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Staff Profile

Emily Upson

Postgraduate Research Student

Background

I am an ESRC-funded PhD candidate in Area studies, the ultimate interdisciplinary field. My research focuses on transnational advocacy networks that work to improve human rights in Xinjiang, China. I volunteered with the Xinjiang Research Database (shahit.biz) for a short while, before conducting a research report with the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) on proof-of-life videos. These professional experiences in advocacy fields showed me that many key actors in human rights fields question how to optimise their efforts, which fuels my research today.

I graduated from Reading University with a first class BA in English Literature and Creative Writing, which strongly focused towards non-fiction and social justice. I then graduated from University College London (UCL) with an MSc in Social Anthropology, looking at how EU funding towards peacebuilding was spent in Northern Ireland in 2019.

Research


Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other ethnically Turkic people face repressive treatment in Xinjiang, determined to be a genocide by the Uyghur Tribunal in London (9 December 2021). This people’s tribunal, set up by Geoffrey Nice QC, saw testimony from victims, academics, lawyers, and human rights practitioners. All of these actors have unique perceptions of the priorities for advocates, both in terms of identifying the most pressing problems, and pursuing the most effective solutions for change-making.

My PhD thesis investigates transnational advocacy networks for human rights in Xinjiang. This research fundamentally asks, how can we prevent atrocities in Xinjiang? Which approaches would be most effective? Within professional spheres, many actors have their own speculations about potential causation between advocacy outputs and policy change on the ground, yet these theories are by necessity inductive. This research adopts a creative, inductive methodology, that begins with problem-centred expert interviews of key stakeholders across sectors and countries. How do advocacy efforts strategize together on the most effective tools for influencing PRC oppression, and how might we know if their attempts to change PRC policy is successful?


My Broader research interests include:

  • Anthropologies of Peacebuilding, Conflict, and Diplomacy
  • Transnational Advocacy Networks
  • Human Rights and Multilateral Organisations


Conferences:

  • Transdisciplinarity in Transgressions: the Xinjiang Crisis and the ‘International’ at Large: Invited Panelist, on “Probing the affective infrastructures of (in)security,” Law and Society Global Conference (Lisbon, Portugal, July 2022).
  • Uyghur Proof-of-Life Videos and their Implications for International Concern: Paper presented at the “The Xinjiang Crisis”, Newcastle University, September 2021. Available online, at 48:00 time stamp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIllIOWocFg
  • “China’s Proof-of-Life Videos: A tool of intimidation and violation of Uyghur family unity”: Online Panel, March 2021, Discussing the UHRP Report. Available online: https://uhrp.org/event/chinas-proof-of-life-videos-a-tool-of-intimidation-and-violation-of-uyghur-family-unity/


Funding:

  • 2021-2025: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)'s Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Pathway (NINE DTP) 3.5 Studentship: Language Based Area Studies pathway


Supervisors:

  • Jo Smith Finley, School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University
  • Silvia Pasquetti, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University
  • Rhona Smith, Law School, Newcastle University





Teaching

SOC2058: Understanding Social Change and Transformation (Teaching Assistant)

Publications