From the “Peripheries” to the Center: Journeys between Mecca and China | A Lecture by Dr. Janice Jeong

From the “Peripheries” to the Center: Journeys between Mecca and China
A Lecture by Dr. Janice Jeong

December 5 | 6 PM
SFU Harbour Centre

The field of Islam in China has been described as occupying the double peripheries of both Chinese and Islamic studies. Relatedly, Muslim communities in China tend to be perceived as peripheral, marginal, and minority actors. How does relying on Mecca – the central spatial and temporal anchor for Muslims worldwide – change this paradigm? This lecture turns to the histories of Chinese Muslim (Hui) diasporic engagements with Mecca, in ways real and imagined: prior to the twentieth century, through the construction of local substitutes, and repetition of narratives on figurative Mecca; from the early twentieth century, by making the actual journeys to and from the city for spiritual and political purposes. Such routes to and from Mecca could also turn into paths of exile during wartime, leading to the creation of multi-generational Chinese Muslim communities in the western coasts of the Arabian Peninsula. By tracing the figurative and literal journeys of strands of Chinese Muslims between Mecca and their homes in China, the lecture proposes a way to reverse the cartographies and categories of the center and the peripheries, and to widen the social space of “minority” ethno-religious communities.