The Long Arm of Assimilation: Uyghurs and Native Americans' Experiences with Genocide

This thesis investigates the continuity and evolution of settler colonialism through a comparative analysis of assimilation practices, drawing on Patrick Wolfe's theory of the "logic of elimination"-the systemic erasure of Indigenous peoples via cultural assimilation, physical extermination, and legal means. Focusing specifically on assimilation as a central mechanism of settler colonialism, the study compares the experiences of Native Americans at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the United States (1879-1918) and Uyghurs subjected to "re-education" camps in China, particularly the Konasheher facility (since 2014). The central research question asks: What are the different methods of elimination operating through assimilation camps that serve to erase the existence of Indigenous peoples, specifically Native Americans in the U.S. (1879-1918) and Uyghurs in China (since 2014)? Methodologically, the thesis employs close reading to analyze a range of primary sources. For the U.S. case, these include Indigenous memoirs, legal documents, letters from Carlisle, and contemporary reports. For the Chinese case, the analysis draws on leaked government documents, internal state speeches, security plans, photographs, a Uyghur memoir, and satellite imagery. Beyond exploring settler colonial strategies, the thesis centers Indigenous and Uyghur resistance as counter-narratives, exposing the whiteness embedded in Settler Colonial Studies and foregrounding the persistence of Indigenous agency. The findings reveal that the assimilation of Native children functioned as a territorial strategy, facilitating settler expansion by replacing Indigenous identities with Euro-American ones aligned with settler norms such as the imposition of Western names, clothes, and standardization of education. In parallel, the study uncovers the political and ideological indoctrination of Uyghurs in re-education camps, enforced through mandatory loyalty pledges, patriotic songs, the confiscation of religious items, and the surveillance of daily life. Crucially, the thesis highlights the Chinese Communist Party's use of digital technologies-such as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) and biometric surveillance-to systematize and criminalize Uyghur identity. This technological assimilation supports a broader settler colonial agenda to urbanize Xinjiang and transform it into a Han-majority region. In doing so, the study expands existing frameworks of settler colonialism to account for emerging digital forms of elimination and state control and expands on Wolfe's theory of settler colonialism in a Global South context to contribute to the Eurocentrism of Settler Colonial Studies.