uyghurs where their culture and religion must be overwritten by the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. This inclusionary aspect of Chinese biopower is generated through re-education camps that function solely to identify Uyghurs that are fit to be transformed and separate Uyghurs that reject any assimilatory practices. The data suggest that conditional integration does exist under strict conditions of permanent assessment and surveillance. The (re)inclusionary aspect of Chinese biopower is widely understudied due to the lack of opportunities to conduct independent field studies. Nonetheless, the research presented aims at furthering existing research to achieve a more nuanced understanding of the current situation in the Uyghur region. |
| Supervisor | Merlingen, Michael |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/anar_richard-can.pdf |
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