Mark Chuanhang Shan

A Brief Narrative of the Historical and Geographic Attributes of the Uyghur Identity Mark Chuanhang Shan

This paper is a slightly modified excerpt from chapters one and two of my PhD thesis: The Historical Uyghur Identity and its Attributes from Kocho Civilization and East-Syriac Christianity, submitted on July 31, 2018 in the English version. Through a historical anthropology approach coupled with religious studies, engaging carefully in textual analysis of the original historical records, the thesis uses the five-dimensional attributes system of geography, history, ethnicity, religion and civilization for constructing an identity to explore the historical evolution of the Uyghur ethnic identity, with the hope of offering to the Uyghurs who live in Xinjiang, China an alternative narrative of their identity.