More Uyghur documenters, U. British Columbia: Xinjiang Documentation Project

[cross-posting from the listserv for East Asia Anthropology 22 July]

... excellent words from Dr. Guldana Salimjan, who is a professor in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies department at Simon Fraser University, as well as co-director of the Xinjiang Documentation Project (https://xinjiang.sppga.ubc.ca/) at the University of British Columbia. She is a Kazakh scholar originally from Xinjiang.

[EXCERPT to give opening lines]

What China Studies Scholars Can Do about the Xinjiang Crisis
        University of Westminster Contemporary China blog, July 21, 2021

Special commentary

Written by Guldana Salimjan

In 2019, at a dinner conversation with several established China scholars, I mentioned that it is dangerous for me to return to China and do further research because of the dire situation in Xinjiang. A professor from China was puzzled, 'Why is that? I go back to my field site every year!' I sighed but quickly explained to her, 'Because right now the government has campaigns targeting Turkic Muslim people, and I am from one of these communities.' She still expressed disbelief and continued, 'But you are not Uyghur—they are outrageous.' I was utterly shocked this time and my mind went blank.

[full article, http://blog.westminster.ac.uk/contemporarychina/what-china-studies-scholars-can-do-about-the-xinjiang-crisis/]