Quality, Development Discourse, and Minority Subjectivity in Contemporary Xinjiang
The government discourse that describes poverty in a minority nationality county in northern Xinjiang follows specific patterns. The term “quality” (suzhi) is used to attribute the roots of poverty to residents themselves as well as to legitimate official poverty-alleviation and market-development strategies. This official use of suzhi discourse attempts to constitute a particular kind of subjectivity within China’s market economy but obscures local forms of exclu sion and adaptation to market reform. Indeed, suzhi discourse often refers to adaptations that, rather than holding back local residents from development, are survival strategies. Thus, local agency can be seen in counter-discourses that attribute poverty not simply to their suzhi but to their lack of wage-paying employment.
