5. Listening In on Uyghur Wedding Videos: Piety, Tradition, and Self-Fashioning

Abstract

This chapter is based on a mini-research project on Uyghur wedding videos, part of the larger "Sounding Islam in China" project which explored changes in religious ideology and practice across China primarily through the medium of sound. 1 It was conceived and carried out in 2014-16, a period when the crackdown on what the Chinese government termed "religious extremism" was beginning to tighten its grip on all aspects of life for Uyghurs in Xinjiang. In order to stay within the boundaries of acceptable research in China, the authors endeavoured to find the least "sensitive" topic they could that might still cast some light on changing religious sensibilities and practices in this period. In spite of these efforts to accommodate our research to the shifting government line, Rahile Dawut was detained without charge in December 2017, and she remains incarcerated as this volume goes to press. The final write-up and any mistakes are thus the sole responsibility of Rachel Harris. The editors of this volume have decided to publish this chapter as a co-authored piece although Rahile Dawut has not been able to see the final edit, as we felt it important to continue to give her voice a platform on the international stage. Although this chapter arises from a minor aspect of her research, we believe that it now has extra value because of the way that it demonstrates the exemplary moderation of her scholarship, and her efforts This is the version of the chapter accepted for publication in Harris, Rachel and Ha, Guangtian and Jaschok, Maria, (eds.), Ethnographies of Islam in China. Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press (2020).