In Terror Capitalism anthropologist Darren Byler theorizes the contemporary Chinese colonization of the Uyghur Muslim minority group in the northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang. He shows that the mass detention of over one million Uyghurs in "reeducation camps" is part of processes of resource extraction in Uyghur lands that have led to what he calls terror capitalism-a configuration of ethnoracialization, surveillance, and mass detention that in this case promotes settler colonialism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the regional capital UErumchi, Byler shows how media infrastructures, the state's enforcement of "Chinese" cultural values, and the influx of Han Chinese settlers contribute to Uyghur dispossession and their expulsion from the city. He particularly attends to the experiences of young Uyghur men-who are the primary target of state violence-and how they develop masculinities and homosocial friendships to protect themselves against gendered, ethnoracial, and economic violence. By tracing the political and economic stakes of Uyghur colonization, Byler demonstrates that state-directed capitalist dispossession is coconstructed with a colonial relation of domination.
Darren Byler is Assistant Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University.
Note on Language vii Note on Pseudonyms ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xix Introduction. What is Terror Capitalism? 1 1. Enclosure 31 2. Devaluation 61 3. Dispossession 95 4. Friendship 133 5. Minor Politics 163 6. Subtraction 189 Conclusion 221 Notes 231 References 243 Index 261
"Darren Byler's Terror Capitalism provides critical insights into one of the most important and contested topics in international human rights. Drawing on an extensive archive of firsthand research, Byler gives a rich and detailed look at the persecution and cultural genocide of the Uyghur. An indispensable resource for studies in human rights, surveillance, China, Muslims, Islamophobia, capitalism, and more." - David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford University "Spelling out the full spectrum of what dispossession means for Uyghurs, Darren Byler offers a fine balance between political passion and scholarship as well as an important self-reflexivity about the role of an ethnographer in a context full of violence and terror. There is so little on what Uyghurs are going through, and it is vital that this information be made public. Terror Capitalism is one of the few works that bring such complex understanding to the situation in Xinjiang." - Lisa Rofel, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz "Remarkable ... compelling ... offers an important contribution for specialists and graduate students." - Aidan Forth (Los Angeles Review of Books) "There are many reasons to recommend Terror Capitalism, and not least for the way it gives voice to so many different Uyghurs, a people often reduced either to an abstract entity or a lone voice of victimhood." - Nick Holdstock (Times Literary Supplement) "Byler's pioneering work vividly conveys the suffering that individuals experience under the regime's policies in Xinjiang" - Roger Garside (Literary Review of Canada) "Some of the stories Byler's book recalls read like a scene straight out of Kafka's The Trial. . . . The author's attention to detail and commitment to thorough research is excellent." - JP O'Malley (Globe and Mail) "Byler has written the definitive ethnography of the Uyghurs in the 2010s, a decade of increasing desperation." - Chris Hann (Eurasian Geography and Economics) "Darren Byler's ethnography is an invaluable contribution, as he provides a rare micro, ground-level view of events and Uyghur social life in the past decade. His storytelling brilliantly plugs the reader into his characters' internal life and offers a remarkable insight into the Uyghur experience. He is also successful in his attempt to provide a refined, balanced and thorough scholarly analysis of the current crisis-with carefully chosen words and ethnographic vignettes. Byler's book is therefore a powerful tribute to his informants, Han or Uyghur, and to all those who suffer from Beijing's oppressive policies in the region." - Vanessa Frangville (China Quarterly) "What Byler has so forensically and movingly described in Terror Capitalism is a techno-capitalist model of settler colonialism. If the hallmarks of settler colonialism are the expropriation of the lands/property of indigenous Others and their physical removal and replacement by a new settler society, then contemporary Xinjiang is perhaps distressingly at the leading edge of settler colonialism in the twenty first century." - Michael Clarke (Ethnic and Racial Studies) "Byler has in recent years emerged as one the most insightful and prolific chroniclers of the ongoing dispossession of the Uyghur community. . . . His richly theorized study provides readers access to a way of life largely invisible in Chinese state sources and infrequently represented in Uyghur official culture." - Joshua L. Freeman (Journal of Asian Studies) "While much of the heretofore published academic discussion of [Uyghur dispossession] revolves around its systemic elements, Byler calls on us to examine its devastating impact on a granular, personal level. Thus, the strength both of Byler's theoretical and methodological frameworks is made clear: his dissection of the dehumanization caused by terror capitalism, enacted through detailed ethnography, implores readers to remember that resistance begins by reasserting the humanity of the oppressed." - David R. Stroup (PoLAR) "Terror Capitalism offers vivid personal tales as well as a fine-grained analysis of China's intensified oppression in the region. . . . As the earlier chapters of Terror Capitalism masterfully elucidate, racial subjugation and colonization are not exclusive to China but rather are embedded in a global system; the West is complicit in and has benefited from Uyghur dispossession." - Yangyang Cheng (The Nation) "Byler's authority is grounded in years of on-site work, and he reveals a deep knowledge of his subjects. This highly accessible narrative will interest many readers. . . . Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals." (Choice)
