Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the Remaking of Minority Subjectivity

In this De:link//Re:link Brown Bag Talk, Man Tang (BGSMCS) will introduce her doctoral project. The research examines the remaking of multi-dimensional subjectivities among the Salar community – a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority in Qinghai – shaped by the intersection of transnational, national and local dynamics in the context of “neoliberal multiculturalism” signaled by the BRI. It seeks to complicate the existing scholarship on Muslims in China that tends to adopt a national analytical focus which over-politicizes or over-Islamizes the ethnocultural identity of minorities as being either Islam-reformist minded or as resisting/appropriating and internalizing the state influence. By exploring the Salar’s social, economic, moral and emotional lives in their hometown, this study shows how they draw on various discourses and value frameworks to negotiate self-identity and intersectional relations of hierarchies: global imaginary, state power, gender, religion, ethnicity, and social status. In doing so, they navigate their ethics of life and thereby sustain themselves and the Salar community.
 

Find out more and register
 

The De:link//Re:link Brown Bag Talks concentrate on specific areas of research, both from guests and associated researchers, thus offering a platform for synergies under the umbrella of the project's own research orientation. In general, each talk will consist of a short input of around 15 to 20 minutes, sometimes based on a text distributed prior to the meeting.