Oil and Water

Being Han in Xinjiang

Cliff Tom

For decades, China's Xinjiang region has been the site of clashes between long-residing Uyghur and Han settlers. Up until now, scholars of China have focused primarily on state actions and Uyghur efforts to resist cultural and economic repression. This has left the other half of the puzzle – the motivations and ambitions of Han settlers themselves – sorely understudied. With "Oil and Water", anthropologist Tom Cliff offers the first ethnographic study of Han in Xinjiang, using in-depth vignettes, oral histories, and over fifty original photographs to explore how and why they became the people they are now. By shifting focus to the lived experience of ordinary Han settlers, "Oil and Water" provides an entirely new perspective on Chinese nation-building in the twenty-first century and demonstrates the vital role that Xinjiang Han play in national politics – not simply as Beijing's pawns, but as individuals pursuing their own survival and dreams on the frontier.

About the Author

Tom Cliff is an anthropologist based at the Australian National University.

Reviews

"In his beautifully written and photographed book, Cliff uses personal narratives of self-segregated Han residents of Korla, an oil town in Xinjiang, to help us see this contested region of China through a fresh set of eyes. The literal and figurative use of "oil and water" to stand for the differences and divisions within the Han community, as well as the basis of Han political and economic power, is particularly well chosen" – Thomas Gold, University of California, Berkeley

"I am deeply impressed by Cliff's commitment to the Xinjiang region and by his capacity to describe complex social change and political systems with such detail and fluency. Cliff is a scholar but also a wise observer of a multiethnic region that lives in contradiction. 'Oil and Water' is also eminently readable. It is illustrated by Cliff's own photographs, which brilliantly capture lives that are lived in both stasis and uncertainty, a condition that is embodied in the landscape" – Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, University of Liverpool

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