TY - JOUR
KW - Authenticity
KW - Intangible cultural heritage
KW - Uyghur
KW - Dastan
KW - Mäshräp
KW - Muqam
AU - Anónimo
AB - This article examines the politics of China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) policy and practice in Xinjiang through a study of the profound transformation of three interlinked Uyghur oral traditions ostensibly safeguarded as UNESCO or national-level cultural heritages: muqam, mäshräp and dastan. Based on fieldwork in Xinjiang and among the Uyghur diaspora, it shows how an intensive process of social reengineering, taking place in the nexus of contested state ICH policies and its ‘War on Terror,’ has transformed complex religio-cultural traditions into simplified and exoticized patriotic ‘song and dance’ performances. While the state defines these staged versions as ‘authentic’ heritage that should not be deviated from, community elders and cultural practitioners see them as ‘fake’; they violate community values and disembed fluid oral traditions from everyday life, which is where they are reproduced and generationally transmitted. The rhetoric of ‘safeguarding’ thus represents a disavowal of its actual effects and the severe restrictions on spaces available for cultural practice in Xinjiang.
BT - Asian Ethnicity
DO - 10.1080/14631369.2020.1822733
LA - English
M1 - 1
N1 - Publisher: Routledge
N2 - This article examines the politics of China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) policy and practice in Xinjiang through a study of the profound transformation of three interlinked Uyghur oral traditions ostensibly safeguarded as UNESCO or national-level cultural heritages: muqam, mäshräp and dastan. Based on fieldwork in Xinjiang and among the Uyghur diaspora, it shows how an intensive process of social reengineering, taking place in the nexus of contested state ICH policies and its ‘War on Terror,’ has transformed complex religio-cultural traditions into simplified and exoticized patriotic ‘song and dance’ performances. While the state defines these staged versions as ‘authentic’ heritage that should not be deviated from, community elders and cultural practitioners see them as ‘fake’; they violate community values and disembed fluid oral traditions from everyday life, which is where they are reproduced and generationally transmitted. The rhetoric of ‘safeguarding’ thus represents a disavowal of its actual effects and the severe restrictions on spaces available for cultural practice in Xinjiang.
PY - 2021
SP - 121
EP - 139
T2 - Asian Ethnicity
TI - You shall sing and dance: contested  safeguarding  of Uyghur Intangible Cultural Heritage
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85095956776&doi=10.1080%2f14631369.2020.1822733&partnerID=40&md5=01767d7c92388fe36f64e7f9c0b9430f
VL - 22
SN - 14631369 (ISSN)
ER -