Alienation and Educational “Third Space”: English Learning and Uyghur Subject Formation in Xinjiang, China

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2018, this article examines how Uyghurs, a Turkic‐speaking ethnic minority in China, found ways to excel in English language learning despite efforts by the national education system to focus their training in Chinese, the language of the colonizer. It argues that the alienation that resulted from the devaluation of Uyghur knowledge and nonstandard Chinese usage pushed Uyghur students to embody expanded subjectivities in a “third space” of English learning. It concludes with a discussion of how an internment camp system has foreclosed this space of limited autonomy for Uyghur students since 2017.