Ecotourism as Racial Capitalism

Abstract China’s Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) designated the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as a major up-and-coming tourist destination part of programme called ‘Ecological Civilisation’ ( shengtai wenming 生态文明 ). As crackdown on Turkic Muslims accelerated from 2017 onwards, more and villages places which Kazakhs other pastoralist communities had been displaced in name ‘ecological migration’ were branded locations for tourists to appreciate ‘nature’ ‘folklore’. This essay analyses land expropriation labour injustice at these ecotourism sites angle colonial racial capitalism shows that expansion ecological China remains hinged production brutal economic inequalities cycles vulnerability among racialised minoritised bodies.