"Network or community. The utility of two models of social relations on the case of urban Uyghur Kashgar, Xinjiang, China"

Crossroads Asia Lecture by Rune Steenberg (Xroads fellow at ZELF) at ZEF in Bonn

Abstract of the announced lecture:

‘Network’ has become an increasingly popular metaphor in social science. Yet, while it captures certain aspects of social relations in Central Asia extremely well, others are better described employing the less favored concept of ‘community’. This lecture identifies such aspects in the social relations of Uyghur city dwellers and traders from Kashgar, Xinjiang, China: Local institutions of mutual labor and financial support as well as long distance trade display the unboundedness and fluidity of ‘networks’, but also rely on a level of cohesion and trust constitutive of ‘communities’. Drawing on the example of Uyghurs in Kashgar, this lecture discusses some advantages and shortcoming of these two analytical tropes and drafts an outline for their complementary analytical use. 

Time and place: February 19th, 2014 at 11am at ZEF, ground floor, right conference room.