“Mapping the Uyghur Lobby”
Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo will hold IASA Seminar. No prior submission is required.
- Date & Time: From 6:00 pm, Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
- Venue: Main Conference Room (Dai kaigi-shitsu in Japanese), 3rd Floor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo
- Speaker: IDr. Yu-Wen Julie Chen (Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
- Title: Mapping the Uyghur Lobby
- Language: Lecture will be done in English. Chinese and Japanese can be used, and interpretation will be offered if needed, during the discussion.
- Entry: No prior submission is required.
- Synopsis:
- Hosted by …
Dr. Yu-Wen Julie Chen is currently an Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Human Security at La Trobe University in Australia.
Dr. Chen has held various university appointments, such as researcher at the Chair of International Politics, University of Konstanz, Germany; lecturer of comparative politics at the University of Greifswald, Germany; visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Security, La Trobe University, Australia; and visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics, University of Virginia, USA.
Dr. Chen specializes mainly in research on ethnic politics, transnational advocacy networks, and interest group politics. She has researched and published papers on Uyghur diasporic activism through the sponsorship of the Consortium of Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia (Singapore) and the Sumitomo Foundation (Japan). She is the author of several books, including Transnational Cooperation of Ethnopolitical Mobilization: A Survey Analysis of European Ethnopolitical Groups, The Tug-of-War over Taiwan in the US: A Case Study of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, Who have Played Tricks on Maps?, and Rivers and Bridges in Taipei. She has also written articles in the Taipei Times and been featured on Phoenix New Media in Hong Kong. - Contact: Yasuhiro Matsuda (ymatsuda@ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
This lecture presents a scheme to finish a book manuscript, “The Uyghur Lobby”, which Chen has been working on since 2009. It explores the crucial roles of the Uyghur diaspora and transnational actors in fashioning and sustaining a collective Uyghur aspiration to advance their brethren’s rights in China and further forge an East Turkestan state.
The transnational activism of the Uyghur diaspora in promoting the rights of their kindred back in China has been attended by academia, journalists and practitioners. Chen’s work presents the first attempt to visualize the connections among Uyghur diaspora organizations, their sympathizers, governments, and news organizations. This is achieved through a social network analysis (SNA) of four data sets that record the Uyghur diaspora’s political activities from 2006 to 2009. The results confirm the widely perceived notion that the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and the known Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer are central in mobilizing Uyghur communities around the world.
After analyzing Uyghur networks in the offline reality, Chen compares the results with a social network analysis of websites aiming to promote Uyghur interests online. The Uyghur American Association (UAA), which is active offline, appears to be a key information provider of Uyghur issues in cyberspace. The WUC’s online role is less prominent than its offline role. A case study of Uyghur linkages in Japan further supports the WUC’s influences over Uyghur activism in various corners of the globe.