Pure and True: The Everyday Politics of Ethnicity for China's Hui Muslims

by David R. Stroup, Stevan Harrell (Editor)

Overview

The Chinese Communist Party points to the Hui—China’s largest Muslim ethnic group—as a model ethnic minority and touts its harmonious relations with the group as an example of the Party’s great success in ethnic politics. The Hui number over ten million, but they lack a common homeland or a distinct language, and have long been partitioned by sect, class, region, and language. Despite these divisions, they still express a common ethnic identity. Why doesn’t conflict plague relationships between the Hui and the state? And how do they navigate their ethnicity in a political climate that is increasingly hostile to Muslims?

Pure and True draws on interviews with ordinary urban Hui—cooks, entrepreneurs, imams, students, and retirees—to explore the conduct of ethnic politics within Hui communities in the cities of Jinan, Beijing, Xining, and Yinchuan and between Hui and the Chinese party-state. By examining the ways in which Hui maintain ethnic identity through daily practices, it illuminates China’s management of relations with its religious and ethnic minority communities. It finds that amid state-sponsored urbanization projects and in-country migration, the boundaries of Hui identity are contested primarily among groups of Hui rather than between Hui and the state. As a result, understandings of which daily habits should be considered “proper” or “correct” forms of Hui identity diverge along professional, class, regional, sectarian, and other lines. By channeling contentious politics toward internal boundaries, the state is able to manage ethnic politics and exert control.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295749846
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	02/23/2022
Series:	Studies on Ethnic Groups in China
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

David R. Stroup is lecturer in Chinese politics at the University of Manchester.

Table of Contents

Foreword Stevan Harrell ix

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction Modernization and Hui Ethnicity in Urban China 3

Chapter 1 "God Is a Drug": Ethnic Politics in the Xi Jinping Era 31

Chapter 2 Choosing: Citizenship, Faith, and Marriage 52

Chapter 3 Talking: Arabic Language and Literacy 73

Chapter 4 Consuming: Islamic Purity and Dietary Habits 97

Chapter 5 Performing: Islamic Faith and Daily Rituals 111

Conclusion Drawing Lines between Devotion and Danhua 128

Epilogue Ethnic Politics during the "People's War on Terror" 157

Appendix A Interviewees 167

Appendix B Mosques/Islamic Places at Case Sites 175

Appendix C Migration Inflow at Case Sites, 2006-2016 177

Glossary of Chinese Terms 179

Notes 187

Bibliography 215

Index 237

What People are Saying About This

Timothy A. Grose

"The subject is timely and becoming even more relevant considering the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly invasive measures to curb the perceived threat of Islamification."

Isabelle Côté

Makes an important contribution by focusing on the everyday politics of Hui identity, rather than the usual emphasis on ethnic contentious politics and resistance.

Isabelle Côté

"Makes an important contribution by focusing on the everyday politics of Hui identity, rather than the usual emphasis on ethnic contentious politics and resistance."

Editorial Reviews

"Stroup does a fabulous job personalizing his subjects while keeping a professional distance from them. He also grounds his observations in history, rooting his research not only in the field of Hui studies but in the history of urban development in China more broadly...His deep and thorough fieldwork allows him to draw from a multitude of different interviews from his four research sites (the Chinese cities of Beijing, Jinan, Yinchuan, and Xining) to make insightful and thoughtful conclusions about the ways that Hui Muslims negotiate the expression of their “everyday ethnicity.""

Asian Ethnology

"Every once in a while, one comes across a book that presents, in addition to new information and thought-provoking theorization, a precious opportunity for contemplating the great distance one's field has travelled...Stroup's accessible ethnographic descriptions and clear analyses render the book an essential reference for both general readers and established academics."

The China Quarterly

"Exceptional...Pure and True effectively opens up a thought-provoking perspective and new backdrop to make sense of Muslims (and other faith groups) in the era of Xi Jinping."

Anthropos

"Stroup’s prose is lucid and pleasant to read, and his artful anecdotes from fieldwork draw the reader effectively into the midst of the issue at hand. It is rare that a study of ethnicity in China captures the everydayness, even the superficial banality, of negotiating difference, while showing that, under the surface, important tensions continue to simmer."

Inner Asia

"Despite the complexities present within Huí studies, Stroup has managed to weave an impressively accessible narrative, offering an excellent introduction to the Huí for those new to the subject while also granting an intimate insight into Huí identity for those with experience in the field. Well-grounded in prior research—both the specific field of Huí studies and also the broader field of Chinese urban development—and acutely aware of its potential limitations (specifically Stroup's own status as a non-Muslim white American), this volume is a worthy addition to the ever-growing field of Huí studies."

Religious Studies Review

"[A]n excellent book written against all odds."

International Journal of Asian Studies

"In this clear and informative account, David Stroup is sensitive to diversity and the perils of generalization."

China Journal

"This book offers a comparative, detailed, and thoughtful critique of China’s ethnic politics in the context of China’s urban transformation and migration…By meticulously documenting mundane everyday life concerns, Pure and True does an excellent job of decentering the ethnic or religious identity as the only predominant factor that shapes China’s heterogenous Hui communities."

Journal of Anthropological Research