Old ‘counter-revolution’, new ‘terrorism’ : historicizing the framing of violence in Xinjiang by the Chinese state

China has declared a war on terrorism in Xinjiang, identifying violence in the region as a top security threat. However, what nowadays is officially constructed as ‘terrorism’ was framed as ‘counter-revolution’ in the past. Informed by the concept of macrosecuritization and the agenda of critical terrorism studies, this article examines the changing nature of Chinese state framing of violence in Xinjiang. Through a comparative analysis of the discursive construction of the Baren (1990) and Maralbeshi (2013) violent incidents, I find that the terror lexicon has replaced old narratives of counter-revolution to legitimize a sustained crackdown under a novel geopolitical context. The construction of violence in Xinjiang as terrorism, I argue, is contingent, limited and unstable. It marginalizes factors other than an extremist or separatist agency in the incubation of the violence, in particular the frictions created by the crackdown with which the Chinese government is trying to placate the unrest

Making sense of terrorism : a narrative approach to the study of violent events

How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approach to the study of violent events offers a conceptually productive way to understand the process of “seeing” an event as a terrorist act, one that explicitly integrates the phenomenology of violence. While the collective practice of defining terrorism in academia and the policy arena has struggled to produce a universal definition, we identify a set of “common sense” characteristics. We argue that if the framing of violent events prominently features these characteristics as discursive anchors, this primes processes of sensemaking toward interpreting violence as terrorism. While terrorism markers are often articulated as being pragmatic and apolitical indicators of terrorist acts, we show that they are indeed at the core of political contests over historical and physical facts about violent events. The narrative approach we develop in this article underscores that intuitive leanings toward interpreting violence as terrorism are a sign of political agency precisely because they are produced through the stories political agents tell

Impaired, "easy prey" saved by the she-empowering state : official narratives of "Xinjiang women" in China's "People's War on Terror"

This work was supported by the British Academy [Grant Number PF20_100052].Feminist approaches to international security have revealed persistent gendered stereotypes in the construction of women in contexts of political violence and terrorism, including the Global War on Terror. Acknowledging the parallelism with the United States-led enterprise in its endeavor to “save” a female population and re-posing one of the most significant questions in gender-informed security studies, this article asks “Where are the women in China’s ‘People’s War on Terror’ (PWoT)?” It takes the idea of agency as pivotal in answering this question and investigates how the Chinese state has (im)mobilized, through concealment or deployment, the idea of and potential for agency when positioning Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim women in Xinjiang as specific subjects in the context of the PWoT. The article reveals the establishment of a gendered hierarchy of power in the Chinese counterterrorism playbook, one that fixes “Xinjiang women” as securitized and passive victims in need of rescuing by a state that continues to suppress their agency, despite official claims to the contrary.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The terroristization of Xinjiang : violence, discourse and politics in China’s Uyghur region (1978-2018)

This thesis investigates how and with what consequences violent conflict in Xinjiang, as well as the Uyghur identity, religion, and the region more broadly, have become constituted as a terrorism problem for the Chinese state. To this aim, the thesis develops the concept of terroristization as an original analytical framework for the study of discursive construction of terrorism in non-Western historical contexts. Specifically, this approach integrates dominant scholarly definitions of terrorism as a materiality-informed discursive structure of knowledge that provides a background to, and influences, this process. The study explores the historical phenomenology of Xinjiang-related violence (1978-2018), the discursive patterns of the Chinese state representation of the conflict during this period, and the state security practices implemented in response to the tensions. The thesis shows how the Chinese state framing of violent conflict in Xinjiang gradually changed between the early years of the ‘reform and opening up’ era and the post-9/11 period, when narratives evolved from representing conflict in the region as the inevitable result of structural factors to portraying Xinjiang and the Uyghurs as a security threat and a terrorism problem. This narrative shift was accompanied by a government policy change from a moderate approach to a far-reaching anti-terrorism campaign in Xinjiang, which has recently led to a large number of extrajudicial detentions of members of the ethnic Uyghur minority in re-education camps. Through its in-depth historical-analytical empirical investigation, the study reveals that the discursive change towards the systematic use of the terrorist jargon after 9/11 to represent violence in Xinjiang by the Chinese state is linked less to the materiality of violent events and more to broader socio-political developments, thereby calling into question the rationale behind China’s ‘war on terror’. Overall, the research increases our understanding of how security narratives are interwined with, but not determinated by, the phenomenology of violent events, and it illustrates how pre-existing structures of signification can foster terroristization processes. I argue, in summary, that if political agents employ a terrorism repertoire to represent violent events, this is a sign of agency and choice that holds meaning and matter together through terrorism discourse rather than being dictated by the material features of violence

Double-zero degeneracy and heteroclinic cycles in a perturbation of the Lorenz system

In this paper we consider a 3D three-parameter unfolding close to the normal form of the triple-zero bifurcation exhibited by the Lorenz system. First we study analytically the double-zero degeneracy (a double-zero eigenvalue with geometric multiplicity two) and two Hopf bifurcations. We focus on the more complex case in which the double-zero degeneracy organizes several codimension-one singularities, namely transcritical, pitchfork, Hopf and heteroclinic bifurcations. The analysis of the normal form of a Hopf-transcritical bifurcation allows to obtain the expressions for the corresponding bifurcation curves. A degenerate double-zero bifurcation is also considered. The theoretical information obtained is very helpful to start a numerical study of the 3D system. Thus, the presence of degenerate heteroclinic and homoclinic orbits, T-point heteroclinic loops and chaotic attractors is detected. We find numerical evidence that, at least, four curves of codimension-two global bifurcations are related to the triple-zero degeneracy in the system analyzed.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MTM2017-87915-C2-1-PMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades - Fondos FEDER PGC2018-096265-B-I0Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo - Junta de Andalucía FQM-276, TIC-0130, UHU-1260150 y P20_0116

Uncertainty quantification and predictability of wind speed over the Iberian Peninsula

During recent decades, the use of probabilistic forecasting methods has increased markedly. However, these predictions still need improvement in uncertainty quantification and predictability analysis. For this reason, the main aim of this paper is to develop tools for quantifying uncertainty and predictability of wind speed over the Iberian Peninsula. To achieve this goal, several spread indexes extracted from an ensemble prediction system are defined in this paper. Subsequently, these indexes were evaluated with the aim of selecting the most appropriate for the characterization of uncertainty associated to the forecasting. Selection is based on comparison of the average magnitude of ensemble spread (ES) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). MAPE is estimated by comparing the ensemble mean with wind speed values from different databases. Later, correlation between MAPE and ES was evaluated. Furthermore, probability distribution functions (PDFs) of spread indexes are analyzed to select the index with greater similarity to MAPE PDFs. Then, the spread index selected as optimal is used to carry out a spatiotemporal analysis of model uncertainty in wind forecasting. The results indicate that mountainous regions and the Mediterranean coast are characterized by strong uncertainty, and the spread increases more rapidly in areas affected by strong winds. Finally, a predictability index is proposed for obtaining a tool capable of providing information on whether the predictability is higher or lower than average. The applications developed may be useful in the forecasting of wind potential several days in advance, with substantial importance for estimating wind energy production

Discontinuation of low dose aspirin and risk of myocardial infarction: case-control study in UK primary care

Objectives To evaluate the risk of myocardial infarction and death from coronary heart disease after discontinuation of low dose aspirin in primary care patients with a history of cardiovascular events

Strict Anatomical Colocalization of Vitiligo and Elastolytic Granulomas

Vitiligo is the most common depigmenting disorder, with a worldwide occurrence of 0.1-2% in the general population. Multiple conditions have been described colocalized in vitiligo patches, like psoriasis or lichen planus. However, actinic granuloma has not been described in association with vitiligo lesions so far