In this final episode, Remote Xuar Principal Investigators Vanessa Frangville, Rune Steenberg and Björn Alpermann reflect on how remote ethnography is remodelling Uyghur studies, based on their conversation with experts through 8 episodes of the Remote Chay podcast.

This podcast is part of the RX project which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079460— REMOTEXUAR— HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03

Nyrola Elimä, executive director of the Wild Pigeon Collective, has for years been at the forefront of research on the Uyghurs and their homelands. Particularly she takes a closer look at the human rights violations and atrocities the Chinese state has committed in the region in the past decade. Nyrola's work is international. It includes researching forced labour and the complicity of western companies as well as the transnational repression perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party when they try to silence Uyghurs across the globe – including the voice of Nyrola herself.

This podcast is part of the RX project which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079460— REMOTEXUAR— HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03

In this episode, we discuss some challenges to the maintenance of Uyghur cultures and identities in the diaspora in times of crisis. Rebecca Clothey and Dilmurat Mahmut have co-edited a volume published by Routledge in 2024 titled Uyghur Identity and Culture: A Global Diaspora in a Time of Crisis. Our conversation is based on their book and their own research on different diasporic Uyghur communities.

This podcast is part of the RX project which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079460— REMOTEXUAR— HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03

In this episode, Yalkun Uluyol shares his experience in conducting interviews with various interlocutors (including senior diplomats, experts, members of parliaments, political elite) as a Turkey-based Uyghur researcher. Yalkun analyses how his Uyghur identity affected his interviewees as he asked « sensitive » questions, here understood as question on politically sensitive topics deemed risky, but also questions that may reactive traumas and create pain. He also reflects on methodological issues when facing victims who may have high (and often unachievable) expectations about what you can do about their situation as a researcher.

This podcast is part of the RX project which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079460— REMOTEXUAR— HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03

In this episode, Darren Byler (sociocultural anthropologist) and Rune Steenberg (Principal Investigator of the REMOTE XUAR project) speak about the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region also known as East Turkistan in the 21st century. Building on their own fieldwork in the 2010s, they discuss the turning points of the Ürümchi violence in 2009, the People's War on Terror from 2014 and the mass incarceration and re-education campaigns from 2017. These developments are seen in a global perspective of colonialism, capitalism, neo-liberalism, Islamophobia, surveillance and rising authoritarianism. Darren Byler offers a much needed left-critical frame of analysis to understand this context often misused for geo-political purposes on all sides.

This podcast is part of the RX project which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079460— REMOTEXUAR— HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03

Chenchen Zhang, assistant professor in international relations at Durham University, U.K., has a lot of experience studying online discourses in the Chinese cyberspace. In this episode she shares some insights into her work, research strategies and challenges of digital analyses.

This podcast is part of the RX project which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079460— REMOTEXUAR— HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03