I was confident I could make it work, perhaps out of naivety, perhaps out of arrogance, a need for adventure, a need for challenge, perhaps out of stupidity, perhaps out of braveness, or was it brashness? I wanted to be unique, to be special, to stand out from the crowd and be different. Was it that my drive to learn new languages, to go to new places where I don’t know a single soul, to go to the place that is the farthest point on earth from any ocean and a 12-hour difference from Colorado, literally on the other side of the earth, is because shame is a familiar feeling for me?
The adventure, the difference, the risk, the danger called to me. I wanted to learn another language, to be trilingual, to do something different and special. It drove me to ignore everyone’s advice and listen to my adviser, JohnO, and to start a new adventure that would take me to places personally I had never been to—to loneliness, to fear and anxiety I had never known, to new examinations of gender and sexuality (that of both shame and liberation). And to such a rich life too, overflowing with people and things and learning and growing and challenging, and crying and anger and sadness.
I wanted to do this project because the idea of challenging the idea of a homogenous nation-state incites my curiosity from both sides—why do the states hold on to these rebellious territories for dear life? And why to people die and kill for these territories? It’s an unanswered question, and one that remains for me one of the most fascinating phenomenon of human existence. I was intrigued by a new language and a new alphabet, an oppressed and struggling people that might need my help, a new place to explore and perhaps even call home? New food, music, customs, and histories. I was intrigued to go somewhere that other people did not dare to go, to go somewhere with a history of colonialism and violence that was unique and yet reflected in so many other parts of the world at the same time.
I hoped to get a new insight into some of those old questions, what is a nation, and why do people construct it? Why do people challenge it and hold on to it so strongly? Is the nation-state all about modernity and capital accumulation and exploiting cheap labor, as some have suggested? Or is it about something else? Is it pride and greed, or fear? I hoped I could maybe do something to help a struggling people. I hoped to learn a new language, and learn about a controversial place and its marginalized people.
I feared I would be kicked out, or couldn’t do research, or have my data stolen, or be found out and arrested, or otherwise unable to find people to talk to me.
During the same period, how do you think you appeared in the eyes of others? What categories might they have drawn on to place you?
I think I was a strange figure, a grown adult coming to learn a new language for no explainable reason. They might have placed me as a spy or a missionary or a journalist, or as a rich person playing on their daddy’s trust, or perhaps a stupid person who couldn’t make it in their own country. In GJ’s eyes, I was strange and clumsy and stupid and selfish and rude. In guys’ eyes, perhaps I was slutty and crazy and weird. In others’, I was a nice and friendly girl trying my best to learn a new language. For others, I was their ticket to freedom through study abroad by practicing English.
How and why did you originally get interested in this group of people and this topic?
At first, I had a desire to help people. I wanted to “make a difference.”
But that drive to find meaning in one’s life by “making a difference”? Sometimes that drive is more about fame and ego than anything else.
Such thinking is part of a white savior trope that can be a narcissistic and ethnocentric way to think about the world and to think about other people. It starts from the assumption that one holds a superior position, rather than recognizing that power imbalance as a result of material inequalities of colonial legacies. This thinking highlights the privilege and power I hold over my research participants from the beginning.
I must acknowledge this problematic relationship with my research site and the people who live there, an unequal relationship that inevitably permeates everything I do.
Second, mine was a sexy topic. The place and people were under-researched, for sure, and that was part of the draw. It was exotic and exciting, dangerous and adventurous, daring and risky. It required bravery and I liked that. I was willing to make the sacrifices necessary to take the time to learn a third language and start a whole new project because I thought it would make me stand out from the crowd. I also desired to be able to contribute to something that was under-studied and not well understood, and shed light on something that not many people know about. That is important too, but my research is still laced with power relations of exploitation and self-interest—a desire to be noticed, to be special, to earn some fame or acknowledgment, acceptance, or approval, and in the end, get a job out of it.
Third, the idea of safe/dangerous places always fascinated me. The idea of XJ as a dangerous place enticed me from the very beginning, from the July 5th riots to the “AIDS syringes” in 2009. I want to understand why and how that place is thought of as dangerous, and how that affects the people who live there. Part of that is the way people say, “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” and the way the status of state sovereignty often dictates these two definitions.
Finally, I wanted to give people a voice. Now I know that such a statement is highly problematic, thinking that my research participants can speak through me only perpetuates that unequal relationship rather than helping to break it down. It assumes a god-like quality in oneself. How can they speak through a white woman, when I’m not really giving them that much stage time and they are not benefitting materially or directly from my work? When they are not speaking directly to the world, but only through my voice? How is that equitable? How is that fair and just? Why perpetuate the unequal power relations that such an assumption is based on (English-language skills based on centuries of British colonization, for example) instead of working to undermine those relationships?
It needs to be addressed that this relationship between the researcher and subject is highly exploitative and that I am benefitting greatly—materially and socially—for being able to use their words.
I wonder if my dissertation needs to start with something along the lines of, “I’m a white, American woman.” Period. Full stop. Because one of the most important aspects of this research is my position in relation to my subjects.
My position as a white American affected how and why I got interested in this topic, which affected how I approached the project and the questions that I asked. My whiteness and Americanness and femaleness affected my experiences in the field, which invariably affected my data collection. I will never know what it feels like to be a Uyghur in China. I got a taste, but I will never know exactly what it’s like. So to claim to speak for the oppressed while benefitting from their words, benefitting from their experiences of oppression, is a dangerous perception. Such a position as a researcher and as an American will also inevitably affect my interpretation of the data and how I write it up. So that relationship—as a white American studying Uyghurs—can be very problematic and needs to be acknowledged right away.
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