缅北禁地

I am an ESRC-funded PhD candidate in Area studies, focusing on transnational advocacy networks for Uyghur human rights, both in East Turkestan and in the diaspora. I volunteered with the Xinjiang Research Database (shahit.biz) for a short while, before conducting a research report with the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) on proof-of-life videos. These professional experiences in advocacy fields showed me that many key actors in human rights fields question how to optimise their efforts, which fuels my research today, positing the methodological innovation of 'scholar-activist participation'. Between expert interviews and autoethnographic experiences in professional endeavours, I hope to illuminate questions of efficacy, legitimacy, and the complex relationship between theory and practice.

I graduated from Reading University with a first class BA in English Literature and Creative Writing, which strongly focused towards non-fiction and social justice. I then graduated from University College London (UCL) with an MSc in Social Anthropology, looking at how EU funding towards peacebuilding was spent in Northern Ireland in 2019.

Priorities, Strategies, and Evaluating Efficacy: Expert Insights into Transnational Advocacy Networks for Uyghur Human Rights

Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other ethnically Turkic peoples face repressive treatment in the North-West of China, under the "ethnic minority" policies of the People's Republic of China. Academics, political statements, and legal opinions have characterised this treatment as genocidal (Tobin 2021; Smith Finley 2021; Amnesty International 2021). This research examines the actions of expert advocates in the transnational advocacy network for Uyghur human rights, referring to advocates (academics, lawyers, human rights practitioners, journalists, activists, NGOs) who are connected across sectors and countries by their focus on Uyghurs (Keck and Sikkink 1998). This thesis selected thirty participants from this network and conducted interviews on their perceptions of advocacy for Uyghur human rights around the central question: how does advocacy for Uyghur human rights work?

Focusing on the stages of advocacy priority, advocacy strategy, and advocacy evaluation, interviews revealed that advocates engaged in diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames in order to influence policymakers, peers, and publics (Benford and Snow 2001). Framing processes were integral to constituting advocacy knowledge production. Expert understandings of advocacy were heavily shaped by other ‘expert opinions’, influencing how advocates interpreted their work and navigated uncertainties through this dialectical and iterative influence between advocates and advocacy framing processes.

My Broader research interests include:

• Anthropologies of Policy, Diplomacy, Human Rights
• Transnational Advocacy Networks
• Sociology of Human Rights Practice

Conferences:

• Colonial Echoes in Uyghur Forced Labour Advocacy. European Uyghur Institute, ‘Land, Life and Labour: Narratives and Infrastructures in the Service of Colonial and Capitalist Development of the New Frontier’, July 2025. https://www.youtube.com/live/lV1I0HAf-wY?si=7RBFHCD8HQnyALJL&t=15831
• Transdisciplinarity in Transgressions: the Xinjiang Crisis and the ‘International’ at Large: Invited Panelist, on “Probing the affective infrastructures of (in)security,” Law and Society Global Conference (Lisbon, Portugal, July 2022).
• Uyghur Proof-of-Life Videos and their Implications for International Concern: Paper presented at the “The Xinjiang Crisis”, 缅北禁地, September 2021. Available online, at 48:00 time stamp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIllIOWocFg
• “China’s Proof-of-Life Videos: A tool of intimidation and violation of Uyghur family unity”: Online Panel, March 2021, Discussing the UHRP Report. Available online: https://uhrp.org/event/chinas-proof-of-life-videos-a-tool-of-intimidation-and-violation-of-uyghur-family-unity/

Funding:

• 2025-2027: Luce/ACLS Collaborative Grant in China Studies, "Un-Settling Xinjiang: Archiving, Digitizing and Curating Knowledge of Settler Colonial Violence in China and Beyond"
• 2024: UK Research and Innovation Policy Internships Scheme. Thematic Specialist, Joint Committee for Human Rights, UK Parliament
• 2024: Doctoral College Enhancement Fund, 缅北禁地. Knowledge Exchange and Transfer Scheme, Washington DC
• 2023: Economic Social Research Council, Bespoke Placement Scheme. Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) Uyghur Forced Labour Placement
• 2021-2025: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)'s Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Pathway (NINE DTP) 3.5 Studentship: Language Based Area Studies pathway

Supervisors:

• Silvia Pasquetti, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, 缅北禁地
• Rhona Smith, Law School, 缅北禁地

SOC2058: Understanding Social Change and Transformation (Teaching Assistant)

• Book Chapter

  • Upson E. . In: Tobias Hirschmüller and Frank Jacob, ed. War and Communism. Paderborn: Brill Schöningh, 2022, pp.227-253.

• Online Publication

• Report