The Uyghurs are one of the ten most populous stateless nations in the world. While they have a long history of cultural accomplishments and political influences, they have remained marginal in international scholarship given their ambiguous position both in regional studies and in geopolitics. This conference is the second attempt to bring together a broad spectrum of the international community of scholars whose research is focused on the Uyghur people’s history, culture, society.

Argument

The Uyghurs are one of the ten most populous stateless nations in the world. While they have a long history of cultural accomplishments and political influences, they have remained marginal in international scholarship given their ambiguous position both in regional studies and in geopolitics. 

This conference is the second attempt to bring together a broad spectrum of the international community of scholars whose research is focused on the Uyghur people’s history, culture, society.

The conference is organised by the Central Asia Program of The George Washington University (US) and its first part is hosted by the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) on november 17 and 18. The second part will be organized in Paris (France) separately at the INALCO (National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations) on november 19 and last day will be held in the Sciences-Po de Paris.  

Programme

UlB Solbosch, salle H. Janne

Institut de sociologie (15ème étage) – avenue Jeanne 44, 1050 Bruxelles

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Université Libre de Bruxelles

9.00-9.30. Opening Remarks

• Andrea Rea, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, ULB
• Sean R. Roberts, George Washington University, USA
• Vanessa Frangville, Chair Holder in Chinese Studies, ULB

9:30-11:00am. Xinjiang in the Context of China’s Global Policy

Chair: Sean R. Roberts (George Washington University, USA)

• Andrew Fischer (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Labour Transitions and Social Inequalities in Tibet and Xinjiang: a comparative analysis of the structural foundations of discrimination and protest
• Elizabeth Wishnick (Montclair College), Xinjiang and One Belt One Road
• Sean Roberts (George Washington University), Is there an Uyghur Islamist Terrorist Threat?

11:00-11:30am. Coffee-break

11:30am-1:00pm. Security and Social Changes in Xinjiang

Chair: Sebastien Peyrouse (George Washington University)

• Michael Dillon ( Indepent scholar, formerly Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Durham, UK), Conflict in Xinjiang: Resistance and Resolution
• Yitzhak Shichor (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Suppressing Uyghur Unrest in Xinjiang: the Role of Military, Para-Military and Non-Military Forces
• Nimrod Baranovitch (Haifa University, Israel), The Impact of Environmental Degradation in Xinjiang on Uyghur Discontent

1:00-2:00pm. Lunch

2:00-3:30pm. Societal Evolutions in Xinjiang and among the Diaspora

Chair: Rémi Castets ( Michel de Montaign University)

• Andrei Ostrovskii (Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences), Energy Resources of Xinjiang as the Driving Force for the Development of the Region
• Elena Bazhenova (Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences), Socio-Economic Development of Xinjiang as the Key Point for China ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’
• Henryk Szadziewski (University of Leeds), Uyghur Asylum Seekers Since 2009. Observations From Within The Diaspora

4:00-5:00pm. The Chinese School System and Uyghur Responses

Chair: Nimrod Baranovitch (Haifa University, Israel) Hanna Burdorf (Newcastle University)

• Hanna Burdorf (Newcastle University), Sinicization of the school system in the Xinjiang region
• Timothy A. Grose (Rosse-Hulman Institute of Technology), Protested Homecomings: Xinjiang Class Graduates and Reaclimating to life in Xinjiang

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Université Libre de Bruxelles

9:00-10:30am. Uyghur Modes of Resistance and Resilience

Chair: Yitzhak Shichor (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

• Nathan Light (Uppsala University, Sweden), Uyghur Culture, Performance and Identity in Contemporary China
• Dilnur Reyhan (INALCO, Paris), Uighur Web: Production Discrimination and Otherness - Representations of Uighur Women in the Digital Space
• Jean-Paul Loubes (Laboratory Architecture of Paris-La Villette), The Fabrication of a Sacred Place: the Cave of the Seven Sleepers of Tuyuk (Xinjiang)

10:30-11:00am. Coffee-break

11-12:30pm. A Vivid Uyghur Culture

Chair: Vanessa Frangville (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Michal Zelcer-Lavid (Bar Ilan University)

• Michal Zelcer-Lavid (Bar Ilan University), "Green-Colored-Uyghur-Poet": Religious Identity in Contemporary Uyghur Poetry
• Elise Anderson (Indiana University), “The real teachers are those in schools”: Modes of On ikki muqam Transmission in Contemporary Xinjiang
• Mukaddas Mijit (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense), Uyghur Youth Music: The Parallel World

12:30-1:30pm. Lunch

1:30-3:30pm. Regional Actors and International Respsonses

Chair: Aude Merlin (Université Libre de Bruxelles, CEVIPOL)

• Isabelle Facon (Fondation pour la recherche stratégique), The new Sino-Russian partnership on the global and the regional scenes
• Anna Bondarenko (Independent Scholar, formerly Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia), Multilateral Cooperation between the Altai Territory of the Russian Federation and Xinjiang
• Sebastien Peyrouse (George Washington University), Central Asia’s Position on Uyghur Issue. Caught between Russia and China
• Yunus Koç (Hacettepe University), Turkey's political stance about the Uyghur issue

3:30-5:00pm. Screening of ‘The Silk Road of Pop’ followed by a Q & A

• Introduction by and Q & A with Stijn Deklerck, co-producer and Mukaddas Mijit, research consultant of the film

Info: www.ltc.ulb.ac.be - www.philosoc.ulb.ac.be

Contact and registration: Prof. Vanessa Frangville, Vanessa.frangville@ulb.ac.be

INALCO and

Central Asia Program

at the George Washington University

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Salons de l’INALCO, 2 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris

Thursday, November 19, 2015, INALCO, Paris

9:00-11:00am. Reassessing the Role of Russia in 19th and 20th centuries Xinjiang

Chair: Catherine Poujol (INALCO)

• Alexsander Vasilyev (Central Eurasian Research Center of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia), Alternate Approaches in the Russian Policy to Yakub-beg’s State in the 1870-1880s
• Nabijan Tursun (Independent Scholar, USA), Uyghur Sources and Soviet Archival Documents on the Early 20th Century Uyghur History
• Vladimir Boyko (Altai State Pedagogical Academy; Research Associate at Altai State University, Barnaul, Russia), Conflicting Governance/Statehood Schemes in Xinjiang 1940s: An Ethno-Political Dimension
• Valerii Barmin (Altai State Pedagogical Academy, Russia), The role of the Soviet Union in the establishment and operation of the unrecognized Republic of East Turkestan and the position of the United States (1944-1945)

11:00-11:30am. Coffee-break

11:30am-13:00pm. Multiplicity of Religious Practices in the Uyghur Culture through Centuries

Chair: Rémy Dor (INALCO)

• Dmitri Vasilyev (Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia), Traces of Uyghur - Manichean Culture in Rock Drawings in Midlle Yenisei Basin
• Arienne Dwyer (University of Kansas, USA), Good and Evil Spirits in the late 19th Century Tarim Basin
• Sabine Trebinjac ( Laboratory of Ethnology and Comparative Sociology (LESC), CNRS and Nanterre Univesrity, France), Loplik Living Souls: What Revival ?

13:00-14:00pm. Lunch

14:00-17:30pm. New Scholarship on Uyghur Sources

Chair: Dilnur Reyhan (INALCO, Paris)

• Dinara Dubrovskaia (Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia), Sui China and Xi-Yu: Pei Ju's Perspective
• Dolkum Kamberi (Radio Free Asia, Washington, D.C.), Unearthed Täklimakanian Civilization & Uyghur Urbiculture
• Aleksandr Kadyrbaev (Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia), Uighur medieval written in China during the reign of the Mongol: Yuan Dynasty - Uyghurs as the bearers of the Mongols

15:30-16:00pm. Coffee-break

• Sergey Dmitriev (Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences, Moscow; Institute of Asian and African States, Moscow State University, Russia), Some sources about Boquq Khan (epigraphy, numismatic and anthropology)
• Ablet Semet (Georg-August-University Goettingen, Germany), A Brief Study of Late Ottoman Sources on the Uyghurs
• Erkin Emet (Ankara University, Turkey), General Overview of Scientific Studies Conducted in Turkey in Relation to East Turkistan and Uighurs from the end of 1920s up to Today

CERI-Sciences Po, and Central Asia Program

at the George Washington University

November 20, 2015 56

Rue Jacob, 75007 Paris

Friday, November 20, 2015,

Salons de l’INALCO, 2 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris

9:00-10:30am. China’s Political Strategies in Xinjiang

Chair: Hélène Le Bail (CERI)

• Dru Gladney (Pomona College, USA), China’s Policy toward Ethnic Minorities
• Sean R. Roberts (George Washington University, USA), Development with Chinese Characteristics: The Implications of Top-Down Development in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
• Kilic Kanat (Penn State University, USA), The Evolution of the Perception of the Uyghur Resistance in China

10:30-11:00am. Coffee-break

11-12:30pm. Uyghur Identity. Resistance, Adaptation, Resilience

Chair: Sean R. Roberts (George Washington University, USA) Lauren Hansen (Cornell University, USA)

• Lauren Hansen (Cornell University, USA), Buying In or Selling Out? Middle Class Sensibilities in the Uyghur City
• David Brophy (Sydney University, Australia), A Second-Generation Xinjiang Historiography: The Comprehensive History Project
• Rachel Harris (SOAS, London University, UK), Song and Dance in Xinjiang: the New Battleground

12:30-1:30pm. Lunch

1:30-3:00pm. The Transformations of Uyghur National and Religious Identities

Chair: Rémi Castets ( Michel de Montagne University, Bordeaux, France)

• Rémi Castets ( Michel de Montagne University, Bordeaux, France), Islam and Politics: Ideological Paths and Mutations of Uyghur Islamo-Nationalism
• Mamtimin Ala (Independent scholar, Australia), ‘I am not a White Flag’: The re-formation of Uighur Nationalism under Chinese Rule
• Rian Thum (Lyola University, New Orleans), The Twelve Imams in Sunni Khotan

3:00-3:30pm. Coffee-break

3:30-5:00pm. An Internationalized Uyghur Identity

Chair: Bayram Balci (CERI)

• Joanne Smith (Newcastle University, UK), Regard sur les Ouighour-e-s: ‘Small politics’, Cultural Advocacy and Gender Wars among the Parisian Uyghur Diaspora
• Ablet Kamalov (Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences, Almaty, Kazakhstan), Uyghur Diaspora in Central Asia. Challenges and Opportunities
• Chienyu Shih (Chuhai College, Hong Kong), Shaping Uyghur Identity through Cultural Activities: Meshrep among Various Uyghur Diasporas Communities in Europe