UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Belonging and Ethnicity in China’s West: Urbanizing Minorities in Xining City on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1xm3s8ps Author Grant, Andrew Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Belonging and Ethnicity in China’s West: Urbanizing Minorities in Xining City on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Geography by Andrew Nicholas Grant 2016 © Copyright by Andrew Nicholas Grant 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Belonging and Ethnicity in China’s West: Urbanizing Minorities in Xining City on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau by Andrew Nicholas Grant Doctor of Philosophy in Geography University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor John A. Agnew, Chair China’s twenty-first century economic rise has had a powerful impact on the lives of Tibetans and other ethnic minorities living in its Western Region, the administrative region composed of China’s Inner Asian border provinces. Urbanization in this region is reshaping the lives and livelihoods of erstwhile farmers and pastoralists moving to urban environments. The state hopes to decrease ethnic tension through economic development and the enrollment of all frontier peoples into the national consumer economy. In light of this situation, this dissertation asks: are Tibetans’ lives and livelihoods changing for better or for worse? Focusing on one exemplary city in this region, I argue that despite increased material prosperity, ethnic differences have been exacerbated as perceptions about unequal access to work and ethnic discrimination have proliferated. Urbanization has led to great changes in the economy, the built environment, and communications technology that influence how Tibetans come to belong in the city. ii This dissertation uses two approaches to investigate what is behind these changes. First, I use discourse analysis of Chinese public intellectuals and policy changes to show how the Chinese state conceives of the Western Region as a state development project. The imagination of these frontier provinces relies on culturalist narratives of progress and civilization. Concerns about the domestic economy and geopolitics also drive the historical looking backwards and economic looking outwards that shapes contemporary discourse about the frontiers. Moreover, I find that representations of frontier peoples - in historical geography, politics, and in popular culture - often elide the voices of ethnic groups that inhabit China’s Western Regions. Second, I use ethnography, interviews, and analysis of urban imagery and social media posts to show how Tibetans and Muslims come to live in Xining City, the provincial capital of Qinghai Province located on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The changes occurring in the city are exemplary of the urbanization that is affecting all of China’s minority ethnicities. The frontier economy is changing livelihoods. It also remains unstable and dependent upon policy makers in Beijing. The transition to urban life is pushing Tibetans to envision new relationships with the city, the countryside, and even their own self-identities, as they seek to become urbane citizens and retain their ethnic identity. Tibetans also struggle to place-make, contributing sites of worship and ethnic particularity in an urban environment organized into urban territories that privilege Han Chinese urban landscapes. The Hanness of frontier urbanization contributes to ethnic difference in other ways as well, as revealed in Xining Tibetans’ social media narratives about ethnic stigma and surveillance in the wake of terrorist attacks across China in 2014. iii The thesis of Andrew Nicholas Grant is approved. Chi-Fun Cindy Fan Nancy Levine John A. Agnew, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my family and to the people of Qinghai, whose generosity has allowed this project to be possible. Thank you. v Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Figures ................................................................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ ix Vitae ....................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1 . Introduction .........................................................................................................................1 I. Geopolitics of Urbanization as a Development Strategy ...................................................................1 II. Method and Orientation ....................................................................................................................4 III. Field Site .........................................................................................................................................7 IV. Structure of Dissertation .................................................................................................................8 Part I Frontier and Region .................................................................. 13 Chapter 2 . Frontier Dreaming ............................................................................................................14 I. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................14 II. The Long Pillow of China’s Dream ...............................................................................................17 III. China at the Frontier ......................................................................................................................20 IV. Railways, Foreign Encroachment, the Chinese Territory .............................................................33 V. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................47 Chapter 3 . Regional Dreams ...............................................................................................................49 I. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................49 II. Regions in Geography and Regions in China .................................................................................50 III. Frontier as Colonial Space ............................................................................................................53 IV. Frontier Dreaming .........................................................................................................................68 V. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................81 Chapter 4 . A Short History of Xining City ........................................................................................83 I. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................83 II. Valley of the Onions .......................................................................................................................85 III. Mongolian Influence on Xining ....................................................................................................89 IV. Trade and the role of Muslims ......................................................................................................91 V. Xining Under the Communists .......................................................................................................93 VI. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................97 Part II Urbanizing Ethnic Minorities in Xining City ....................... 99 Chapter 5 . Styles of Work, Family, and Household in Xining .......................................................100 I. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................100 II. The Frontier Economy ..................................................................................................................103 III. Public Work ................................................................................................................................114 IV. Private work ................................................................................................................................118 V. Pastoralist Patterns .......................................................................................................................126 VI. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................131 Chapter 6 . Abject Urbanization and the Cultural Reservoir .........................................................134 I. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................134