Specters of Qingzhen: Marking Islam in China

Abstract

Based on fieldwork in Henan and Ningxia conducted in numerous research trips each lasting from two weeks to two years from 2010 to 2018, this article argues that in the two decades from the late 1990s to the late 2010s, there was a critical transition in how halal food was marked in China and how the state as well as ordinary Muslims perceived these shifting signs. By explaining the difference between qingzhen and halal signs, and by highlighting the imagistic character of the former, this article shows how local governments both propagated the proliferation of halal signs and soon afterwards saw in these same signs not so much economic prosperity as the threat of global Islam. Therefore, the current crackdown on Islam in China is as much about how Islam is to be visually represented as it is about concerns over sovereignty, ethnicity and religious dissent.