Thread by @GroseTimothy

This month features the work of Yang Yang @yyang3076_yang, a postdoc researcher at @nus_ari of the National University of Singapore @NUSingapore. Yang Yang researches ethnic & religious politics & transnational religious networks, especially among #Hui (Chinese Muslim) in Xi’an.

Yang Yang is becoming a prolific scholar. Her work appears in @Pol_Geog_Jl, @IJCS_journal, & several edited volumes, most recently @UHPRESSNEWS Ethnographies of Islam in China uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/ethnogra…. I met Yang Yang at a conference hosted by @Rachel_A_Harris & Ha Guangtian @SOAS

I was impressed (i.e. blown away) by Yang Yang’s presentation about wedding photography and brides among Xian’s Hui communities (also the topic of her UH Press book chapter). The talk creatively pushed ethnography into art and pulled art into ethnography.

I recently read her 2020 publication “Producing multiple imaginations of the Silk Road in Xi’an, China’s urban development.”

Yang Yang explores the dynamism of national policy in China (the Belt and Road Initiative #BRI) & its interpretation/implementation/appropriation in Xi’an’s Hui communities. It demonstrates how policy is both agent & object: it shapes communities as it is shaped by them.

Specifically, Yang Yang argues that Xian’s (the Tang capital known then as Chang’an) Hui—as members of a marginalized, yet still relatively privileged Muslim minority—have engaged the state’s promotion of the Silk Road in a BRI discourse that ignores (or even suppresses) Islam.

For example, in its urban development endeavors, Xi’an’s municipal government promotes the city’s historic importance as the major eastern trade hub of the Silk Road, which is reflected in the appearances of new constructions.

However, officials have largely left out the important roles proto-Hui communities played in making the capital vibrant and cosmopolitan. Yet, Hui elite have not rejected this discourse; instead they have embraced and appropriated it.

On one hand, Hui businesses use imagined links to “Tang” heritage to promote “exotic” food and beverages, especially a gelato-esque dessert binglao冰酪 (861) xianchihuo.net/8020.html. On the other, Hui point to the “overlapping routes” of the Silk Road trade & pilgrimage to Mecca.

With this shining example, Yang Yang concludes that “marginalized communities, rather than being completely excluded [from top-down policy implementation], should also be taken into consideration for their active appropriation of top-down cultural narratives” (864).

We are in luck! Yang Yang has several forthcoming publications (articles and book reviews), so be sure to keep your eye out!

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