Funding

ESRC Northern Ireland and North East (NINE) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) PhD studentship projects at Newcastle University

The Regional Implications Of China’s ‘De-extremification’ Policy (DEP) in Central Asia

Newcastle University will support two students making PhD applications to the ESRC NINE-DTP 2019-20 studentship competition. The research will focus on the broader regional impacts in post-Soviet Central Asia of China’s current ‘de-extremification’ policy in Xinjiang (Chinese Central Asia). The students will be supported by:

Jo Smith Finley, School of Modern Languages
Nick Megoran, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology

China’s mass internment and ‘re-education’ of mostly Uyghur Turkic Muslims in its westernmost region has caused global outrage. The scholarly community, investigative journalists, advocacy groups and human rights organisations have all condemned the actions.

But China has exerted economic and geopolitical pressure. This has resulted in a muted diplomatic response from the illiberal governments of its Central Asian neighbours, even though they:

are themselves linguistically, religiously and ethnically close to the Uyghurs
have substantial ethnic Uyghur minorities within their own borders

We are proposing two potential PhD studentships.

The regional geopolitics of acquiescence

There is significant sympathy amongst the general population and elements of civil society for fellow Muslims in China whose fundamental human rights are being violated under the DEP. But the positions of the governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan has not reflected this.

This study will identify the range of debates and positions taken in two of the three states. We will do this by interviewing people working for governments, policy think-tanks, civil society groups, religious bodies, and international organisations. We will use a mixture of social-science research methods such as elite interviews and textual/media analysis. The project will be a comparative study of two Central Asian states’ responses to DEP. The studentship application will include support to study the Russian language.

Nick Megoran and Jo Smith Finley will supervise the studentship, and possibly a third supervisor in politics at Newcastle or Durham, with support from academic partners in Central Asia.

Everyday Uyghur life in Kyrgyzstan under the shadow of the DEP

Large numbers of ethnic Uyghurs live in Kyrgyzstan. Some live in largely mono-ethnic, compact neighbourhoods. These communities often have their origins in pre-Soviet migratory movements from Xinjiang.

Over time, ‘Uyghur’ has proved a changing ethnonym. Uyghurs have variously re-identified as Kyrgyz, Uzbek or other groups. This is due to social, political and economic reasons.

This project asks how the twin pressures of the DEP from China and assertive Kyrgyz ethno-nationalism at home have affected processes of social and cultural change amongst Kyrgyzstan’s Uyghurs. It will be largely based on an ethnographic study of a Uyghur community in Kyrgyzstan. The studentship application will include time to study the Uyghur language.

Jo Smith Finley and Nick Megoran will supervise the studentship, and possibly a third supervisor in politics at Newcastle or Durham, with support from academic partners in Kyrgyzstan.

Prospective applicants

Prospective applicants will be expecting to achieve a first-class degree or high 2:1 in a relevant social sciences or humanities subject.

The studentship would involve:

a one-year taught geography masters, with an emphasis on research preparation for the PhD
three years funding for the research
extra support for language training where necessary

The NINE-DTP application will go through the human geography pathway and eventually lead to a Geography PhD. Thus, students will be based in geography and another relevant department.

The supervisors will be Nick Megoran and Jo Smith Finley. If desired, a third supervisor should be a scholar in a cognate discipline such as politics, anthropology, geography, sociology, international relations or area studies/modern languages. The third supervisor should be at Newcastle or a partner institute in the NINE-DTP (Belfast, Durham, Sunderland, Northumbria, Teeside and Ulster).

About the supervisors

Jo Smith Finley

Jo Smith Finley is a sinologist, social anthropologist and political scientist. Her research focuses on ethnic, national, religious and gender identities among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, NW China, and the Uyghur diaspora.

She is author of The Art of Symbolic Resistance: Uyghur Identities and Uyghur-Han Relations in Contemporary Xinjiang (Brill, 2013). She is guest editor of the Central Asian Survey Special Issue (2019): “Securitization, Insecurity and Conflict in Contemporary Xinjiang”.

Nick Megoran

Nick Megoran is a political geographer. He works on ethnicity, borders, geopolitics and state-building in Central Asia. He is the author of Nationalism in Central Asia: A Biography of the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan Boundary (Pittsburgh, 2017).

Asian Studies at Newcastle University

Newcastle University is an excellent place to pursue Central Asian-focused PhDs.

NINE DTP students are part of a dynamic academic community that approaches Asia from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives.

In 2015, Newcastle University established the Asian Studies Research Group within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. The Group supports our exciting research on the region.

Our researchers investigate various countries in Asia, from the Central Asian nations, such as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, to India, Nepal and Indonesia in the South, and on to China and Japan in the East. We also undertake research on Asian diasporas across the globe.

Successful applicants will join a thriving cohort of 61 ESRC-funded PhD students at Newcastle, recruited through previous studentship competitions.

Find out more

If you want to know more, make further enquiries about our supervisory offer to:

More information about the application process is available on the NINE-DTP website.