Dr. Amier Saidula, Senior Research Associate at The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), has published a new book examining how a small minority community sustains order and identity at the far western edge of China. Legal Pluralism and the Tajik Experience of Xinjiang: Between Custom and the Chinese State is published by Gerlach Press.
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The book is about how a marginal ethnic, religious, and racial minority group produces a sense of community and a space of social order at the geo-cultural margins of the Chinese state. The research draws on findings from fieldwork conducted among the Tajiks of Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in south Xinjiang between May 2010 and September 2011, and on Amier’s experience as a former state prosecutor in Xinjiang. It deals with the ways in which the Tajiks in the far west of China continue to manage disputes and maintain internal order in an unpredictable environment.
The idea of harmony
Drawing comparative lessons from Laura Nader’s work on Mexico (1991), and Fernanda Pirie’s work on Ladakh, Tibet (2007), the study focuses on the significance of “harmony ideology”, whereby there is a normative stress on avoiding open conflict. It argues that such a focus on “harmony” is an attempt to produce stability and a measure of cultural autonomy within a top-down political system. However, this “harmony ideology” may also reproduce inequalities along gender, age, and other hierarchical lines among the Tajik community. The book sheds light on identity politics, morality, and the existential challenges faced by a minority group in a single-party state.
Law, custom, and everyday life
Examining the micropolitics of disputing, the study analyses the role of formal and consensual norms and values that govern various aspects of Tajik society’s normative practices. These moral and ethical values guide internal social order, which is maintained through a series of informal mechanisms, and set the standard for the propriety of interpersonal and communal behaviour within the group. The formal laws and regulations, which represent the will of the state, ensure that local practices comply with statutory requirements when regulating internal social order. Provided that juridical boundaries are respected, and the priority of formal laws is observed, the two sets of norms sometimes subtly complement each other to maintain an orderly social existence.
The case studies selected by Dr Saidula shed light on the workings of state law and politics on the ground. The book’s detailed study of ethnography focuses on the ethics of Tajik society that give meaning to the regulatory aspects of informal values, norms, and practices, and evinces the Tajik perception of the state and its agents. In broad terms, the study draws attention to the interdependence of law and politics and its impact on the ways marginal societies organise internal social life.
The book offers a vivid account of identity, morality, and resilience. It shows how a remote community holds itself together through a delicate balance of its own customs and the law of the secular state, while also asking how the very values that bind a people together can also entrench the inequalities among them.
About Dr Amier Saidula
Dr Amier Saidula completed a two-year postgraduate programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities at IIS and holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh. He earned a Master of Laws (LLM) from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Chinese Law from Northwest University of Politics and Law in Xi’an, China. Before joining IIS, he served as a state prosecutor responsible for international cases at the High People’s Procuratorate of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
His research focuses on the history, culture, and traditions of Muslims in China, particularly the Ismaili community.
