Darren Byler

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Darren Byler is an American anthropologist and author. He is an associate professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. [1] Byler specializes in the Uyghurs in China and has written about the ongoing oppression of the ethnic group in China, such as through the Xinjiang internment camps. [2]

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Byler has a BA in History & Visual Journalism from Kent State University, an MA in East Asian Studies from Columbia University, and a PhD in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of Washington. [3] Prior to joining Simon Fraser University, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Colorado. [4]

Byler has worked as an advisor with faculty members and researchers at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University to build the Xinjiang Documentation Project, a project that documents the persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. [3] [5] His research has been supported by Columbia University's Global Reports series and a Luce Foundation and American Council of Learned Societies Early Career Fellowship. [3] His book Terror Capitalism received the 2023 Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. [6] He was also co-awarded the 2023 Gregory Bateson Award from the Society for Cultural Anthropology. [7]

Byler has been frequently attacked by Chinese state media, who have accused him of being an agent of the United States government, which Byler has denied. These attacks have pressured an academic publisher to issue a minor correction to an editorial that he published. [8] The Global Times , one such state-run outlet, has accused Byler of being an anti-China figure who makes "fabricated" allegations about genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. [9]

Books

References

  1. Ayed, Nahlah (17 February 2022). "China's high-tech repression of Uyghurs is more sinister — and lucrative — than it seems, anthropologist says". CBC Radio One . Retrieved 17 February 2022.
  2. Goldkorn, Jeremy (16 December 2021). "What is happening in Xinjiang as 2021 draws to a close?". SupChina. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "Darren Byler - School for International Studies - Simon Fraser University". www.sfu.ca.
  4. Byler, Darren; Sanchez Boe, Caroline (24 July 2020). "Tech-enabled 'terror capitalism' is spreading worldwide. The surveillance regimes must be stopped". The Guardian . Retrieved 17 February 2022.
  5. Byler, Darren (23 October 2021). "China's internment camps in Xinjiang are a horror. Survivors and participants alike must reconcile with the truth". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  6. "Darren T. Byler to receive the Margaret Mead Award for 2023". Society for Applied Anthropology . Retrieved 17 September 2025.
  7. "Jafari Allen, Darren Byler, and Maya Mikdashi Awarded the 2023 Gregory Bateson Book Prize". Society for Cultural Anthropology . Retrieved 17 September 2025.
  8. Byler, Darren. "Article Correction: Producing the Uyghur "Terrorist-Worker" through Digital Surveillance in Northwest China". Anthropology Now. doi:10.1080/19428200.2025.2458426.
  9. Todd, Douglas (2022-08-11). "Douglas Todd: SFU prof targeted by China for groundbreaking Uyghur research". Vancouver Sun . Retrieved 2022-08-14.
  10. Forth, Aidan (November 8, 2021). "Settler Colonialism Meets the War on Terror: The Enclosure of China's Uyghurs". Los Angeles Review of Books.
  11. "Two new books shed light on the plight of the Uyghurs". The Economist. October 28, 2021.
  12. Byler, Darren; Franceschini, Ivan; Loubere, Nicholas, eds. (2022). Xinjiang Year Zero. ANU Press. doi: 10.22459/XYZ.2021 . ISBN   9781760464943.