Activities per year
Abstract
What we in this article describe as “Sino-Muslim heritage literacies” have existed in China for as long as there have been Muslims in the region (since the 7th century according to the best evidence). The community's religious and heritage literacy practices can incorporate a systematic Arabic representation of Chinese, systems of Chinese characters representing Arabic pronunciation, and more contemporary digitalised manifestations of heritage literacy in everyday life. Using a social practice approach to literacy, this paper reports on multigenerational interviews, artefact collection, and ethnographic observations with two families in Xi'an (Shaanxi, China) to explore how heritage literacy practices maintain a presence in Sino-Muslim life through traditional systems of community and religious education and contemporary social and material networks. We discuss what these empirical cases reveal about literacies in Sino-Muslim religious life, with respect to how heritage is adapted or diminished across generations. We also argue that it is crucial to situate Sino-Muslim heritage literacy in spaces beyond rigid and state-defined ethnic and religious discourses which tend to confine the identity of Sino-Muslims into officially designated categories. Doing so, we contend, has useful theoretical and methodological import, and can shed light on inquiry about heritage literacy in other minority settings.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 77-101 |
Number of pages | 25 |
Journal | International Journal of the Sociology of Language |
Volume | 2023 |
Issue number | 281 |
Early online date | 14 Oct 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:In this paper we discuss the first round of data collection for a research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, which examines Sino-Muslim heritage literacy in modern China. We offer a critical examination of heritage literacy practices in the everyday lives of two Sino-Muslim families based in Xi’an (Shaanxi Province, China): the Wang family, and the Chen family. We also explore how their religiously expressive heritage literacy practices occur at the interface between an authoritarian state which confines religious practice entirely through minority ethnic identity (shaoshu minzu; 少数民族) and its Muslim minority who have inherited and adapted literacy practices that are situated in heritage-related activities, and which are inherently translingual and transmodal in nature.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Keywords
- China
- heritage literacy
- Islam
- linguistic ethnography
- literacy studies
- Sino-Muslims
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
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Dive into the research topics of 'Everyday heritaging: Sino-Muslim literacy adaptation and alienation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Activities
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Heritage Literacy in the Lives of Chinese Muslims [invited in-person talk at University of Hong Kong]
Bhatt, I. (Invited speaker)
14 May 2024Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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A Semiotics of Muslimness in China [invited in-person talk at Lingnan University, Hong Kong SAR]
Bhatt, I. (Invited speaker)
29 Apr 2024Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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A Semiotics of Muslimness in China [invited talk at the Manchester China Institute & Manchester Museum]
Bhatt, I. (Invited speaker) & Wang, H. (Invited speaker)
20 Feb 2024Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk