Dr Jo Smith Finley joined Newcastle University in 2000 where she is Reader in Chinese Studies. Her research interests have included the evolution of identities among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, NW China, and in the Uyghur diaspora; strategies of symbolic resistance in Xinjiang; Uyghur women between Islamic revival and Chinese state securitization of religion; PRC counter-terrorism measures in Xinjiang as state terror; and political “re-education” in Xinjiang as (cultural) genocide. Dr Finley is the author of several publications, including ‘Why Scholars and Activists Increasingly Fear a Uyghur Genocide in Xinjiang’ in the Journal of Genocide Research; The Art of Symbolic Resistance: Uyghur Identities and Uyghur-Han Relations in Contemporary Xinjiang and ‘Securitization, Insecurity and Conflict in Contemporary Xinjiang: Has PRC Counter-Terrorism Evolved into State Terror?’ in the Central Asian Survey, and co-editor of ‘Language, Education and Uyghur Identity in Urban Xinjiang and Situating the Uyghurs Between China and Central Asia’. Jo additionally writes op-eds for international media based on her three decades of expertise in Uyghur studies and gives frequent interviews to investigative journalists, documentary filmmakers, and radio and television broadcasters. She serves as an expert country witness in Uyghur asylum cases in the UK, Europe, the US and Canada, and advises legal firms, refugee support organizations, government departments, non-governmental organizations and think tanks.
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