Space, place and ethnic identity in the Xinjiang Regional Museum

This chapter examines the representations of Xinjiang's nationalities and regional history in the Xinjiang Regional Museum. In examining how the region's nationalities and regional history are presented in the museum, the chapter intersects with other works that have explored ethnicity and the contested histories of the region. However, rather than presenting an historical overview of the region, this chapter analyses what constitutes the official narrative of the region's nationalities and history, and if/how this representation has taken the form of a re-imagining of Xinjiang's people and its history. Finally, it considers to what extremes representations of minority histories provide an insight into the wider lived experience of minority nationalities in Xinjiang, and where they are situated in contemporary imaginings of the Chinese state and nationalism.