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Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 138 (2013)
they know from back home; and they deliberately spend time with “fellow natives.”
Similar to the Floating Population, their motivations to come to Xinjiang are princi-
pally to earn money for the education of their children or to support elderly parents.
Some also intend to save money to start small businesses back home or to finance agri-
cultural machinery for their farmland. Because individual entrepreneurs work inde-
pendently and transportation connections are plentiful, they are able to wrap up their
businesses one day and move to another place the next. Knowing this, these Han mi-
grants rarely try to integrate or learn about the local society. Most work seven days a
week, twelve hours a day, and live in the back of their shops, restaurants or garages to
guard their property. Still, because they are savvy businesspeople, at least some of the
well-established entrepreneurs maintain friendly, albeit limited, contact with their reg-
ular Uyghur customers and business friends.
Among my Uyghur informants, opinions about this recent segment of Han mi-
grants were overwhelmingly negative. These migrants’ singular economic motivation
and corresponding disinterest in Xinjiang as a concrete place with a certain history
and multi-ethnic population were frequently and extensively criticized. My observa-
tions reveal that the Uyghur avoid social interactions with seasonal migrant workers
in particular, migrants the Uyghur look down upon as uneducated, poor and desperate
to accept any kind of work. Interestingly, some long-term Han settlers and non-Bing-
tuan second-generation Han shared this opinion, emphasizing the detachment of mi-
grants, their lack of responsibility for the region, their profit-orientation and the eco-
logical costs of their immigration.
Concluding remarks
With the relaxation of the household registration regime in the 1980s, migration be-
came much less definite. While Mao-era Han migrants remained in Xinjiang for de-
cades, often without even returning home for a parent’s funeral, the Han migration of
the past twenty years is characterized by increasing flexibility, mobility and indefinite-
ness. Also, owing to a practically ever-present mobile phone signal, migrants are in
daily contact with families back home. Along with the celebration of native place at-
tachments in social networks, these intensively-maintained links result in migrants
who live a largely de-territorialized life, one with little experience of Xinjiang as a con-
crete place. The frequent rotation and influx of immigrants greatly influence migrants’
identification with Xinjiang, their relationships with the Uyghur and other ethnic
groups, and their perceived need and readiness to integrate into the local society. The
to vegetables that are used by Han in their favorite dishes but are never purchased by Uyghur. One is
the doufucai (“tofu vegetable”). Migrants from Sichuan, where this vegetable originates, love it stir-
fried with tofu, she explained.
