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Roads in China's Borderlands: Interfaces of spatial representations, perceptions, practices, and knowledges*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2015

AGNIESZKA JONIAK-LÜTHI Open the ORCID record for AGNIESZKA JONIAK-LÜTHI [Opens in a new window]
AGNIESZKA JONIAK-LÜTHI*
Affiliation:
Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland Email: joniak@anthro.unibe.ch
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Abstract

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the tarmac road network in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China has been greatly expanded. The total length of roads increased from about 30,000 kilometres in 1999 to more than 146,000 kilometres in 2008. Though roads are considered by the state to be instruments of economic development, in multi-ethnic border regions like Xinjiang, the role of an efficient road network in the construction of the Chinese state's imaginary ‘bounded space’ is arguably just as crucial. With the help of Lefebvre's (1991) and Soja's (1999) conceptualization of space, this article explores the multiple spatial figurations of which roads are a part in Xinjiang. The article starts from ‘the mappable’ dimension of the expanding road network, and moves on to discuss perceptions and representations related to this expansion, before finally discussing how individuals creatively explore its fissures and hidden pockets.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 118 - 140
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

I thank Sabine Strasser, Heinzpeter Znoj, and other participants at the workshop ‘Spatial transformations in China's Northwest’ at the University of Bern for their feedback on the very first draft of this article. I would also like to thank the participants of the advanced seminar at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Munich, the participants of the reading group at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (MIASU), University of Cambridge, as well as Professor Joya Chatterji and the anonymous reviewers of Modern Asian Studies for their very helpful feedback and comments.

References

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2 Huihuang Xinjiang Bianweihui, Huihuang Xinjiang, p. 445; fieldwork material 2012.

3 On circulation see Klem, Bart. 2014. ‘The Political Geography of War's End: Territorialisation, Circulation, and Moral Anxiety in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka’, Political Geography 38: pp. 33–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Compare Ferguson, James. 1994. The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development,’ Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota PressGoogle Scholar. On the subject of politics and development in Xinjiang see also Becquelin, Nicolas. 2004. ‘Staged Development in Xinjiang’, China Quarterly 178: pp. 358–378CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 The role of unpaved village roads and paths can be very different.

6 I use the term ‘bounded space’ here in a sense of the state representation of space as contained within national boundaries.

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12 Ibid.

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18 Harvey, ‘The Materiality of State-Effects’, p. 126.

19 I refer here to the Foucaultian notion of discipline. See Foucault, Michel, 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: PantheonGoogle Scholar.

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25 Minzu is a complex term that can be translated as ‘nation’, ‘nationality’, or ‘ethnic group’, depending on the context in which it is used. In China, there are 56 minzu which were recognized by the state after the extensive Minzu Classification Project in the 1950s.

26 In China an expressway has toll gates and a speed limit of 120 kilometres per hour, whereas a highway is free to travel on and has a lower speed limit.

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30 Ibid., p. 3.

31 Ibid., p. 5.

32 Ibid., p. 223.

33 As the roads are upgraded, connections with Central Asia also gain in importance, though border crossings with Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan can only be used at certain times of year due to difficult weather conditions in winter.

34 Rudelson, Justin. 1997. Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism along China's Silk Road. New York: Columbia University PressGoogle Scholar.

35 Compare Mostowlansky, Till. 2012. ‘Azan on the Moon: Entangling Modernities along Tajikistan's Pamir Highway’, PhD thesis, Faculty of Humanities, University of Bern.

36 With a growing number of flights both within Xinjiang and flying directly to eastern China, air transportation has assumed an increasingly important role in the spatial integration of the region into the Chinese state.

37 Ferguson and Gupta. ‘Spatializing States’.

38 In the private sphere, Uyghur tend to use Xinjiang time, whereas Han use Beijing time. Although there are numerous exceptions to this rule, the fact remains that the use of Xinjiang time by the Uyghur is a strong identity marker and connotes a certain resistance to the homogenizing tendencies of the state.

39 The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (Xinjiang Shengchan Jianshe Bingtuan) is almost exclusively a Han organization. It was established in Xinjiang in 1954 to coordinate demobilized soldiers and early Han migrants. Since then, its population has grown to about 2.5 million (Xinjiang Weiwu’er Zizhiqu Chengli 50 Zhounian Chouweihui Bangongshi and Xinjiang Weiwu’er Zizhiqu Tongjiju (eds). 2005. Xinjiang Wushinian 1955–2005 [Xinjiang: Fifty years 1955–2005]. Beijing: Zhongguo Tongji Chubanshe). The Bingtuan is under the direct jurisdiction of the central government and has its own universities, schools, research institutes, judicial system, and police force. On the Bingtuan see Hamann, Bettina. 2007. Der Südrand des Dsungarischen Beckens. Ökologie und Sozioökonomie des chinesischen Transformationsprozesses. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. MüllerGoogle Scholar; Becquelin, ‘Staged Development’; and Seymour, James D. 2000. ‘Xinjiang's Production and Construction Corps, and the Sinification of Eastern Turkestan’, Inner Asia 2: pp. 171–193CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Compare Mains, Daniel. 2012. ‘Blackouts and Progress: Privatization, Infrastructure, and a Developmentalist State in Jimma, Ethiopia’, Cultural Anthropology 27 (1): pp. 3–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Compare Yazici, Berna. 2013. ‘Towards an Anthropology of Traffic: A Ride through Class Hierarchies on Istanbul's Roadways’, Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 78 (4): pp. 515–542CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on how the use of different means of transportation on the Trans-European Motorway reflects class differences among inhabitants of Istanbul.

42 See Pedersen, Morten Axel and Bunkenborg, Mikkel. 2012. ‘Roads that Separate: Sino-Mongolian Relations in the Inner Asian Desert’, Mobilities 7 (4): pp. 555–569CrossRefGoogle Scholar for another perspective on the ways in which roads may separate.

43 Fieldwork interview, autumn 2012.

44 Donaldson, John A. 2011. Small Works: Poverty and Economic Development in Southwestern China. Ithaca and London: Cornell University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Fieldwork material 2011–2012.

46 Halik, Ümüt. 2003. Stadtbegrünung im ariden Milieu. Das Beispiel der Oasenstädte des südlichen Xinjiang, VR China. Berlin: Technische Universität BerlinGoogle Scholar.

47 Fieldwork interview, August 2012.

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50 Some roadside checkpoints do remain manned around the clock, for instance, on expressways and certain other roads.

51 Soja, ‘Thirdspace’.

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55 Lefebvre, The Production of Space.

56 Soja, ‘Thirdspace’.

57 Foucault, Discipline and Punish.