Remote Ethnography of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Methodology and Research Capacity Building

ongoing

Remote Ethnography of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Methodology and Research Capacity Building This project seeks to develop a methodology of remote ethnography, to collect data and produce analysis of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the Central Asian northwest corner of the People's Republic of China. It aims to establish a consolidated research group, train the researchers in methods relevant for remote ethnography and through their interactions develop both a remote ethnography of XUAR and a sound methodology of remote ethnography for areas with limited access. The motivation for this is that the developments in XUAR and the abuse committed against the muslim minorities in the region have become major geo-political issues central for the EU and European countries choices of future engagement and cooperation with China and the US. At the same time, access to XUAR itself has become extremely limited and the information gained from the area often heavily politically biased, fragmented and unreliable. Further, the rise of surveillance, securitisation and authoritarianism world wide suggest that such places will increase rather than decrease over the next decades. It is therefore both important to gather reliable and deep knowledge of XUAR and to develop solid methodological tools for approaching such closed state or privately controlled areas. Through this project Palacky University Olomouc (UPOL) along with the two partner universities (Würzburg Universität and Université Liberté Bruxelles) will become important interconnected hubs in a strengthening network of researchers on XUAR, will place UPOL on the map as a force in XUAR studies and in methodological innovation of remote ethnography and will provide reliable information on the region to media, policy makers NGOs and other non-academic stakeholders including the Uyghur diaspora community to whom a degree of ownership of the knowledge produced about them and their region must be reinstated.