A Review of Darren Byler, Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022, 296 pp.

Abstract

This book explores the situation of the Uyghur population in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region through the prism of the influence of technology. The author uses the concept of terrorcapitalism to show the complexity of the Uyghur’s relations with the authorities and other ethnic groups, as well as with each other in everyday life. To do so, he identifies three processes through which Uyghur men have to go—digital exclusion, ethno-racial devaluation, and material dispossession. The author also suggests three ways of coping with life’s difficulties: friendship, minor politics, and subtraction.