Professor Rachel Harris

My research is centred on China and Central Asia, and especially on the Uyghurs. I have conducted fieldwork in Xinjiang, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan over a period of twenty years. I focus on intangible cultural heritage, music and Islam, soundscapes, and state projects of territorialisation. I work in applied ways with performance and transmission projects, including concerts, workshops, and recording projects.

I have fifteen years’ experience of teaching and doctoral supervision in the discipline of ethnomusicology, and I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students. My most recent book is Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam (IUP 2020), and my most recent edited volume is Ethnographies of Islam in China (U Hawaii 2020). I co-edited the journal Ethnomusicology Forum between 2004 and 2007, and I am currently series editor for the Routledge SOAS Studies in Music Series.

I was principal investigator on the AHRC network (2013-15) and Leverhulme Research Project (2014-2017) ‘Sounding Islam in China’. The project involved collaborative field research with local communities and researchers in selected Sounding Islam in China and a series of publications including the edited volume Ethnographies of Islam in China. My latest monograph Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam focuses on the Uyghur Islamic revival, using sound as a key medium through which to understand the experience of faith, patterns of religious change, political tensions and violence.

Earlier books include Singing the Village, 2004, which explores the experience of the descendants of a Manchu garrison under the People’s Republic of China, and issues of identity, change, and the musical construction of place. My second monograph (The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia, 2008) considers nationalist projects of canonisation, and the transformation of local traditions into national repertoires. I have published on the transnational circulation of popular musical styles including reggae, flamenco and Hindi film music, and processes of digital mediation and identity formation across the Uyghur diaspora.

My current research project, the Uyghur Meshrep Project, supported by the British Academy Sustainable Development Fund (2018-2021), works to document and revitalise expressive culture and promote sustainable development amongst Uyghur communities in Kazakhstan. I am involved with advocacy initiatives for Uyghur rights, and I regularly contribute to blogs (for example, the Xinjiang Data Project) and engage with media reporting on Xinjiang.