Contents -- List of illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- Structure of the Book -- PART ONE -- THE ART OF SYMBOLIC RESISTANCE -- Introduction -- Scholarship on China's Minority Nationalities -- Scholarship on the Contemporary Uyghurs -- Identity from a Minority Perspective -- Sartrean Notions of We-hood and Us-hood -- The Art of Symbolic Resistance: From Cultural to Religious Symbols -- A Brief Political History -- Chapter One -- Inequalities: The Socio-Economic Backdrop -- 1.1. Han In-migration -- 1.2. Language Policy -- 1.3. Education -- 1.4. Employment -- 1.5. Wealth Distribution -- 1.6. Resource Exploitation -- 1.7. Political Representation -- Conclusion: Development - Equality = Conflict -- PART TWO -- SOUNDS OF DISCONTENT -- Chapter Two -- Stereotypes: talk breeds conflict -- 2.1. Social Stereotypes: Theoretical Frame -- 2.2. Theorising Han Chauvinism: The 'Civilising Project' -- 2.3. Different Ways of Seeing: Counter-stereotypes -- 2.4. Common Heritage: Foundations of Counter-stereotypes -- 2.5. Stereotypes relating to Uyghur Cultural Norms -- 2.6. Stereotypes relating to Islamic Social Practices -- 2.7. Stereotypes relating to Colonisation and Exploitation -- Conclusion: Talk Breeds Conflict (or the Power of Oral Complaint) -- Chapter Three -- Making culture matter: symbolic, spatial, and social boundaries -- 3.1. Barthian Theory: Ethnic Boundaries as Resistance -- 3.2. Symbolic Boundaries -- 3.3. Spatial Boundaries -- 3.4. Social Boundaries -- 3.5. The Consequences of Boundary-crossing: Bus Stories and Street Fights -- 3.6. Managed Interaction -- Conclusion: The Roots of Constructed Segregation -- Chapter Four -- Illuminists: Popular song and the waking of the Uyghur nation -- 4.1. The Musician-comprador -- 4.2. Popular Singers as Illuminists: The Advent of 'New Folk'.

4.3. Cassette Culture and Mass Mediation of Political Messages -- 4.4. Ömärjan Alim: The People's Choice -- 4.5. Abdurehim Heyit: The Intellectuals' Choice -- 4.6. Religious and Class Cleavages -- Conclusion: New Folk as a Locus of Solidarity and Disunity -- PART THREE -- 'SILENCE': AFTER THE 1997 GHULJA DISTURBANCES -- Chapter Five -- Reverts: sources and dynamics of Islamic renewal -- Introduction -- 5.1. Islamic Renewal in Ürümchi since the Late 1990s -- 5.2. Globalising Forces: Border Trade, Pilgrimage, Study Abroad and News Media -- 5.3. Islam as Symbolic Resistance against Perceived Oppression of Muslims -- 5.4. Islam as a Response to Failed Development -- 5.5. Islam as an Egalitarian Ethos -- 5.6. Islam as a Response to Frustrated Ethno-political Aspirations -- 5.7. Modernity and the Return to Cultural 'Purity' -- 5.8. Islam as a Vehicle for Personal and National Reform -- 5.9. Internal Divisions within the Uyghur Muslim Population -- Conclusion: 'All Five Digits on one Hand are not Alike' -- Chapter Six -- Endogamists: gender, nation and a selective taboo -- 6.1. The Statistics on Intermarriage -- 6.2. Parental Prohibition and Excommunication -- 6.3. Community Supervision -- 6.4. Perceived Barriers: Racial, Cultural, Religious, Historical, Political -- 6.5. Managing Intermarriage -- 6.6. Hierarchy of Intermarriage Preferences -- 6.7. Women as 'Culture Bearers' -- 6.7. Endogamy as Cultural Survival -- Conclusion: Honour and Shame in a Context of National Impotence -- Chapter Seven -- Hybrids: Identity negotiations among the urban youth -- 7.1. The First-generation Minkaohan: 'Internalised Oppression' -- 7.2. The Second-generation Minkaohan: Product of Urban Instrumentalism -- 7.3. Minkaohan Self-identity in Contemporary Xinjiang: 'Ethnic Anomalies'? -- 7.4. The Minkaohan-minkaomin Divide.

7.5. The Han Wannabe: Prototype for the Third-generation Minkaohan? -- 7.6. Cosmopolitan Multilingualism: Uyghur Youth as 'World Citizens' -- 7.7. The Beginnings of Rapprochement? -- Conclusion: From 'Ethnic Anomaly' to Subaltern Cosmopolitan -- Conclusions -- Mainstreaming of Uyghur National Identity in the 1990s -- Eclipse of the Old and Foregrounding of the New -- Factors Affecting Uyghur Solidarity in the 1990s -- 1997: Enter the Silent Era -- From Independence to Federation -- Policies towards Conflict Resolution -- Bibliography -- INDEX.