Paper long abstract:

Uyghurs’ handicrafts in Xinjiang have a long history, which has artistic and social influences both from China proper and the neighboring Central Asian countries. Based on anthropological research in early 2018 in Qumol (Hami) and Kashgar, this paper investigates how Uyghur craft people negotiate the meanings of their skills under global and China’s national discourses of intangible cultural heritage. The division between tangible and intangible cultural heritage is itself problematic (Herzfeld 2014), most traditional Uyghur handicraft have material form, such as embroidery and pottery, however they all fall into category of intangible heritage. While the family history of the craftship is important in terms of preserving the skills, the actual manual process of sewing and pottery-making materialize the techniques and make the actual handicraft possible. In fact, in Uyghur language, the boundary between tangible and intangible cultural heritage is ambiguous. Gheyriy maddiy medeniyet mirasliri means intangible cultural heritage, whereas gheyriy means “not”, it could also implies “strange”, that is to say the category of such distinction is problematic. Since the international discourse of preserving cultural heritage localized in China, starting from early 2000s, Uyghur handicrafts are gradually classified as intangible cultural heritage of various administrative levels, including county, city, provincial, national and world rank. The classification procedure itself is a process of negotiation among Uyghur artisans, professional artists and experts, cadres of local cultural bureau, and China’s National Cultural Department. Thus, the individual Uyghur artisan has been threated within the web of knowledge production. To be identified as intangible cultural heritage, the handicraft integrates with the local government and carries responsibility of promoting the official economic and social tasks. Some local party secretary and employees of local cultural bureau complain that the skillful craft people often do not wish to train apprentices, which is required by the local government to facilitate farmers with skills and create employment opportunities. The crafts people have never publicly denied their role of facilitating with the authority’s goal of elevating poverty, however, they do see the handicraft as a private skills and a family business, therefore reluctant to share with others.