The Daily Politics of Inter-ethnic Mingling in the Xinjiangban

Abstract

Since 2000, the Chinese government has implemented an ethnic boarding school policy called the Xinjiang Interior Class (Xinjiangban) system in order to promote social mobility and inter-ethnic mingling among the various ethnic groups of Xinjiang. The literature on this topic has focused primarily on the implementation of Han-centric education and Uyghur students’ responses, with little attention paid to the diverse inter-ethnic interactions that constitute everyday politics in the Xinjiangban. In response, this article explores inter-ethnic politics in the Xinjiangban, by interrogating relations between Han school administrators, Uyghur students and non-Uyghur students in these schools. Based on four years of intensive ethnographic fieldwork inside a Xinjiangban in Southern China, the article finds that the program creates secure spaces in which students from various ethnic backgrounds can interact and communicate in meaningful ways, which in turn substantially enhances ethnic mingling but also generates new and unforeseen hierarchies of power as Uyghur students play vital roles in shaping the norms of the student network. The inter-ethnic politics of the Xinjiangban are an ongoing social construction, which are shaped by the power dynamic that exists between Han administrators and ethnic minority students, as well as the majority Uyghur students and those from other ethnic backgrounds.