Emily Upson
Thesis Title (PhD)
INFLUENCING GOVERNANCE IN XINJIANG, NORTHWEST CHINA: HOW TO UTILISE ADVOCACY EXPERTISE TO IDENTIFY STRATEGIES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF CHANGE-MAKING
Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other ethnically Turkic people face repressive treatment in Xinjiang, determined to be a genocide by the Uyghur Tribunal in London (9 December 2021). This people’s tribunal, set up by Geoffrey Nice QC, saw testimony from victims, academics, lawyers, and human rights practitioners. Any legal approach must consider all these standpoints. Likewise, these individuals also all have their own perception of which social or legal categories illuminate or define PRC (People’s Republic of China) policies, as well as what prevention techniques might work best. This research fundamentally asks, how can we prevent atrocities in Xinjiang? Which approaches would be most effective? Within professional spheres, many may take for granted that their profession’s output (be that NGO reports, academic papers, political statements) does or does not make a difference to Xinjiang ground policies in both discourses and practices of repression. However, there is no research confirming or denying this. How might we establish causation when our already limited data is obscured by the diplomacy’s confidentiality?
This research adopts a creative, inductive methodology, that begins with problem-centred expert interviews of key stakeholders across sectors and countries. How do advocacy efforts strategize together on the most effective tools for influencing PRC oppression, and how might we know if their attempts to change PRC policy is successful? This is a socially oriented theoretical approach, one that is both iterative and self-reflexive. Human rights advocacy networks will often undertake ‘imaginative ethnographies’ of state policy processes, and this research will develop an aggregated understanding of PRC policy processes through these interviews, alongside the policy records, public statements, and sparse civil servant testimony that interviewees point to. Alongside its interviewees, this research asks whether participants’ advocacy efforts are connecting to their targets and PRC policy. Document analysis, political theory, and visually mapping advocacy networks will assist in evaluating professional practice and participant interviews. This innovative mixed methodology aims to provide concrete recommendations for genocide prevention.
Publications
Emily Upson, 'Chapter 8: Communism and its Implications in the Governance of Xinjiang', in War and Communism, eds. By Tobias Hirschmüller and Frank Jacob (Paderborn: Brill Schöningh, 2022), 227–253.
Emily Upson, ""The Government Never Oppresses Us": China’s proof-of-life videos as intimidation and a violation of Uyghur family unity." Washington D.C.: Uyghur Human Rights Project, 2021. Available at: https://docs.uhrp.org/pdf/POLVReportFinal_2021-01-29.pdf.
Emily Upson, "The Detention of Alim Sulayman and the Campaign to save him." Prague: Sinopsis, 2020. Available at: https://sinopsis.cz/en/alim-sulayman/.