Abstract
Unruly Speech: Displacement and the Politics of Transgression focuses on communication practices across borders as tools for resistance and the potential space for change they produce through their discourses. Saskia Witteborn writes about the politics of contestation through strategic communication and digital platforms and about a sense of belonging conveyed through language and categories which are “in violation” of rules and impositions. Her personal experience in Eastern Germany is presented as important background for an author who understands how communication can create alternative spaces, a heterotopia of meanings that allow oppressed and discriminated people to free their thinking and their existence, both physically and symbolically. The shift of people's discourses to the “performance of resistance” (p. 20) is clearly perceived by an author who has spent part of her life in East Germany.
The book is well written; the rich narrative and pulsating rhythm make reading it enjoyable and engaging. The case study and research focus are the Uyghur population in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (called, in an “unruly” way, Eastern Turkistan) and the space of resistance that Uyghur people unleash through attaching their own meanings to words and to concepts relating to their perception of “motherland.” While these voices are silenced in China's public discourse, Witteborn evidences the living dimension of this contestation by collecting a broad range of interviews, statements, and expressions of belonging provided by Uyghur respondents whom the author interviewed during her long and intense fieldwork.
Informed by a well-articulated theoretical framework and a rich bibliography, this research is based on a solid methodology that includes important ethical considerations and complies with the ethical standards of doing research in politically sensitive settings. Moreover, the limitations of the research are stated by the author, who shows self-reflexivity and a clear understanding of the bias of her positionality. The research has been conducted across multiple settings—China, the United States, and Germany—and in a long time-frame (2006 to 2021). It is an in-depth investigation that sustains the argument that forms of resistance cannot be completely repressed because they are there, moving across borders and resurfacing—by acquiring new disruptive and revolutionary meanings—when exposed in new settings. Witteborn shows how the claim for civil rights cannot be silenced but is alive in the voices of survivors who convey experiences of desperation, loneliness, suffering, and trauma but still manage to reconnect with their own sense of belonging even though in a constant state of displacement and dispossession. The novelty of the book consists in applying this framework to the Uyghur population in China and to members of the Uyghur diaspora in the United States and Germany.
The voices and narratives of Witteborn's respondents provide a nuanced picture of what Xinjiang/Eastern Turkistan represents, mainly an area of hybridity and porous cultural and religious boundaries. The contested name of the region is central in Witteborn's account: “Xinjiang” for the Chinese authorities and “Eastern Turkistan” for part of the Uyghur population. This nexus is crucial in this investigation into contested narratives of power, loss, and resistance. The author writes that the book focuses on “transgressive speech that affirms the democratic process and opens up spaces of encounter” (p. 15) by looking at discourses traveling across borders mainly for humanitarian reasons and carrying their disruptive potentials with them in the new settings. Transnational migration becomes then a context that provides a platform for contested narratives to emerge and to find their legitimacy and a proper stage.
An even more nuanced picture of “unruly speech” could have been provided if a different range of Uyghur people had been interviewed, namely those advocating for an independent Eastern Turkistan, those who want a sharia-based independent country, those who advocate for a secular Uyghuristan, and those who see the area as part of the broader Central Asian Turkic world. At the same time, a critical engagement with sources in the Uyghur and Chinese languages would have uncovered notions of “democracy” and “space” that differ from the western understanding, providing insight on the contested ownership of concepts. Understandings by Chinese authorities in relation with the Chinese political system and tradition, Chinese political philosophy, and historical traditions cannot be disregarded in a comprehensive analysis. Pluralization of perspectives and praising of local epistemologies (when it comes to Han Chinese understanding of the issues through communication tropes and cognitive frameworks) are missing from this work.
The extensive research is laudable, as the sample of respondents provides a valid basis to sustain the author's argument, but at the same time the fragmentation of Uyghur positions in relation to their land and to their political representatives is not conveyed. For instance, Rebiya Kadeer is a highly contested figure in Uyghur political discourse and is not recognized as a shared leader by the community. The generation gap in respondents’ ways of resisting is highlighted, but it could have led to hypothesizing different levels of contestation, which in the case of the younger generations living in Chinese urban areas is completely missing. Moreover, the education of Uyghurs is another key factor. Minkaohan (Uyghurs educated in Mandarin) have different views from minkaomin (Uyghurs educated in the Uyghur language).
Placing political claims into a proper context would have helped the reader adopt a more critical understanding of how the concept of “genocide” (p. 9) has been constructed in the case of the Uyghurs—including the more nuanced idea of “cultural genocide”—and spread throughout the international media by actors who often have a clear political agenda, who do not take into consideration nor show an understanding of what “terrorism” and “security” as concepts mean in Chinese political culture and historical traditions. The fact that these allegations came from politicians in countries known for colonial/genocidarian history (such as Canada, the United States, and many EU countries) should be highlighted, as well as how these discourses are propagandized in a clear alignment with U.S. geostrategic interests as the challenged superpower.
I would also suggest avoiding the use of sources such as Axios (p. 13) to assess the numbers of detained Uyghurs. These sources cannot be considered reliable because access to and assessment of these data are extremely complex and problematic. When it comes to digital communication and digital testimony, a better understanding of the power relations between researcher and the researched topics in the digital sphere, as well as of the personal agenda and political aims of the digital actors involved, would have enhanced the sophistication of the work. Language proficiency in Chinese and Uyghur would have also helped in terms of providing a more comprehensive understanding of how “unruly speech” translates across cultural contexts, social values, and perspectives pertaining to religious milieus.
The positioning of a “developmental state” toward certain policy matters is a key factor in framing how what is “unruly” is understood, and how the approach to “common development” legitimizes any possible form of strategic opposition to local epistemologies. This positioning is structuring the way resistance through communication is articulated and cannot be disregarded.
Overall this is an excellent study that opens new directions of inquiry for future researchers and scholars engaged in communication studies and in topics related to displacement, dispossession, space, memories, and communities.