Travelling Keywords: Local Perspectives in Inner Asian Contexts from Near and Far
Introduction
Project Remote XUAR: Remote Ethnography of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region seeks to develop and use methods of remote ethnography to explore the current situation and the developments of the past turbulent decade in Xinjiang through various sources available without on-the-ground research in the region itself.
The careful and critical use of concepts and their epistemological reflection is a core element in any kind of research. It can be particularly difficult and challenging when working from afar, as in remote ethnography and other forms of remote research. A large number of mistakes and misguided research derive from the unreflected use of concepts that cannot be checked against the complex reality on the ground, but guides the maneuvering through a given set of available data selected on the basis of assumptions inherent in that very concept. In remote ethnography, particular care must be devoted to the reflection and use of concepts and their epistemological fields as they move across borders and between social contexts and official to informal discourses.
About the workshop
This workshop will focus on core local and analytical concepts, here identified as “keywords,” within a larger geographical and socio-cultural sphere around XUAR, here designated as “Inner Asia”. Particular focus of the workshop will be keywords relating to ethnic policies, colonised lands, minoritised groups and discriminatory practices of various kind.
- The intention of this workshop is to discuss central “keywords” important to Inner Asian contexts including XUAR, across national borders and within local understandings.
- In the course of the workshop each presenter choses to focus on one or a set of “keywords.” All other participants will also relate to these words and provide a perspective on them from their own field site or research material.
- The material aim of the workshop is the preparation of an edited special issue of a peer reviewed open access journal. All participants will be called on to contribute to the special issue either by writing an article for it or by helping to edit and internally review the written texts.
What are the keywords
Keywords are, for the purpose of this workshop and the special issue, words that are important for us or others to understand and make sense of reality. They can be local terms such as “toy” signifying both marriage and life cycle rituals in many Inner Asian languages with slight variations across them and historical shifts. They can also be such introduced by governments as propaganda to legitimise their policies, such as 发展 (development) which also entails a strong value judgement. Lastly they can be academic terms that have become central to traditions of writing about certain places or topics, such as “informality”, developed in reaction to economics in Africa but today much used and misused in writings on Inner Asia.
Common for all of these terms is that they move from context to context, changing meaning as they do so. They travel in space, time and semiotic fields. Travelling signifies several different movements of these terms. Keywords change their meaning over time, some of them are used within several countries and other scales of location where they take on differing meanings. They also move across scales, from national to local to transnational or regional and from one language to another. Their meaning transforms when they travel from one semiotic field into another one, from one discourse or social context to the next and sometimes back.
Using keywords in remote research thus entails an enhanced danger of misunderstanding and misapplication but also the chance of capturing and consciously dealing with this danger which is always present to some degree even in meticulous on-the-ground fieldwork under the best of circumstances.
We are interested in describing, discussing and following the keywords, their travel, their transformations and to view them from the perspectives of various contexts – the contexts known and provided by the different participants in the workshop.
Registration
Register at martina.miechova@upol.cz for online participation by 27 June.
Contact
If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please contact hana.owsiankova@upol.cz.
https://www.remote-xuar.com/events/workshop-travelling-keywords
Acknowledgment
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079460 — REMOTE XUAR — HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03.