Uyghur Language Textbooks: Competing Images of a Multi-Ethnic China

Abstract

This article presents, translates, and analyses six Uyghur language textbooks that have been published in Ürümqi during the People's Republic of China's Reform Era (1978–present). It will demonstrate that the representations of Uyghurs in these textbooks are not uniform; nor do they follow an "evolutionary" path. Rather, this article will show that the changes in the representations of Uyghurs exhibit a cycle of loosening (Ch. fang) and tightening (Ch. shou) in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) policy vis-à-vis the Uyghurs, and, more broadly, tensions in the CCP's imagining of China's "dualistic yet unified" (Ch. duoyuan yiti) multi-ethnic composition. Furthermore, using Michael Apple's (1992; 1996) concept of "official knowledge", the article will argue that language textbooks in China should not be viewed merely as reflections of CCP political action but rather as apparatuses in which knowledge is constructed.