ALESSANDRO RIPPA discusses the state of Xinjiang studies, anthropological field work, the Uighur community in Pakistan, and the challenges of conducting research in China.
Alessandro Rippa is pursuing his PhD at the University of Aberdeen. He studies China’s western regions and is an expert on Uyghur issues. He is also the assistant editor of The South Asianist. He visited Xinjiang in 2009 for six months and again in 2011 for two months. More recently, he conducted a 11-month field work trip from 2012 to 2013 in both Pakistan and Xinjiang for his PhD, where he researched the Karakoram Highway, transnational trade, and the Uyghur community of Pakistan.