Substantive editing sample 58:
Dispute resolution in China

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This paper analyzes dispute resolution practices among Chinese Muslim minorities (Hui) in Northwest China that are produced at the interstices between a secular socialist legal system and an unofficial Islamic legal order. Recent findings in the study of law and religion (Kuru 2009; Stepan 2011; Fox and Akbaba 2013) and the anthropology of Islam (Asad 2003; Mahmood 2005; Agrama 2012) have shifted understandings of secularism from one of neutrality (i.e., “the separation of church and the state”) to one that actively shapes the form religion takes and vice versa. This paper extends these insights to argue that secularism operates on religious law and its authorities to different effects. Ethnographic data from China shows that whereas, on the one hand, the secular state has sought to institutionally and discursively severe Muslim leaders from the practice of Islamic law,1 on the other hand, the local Party-State has become dependent on the charisma of such religious elite for purposes of its rule. Such dependence has allowed a “backdoor” for Islamic law practice, although it is a legal order that has no official status in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Distinctions between “formal” law and “informal” law, especially religious law, become taken for granted in the context of nation-building projects and secularist imaginaries. Instead, secular state law manages Islamic law through a variety of impositions, such as denying it legal grounds or mobilizing it for socialist rule. This process draws attention to partnerships between secular states and Muslim communities in the post-9/11 order and, more broadly, provides grounds for rethinking assumptions of power that underlie socio-legal conceptualizations of “state” as opposed to “popular” forms of justice.

In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, governments have engaged the leaders of Muslim minority communities to address a number of concerns from national security and terrorism to civil liberties and religious freedom (Emon 2007; Rohe 2007; An-Na'im 2008; Ramadan 2008; Fadel 2009; An-Na'im 2014). The majority of research related to such collaborations take place in Western liberal states where there are perceived established norms for transparency, “rule of law,” and public accountability. This study takes as its point of departure an examination of such partnerships in an East Asian “authoritarian” state—the People’s Republic of China (PRC). As in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, in China, officials coordinate with Muslim leaders to problem-solve and handle conflicts. They do so, however, largely in a context of poorly implemented administrative law and weak procedural rights vis-à-vis the Party-State (O'Brien and Li 2005; Biddulph 2007; Lee 2007; Sapio 2010).

The study of dispute resolution among Hui falls at the intersection of multiple inquiries that constitute core agendas in socio-legal studies. One line of inquiry stems from studies of non-state forms of private ordering, alternately called “community/informal/popular justice,” informalization, or de-legalization (hereinafter, “informal law”) (Abel 1982; Harrington 1985; Hofrichter 1987; Merry and Milner 1993; Riles 2002). These processes, institutions, and norms are usually perceived as independent to the state and official law (Ellickson 1991; Bernstein 1992; Feldman 2006; Richman 2006). Under such orders, disputants apply informal norms or legal rules sometimes through third-party facilitation. A second set of inquiries has revolved around alternative dispute resolution (ADR), a concept which encompasses a broad array of practices but which all differ from adjudication, such as community-based mediation defined as the facilitation of joint decision-making by a third-party in a non-binding forum (Roberts and Palmer 2005, 156). Since the 1960s, ADR has gained traction in the U.S. and other postindustrial Western states. While informal law and ADR may overlap in the forms they assume, as Marc Galanter has pointed out, they have different relations toward the official legal system: the former is deemed as irreconcilable with state law and the latter may be integrated into the official system (1974, 124-135). The proponents of informal law and ADR, nonetheless, share arguments. Both are seen as a means to increase access to justice and lower caseloads for overworked court systems (see e.g., Sander 1979).

Legal reformers have sought to integrate ADR into official legal orders, both domestically through instituted court-appended mediation as well as internationally in developing countries (Galanter 1985; Nader and Grande 2002; Senft and Savage 2003; Roberts and Palmer 2005, 7; Cohen 2006). Beginning in the 1980s, however, socio-legal scholars have questioned some of the assumptions behind the popularization of ADR by arguing that it marginalizes the very populations it is designed to support (Merry and Silbey 1984; Nader 1991). Critics view governments’ co-optation of informal mechanisms as productive of power inequalities (Santos 1980; Fiss 1984; Luban 1988; Roberts 1993). Data from China confirms the state’s attempt to rein in non-state dispute resolution mechanisms, but shows co-dependence instead of hegemony.

Dispute resolution in Hui communities blurs the distinction between informal law and community-based mediation. Clerics mediate inter-personal problems among their followers in accordance with Islamic law. While state socialist law is anathema to Islamic law, nonetheless, the Party-State, through a variety of arrangements, has incorporated clerics and other Hui leaders into the lowest rungs of the legal-juridical bureaucracy. Such arrangements are far from facile, however. There are conflicts of law between Islamic law and PRC state law that may find expression in the process of dispute resolution. I call Hui leaders who collaborate with officials and cadres “Muslim mandarins.” I use the term “mandarin,” most familiar in the imperial Qing context, as a modern analogue to underscore Muslim leaders’ administrative relationship to the state bureaucracy. Muslim mandarins include clerics, Sufi shaykhs (masters), Hui elders, teachers, and other mosque leaders.

Hui are frequently depicted as “good Muslims” as opposed to Uyghurs (Turkic Muslims), the “bad Muslims” (Wang 2013; Gardner 2014). In recent years, some Uyghurs have allegedly committed terroristic acts against the Party-State and the Han majority. Uyghurs consider the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (the “XUAR”) their homeland and have experienced more restrictions on religious practice, language, and cultural traditions. Hui, however, are geographically disbursed throughout China, speak mostly Mandarin, and have undergone a long process of adaptation to Chinese culture since the first Muslims arrived in China in the seventh century C.E. (Gladney 1996[1991]). The PRC is currently engaged in a crackdown against what it perceives as Islamic militants in the XUAR. Counterterrorism policies are aimed primarily at Uyghurs but such measures are over-inclusive and also affect Hui mobility both within the country and internationally. Hui, it should be stressed, are not mere lackeys. Their commitments to their communities may conflict with the dictates of the Party-State. Furthermore, they may use benefits derived from the Party-State to achieve goals counter to that of the regime, for example, spread consciousness of Islamic law.

While mediation in China has experienced vicissitudes under Party-State rule, recently, scholars have observed a ‘return’ to mediation and queried whether such informal law increases access to justice (Hand 2011). I take the experience of Hui using ADR-like mechanisms as an intervention in debates on informal law in China. One empirical site for the investigation of this relationship is so-called “Islamic ADR” or mediation that applies Islamic law (Shah 2010; Edge 2013; Keshavjee 2013). The integration of Islamic ADR into the formal state legal system has presented difficulties in secular states, based on presumed antinomies between Western liberalism and Islamic norms. In China, the relationship between people’s courts and Muslim leaders who mediate disputes in their communities has likewise proved onerous (Ma 2006; Bai 2011).

The remainder of this paper is organized into the following parts: First, I describe my methodology and data. I then provide a brief overview of informal law and ADR, specifically, mediation, in China and their relationship to the official legal system. I explain that religious leaders are enfolded into an expansive bureaucracy through personalistic relationships. Such leaders mediate between secular and religious legal orders through such positions. Third, I develop two extended case studies of processes I call the ‘informalization of adjudication’ and the ‘formalization of mediation’ that show the multiple functions of mediation that vary according to different Hui populations in Northwest China. The first process functions to diffuse conflicts between parties that may otherwise snowball into broader communal strife. The latter communicates the message of benign collaboration between cadres and clerics to non-elite Hui. Taken together, these processes show different examples of the secular project of delinking Muslim authority from Islamic law. Following the case studies, I provide some tentative implications for the study of Muslim mandarins in secular security states.

METHODOLOGY

From 2009 to 2012, I conducted 19 months of intensive fieldwork, based in Linxia (imperial name Hezhou) in Gansu or what Hui call “China’s Little Mecca,” one of the great centers of Islam in China. In China, there are 10,586,087 Hui, most of whom are concentrated in Northwest China (Anon. 2013).2 By Northwest China, I refer principally to Gansu province, Qinghai province, and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (the “NHAR”). Linxia has a population of 274,466 people, slightly less than 50 percent of whom are Muslim (Province) 2012, 70-107). I also took data collection trips to Qinghai, the NHAR. In addition, I collected data from the XUAR, where Uyghurs reside, although this study is primarily focused on Hui. I gathered ethnographic data from different communities in Northwest China to compare diverse strategies of governance in Muslim areas.

In total, I conducted over 200 interviews, about half with Muslim mandarins and the other half with officials in legal, judicial, and public safety bureaus and cadres, as well as teachers, students, and merchants. I collected interviews by use of “snowball sampling” (Atkinson and Flint 2003; Bernard 2006), which extended my network of interlocutors through the social networks of individuals I had previously interviewed. The core data set of my study is the 34 mosques and the 23 main Sufi tomb complexes in Linxia.5 Interviews were semi-structured and whenever possible, more informal interviews were conducted as follow-up. I selected several influential Muslim mandarins, defined by their leadership at “administrative mosques”6 or Sufi tombs (where founders of orders are buried), to develop extended case studies.

GOVERNING LEGAL PLURALISM IN THE PRC

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Making Muslim Mandarins

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Mediating Legal Orders

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THE FORMALIZATION OF MEDIATION

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THE INFORMALIZATION OF ADJUDICATION

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SECULARISM AS SECURITIZATION: THE CHINA MODEL?

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WORKS CITED

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Stepan, Alfred. 2011. "The Multiple Secularisms of Modern Democratic and Non-Democratic Regimes". In Rethinking Secularism, ed. C. Calhoun, M. Juergensmeyer and J. VanAntwerpen, 114-144. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

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ENDNOTES

1 Islamic law is the common English translation for shari‘a, the legal and ethical system to which Muslims are beholden. It includes the Qur’ān and the Sunna, which takes the form of hadiths (reports) on the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad (Hallaq 2009).
2 According to the 2010 national census, there are a total of 23,142,104 Muslims in China, including ten officially recognized Muslim ethnic groups. The official number is most likely low, however, as it fails to consider Muslim Han and Muslim Tibetans, among other converts.
5 Interviews were conducted principally in Mandarin. As my proficiency in the local dialect (which incorporates Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Tibetan, Mongolian, and various other local dialects of Muslim ethnicities including Dongxiangyu and Salarhua) increased, I held conversations in Bafanghua.
6 This is a local Hui term, not a governmental designation. Administrative mosques are where members of smaller mosques go to attend the Friday prayer.…

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This paper analyzes dispute resolution practices among Chinese Muslim minorities (Hui) in minorities (in particular, the Hui people) [OK? You are restricting your discussion in this paper to this particular ethnic group--the Chinese-speaking Hui--as distinct from, for example, the Turkic Uyghur--yes?] in Northwest China that are produced at the interstices between a secular ["interstices" implies intervals or spaces, but you are referring to where the systems intersect] China, practices occurring where a secular socialist legal system and an unofficial system intersects with an unofficial Islamic legal order. Recent findings in the study of law and religion (Kuru 2009; Stepan 2011; Fox and Akbaba 2013) and the anthropology of Islam (Asad 2003; Mahmood 2005; Agrama 2012) have shifted understandings of secularism from one of neutrality (i.e., “the neutrality (e.g., “the separation of church and the state” and state”) to one that actively shapes the form religion form that religion takes and vice versa. This paper extends these insights to argue that secularism operates on to describe the different effects that secularism has on religious law and its authorities to different effects. Ethnographic authorities. [Let's put a paragraph break here--to give the reader some fresh air]

Ethnographic data from China shows that whereas, on the one hand, the secular state has sought to institutionally and discursively severe Muslim discursively sever Muslim leaders from the practice of Islamic law,1 on the other hand, the local Party-State has [New York Times style is "Party-state"] local Party-state has become dependent on the charisma of such religious elite for purposes of its of this religious elite to maintain its rule. Such dependence has allowed a has made possible a “backdoor” for Islamic law practice, although it is a legal order that has no official status although this practice has no official legal status in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). [Consistent with the journal's guidelines, "PRC" will be the term from this point onward] [Another paragraph break here aids readability]

Distinctions between “formal” law and “informal” law, especially religious law, become taken for granted in the context of nation-building projects and secularist imaginaries. Instead secularist inventions. [There is no such noun as "imaginaries"--does "inventions" capture your meaning? Or perhaps "dreams" or "fancies" or "fantasies"?] Instead, secular state law manages Islamic law through a variety of impositions, such as denying such as mobilizing it for socialist rule or denying it legal grounds or mobilizing it for socialist rule. This grounds. [I switched the order of the alternatives introduced by "such as" to match the order of the corresponding sections in your paper] This process draws attention to partnerships between secular states and Muslim communities in the post-9/11 order and, more broadly, provides grounds for rethinking assumptions of power that underlie socio-legal conceptualizations underlie sociolegal conceptualizations of “state” as opposed to “popular” forms of justice.

In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, governments have engaged the leaders of Muslim minority communities to address a number of concerns from national security and terrorism to civil liberties and religious freedom (Emon 2007; Rohe 2007; An-Na'im 2008 2007; An-Na‘im 2008; Ramadan 2008; Fadel 2009; An-Na'im 2014 2009; An-Na‘im 2014). The majority of research related to such collaborations take place collaborations has taken place in Western liberal states where states, where there are perceived established norms for transparency, “rule of law,” and public accountability. This study takes as its point of departure an examination of such study, however, examines [I have deleted extraneous "deadwood" words that muddy your thesis (e.g., "takes as its point of departure an examination of" can be distilled to "examines" with no loss of meaning and far better readability). I hope that is OK] such partnerships in an East Asian “authoritarian” state—the People’s Republic of China (PRC). As state—the PRC. As in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, in China, officials coordinate States, officials in China coordinate with Muslim leaders to problem-solve and to solve problems and handle conflicts. They do so, however, largely conflicts, but they do so largely in a context of poorly implemented administrative law and weak procedural rights vis-à-vis the Party-State (O'Brien and Party-state (O’Brien and Li 2005; Biddulph 2007; Lee 2007; Sapio 2010).

The study of dispute resolution among Hui falls at the intersection of multiple inquiries that constitute core agendas in socio-legal studies. One line of inquiry stems [The original sentence was unclear and vague; I really was unsure of what you were driving at; the study "falls" at an "intersection," and "inquiries" constitute "core agendas"? Is my revision OK?] among the Hui involves multiple lines of inquiry, one of which [I have switched the order of the two lines of inquiry, to match the order of the corresponding sections in your paper] revolves around alternative dispute resolution (ADR), [Consistent with University of Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) and the guidelines of the journal your article is submitted to, italic for this term at first instance; the abbreviation ADR will be used from this point onward] a concept that encompasses a broad array of practices, each differing from adjudication, practices such as community-based mediation, defined as the facilitation of joint decision making by a third party in a nonbinding forum (Roberts and Palmer 2005, 156). Since the 1960s, ADR has gained traction in the US and other postindustrial Western states.

A second set of inquiries stems from studies of non-state forms of nonstate forms of private ordering, alternately ordering—alternately called “community/informal/popular justice,” informalization, or de-legalization (hereinafter, “informal law”) (Abel or delegalization, but hereinafter termed “informal law” (Abel 1982; Harrington 1985; Hofrichter 1987; Merry and Milner 1993; Riles 2002). These processes These nonstate processes, institutions, and norms are usually perceived as independent to the independent of the state and official law (Ellickson 1991; Bernstein 1992; Feldman 2006; Richman Under such orders, disputants 2006); disputants apply informal norms or legal rules sometimes through third-party facilitation. A second set of inquiries has revolved around alternative dispute resolution (ADR), a concept which encompasses a broad array of practices but which all differ from adjudication, such as community-based mediation defined as the facilitation of joint decision-making by a third-party in a non-binding forum (Roberts and Palmer 2005, 156). Since the 1960s, ADR has gained traction in the U.S. and other postindustrial Western states. While informal law and ADR may overlap facilitation. [I put a paragraph break here; the following text deals with both ADR and informal law]

ADR and informal may overlap in the forms they assume, as assume, but as Marc Galanter has pointed out, they have different relations toward the relations with the official legal system: the former is deemed as irreconcilable with state law and the latter may be integrated into the official system (1974, 124-135). The system: the former may be integrated into the official system, but the latter is deemed as irreconcilable with state law (1974, 124–35). [Galanter 1974 in the reference list is restricted only to page 95] The proponents of informal law and ADR, nonetheless, share of ADR and informal law do share arguments. Both are seen as a means to increase access arguments, however. Each is considered a means for increasing access to justice and lower caseloads for overworked and for lowering caseloads in an overworked court systems (see e.g., Sander [The journal guidelines specifically prohibit "e.g." in cites] court system (see for example, Sander 1979).

Legal reformers have sought to integrate ADR into official legal orders, both domestically through instituted court-appended mediation instituted court-appointed [right?] mediation as well as internationally in developing countries (Galanter 1985; Nader and Grande 2002; Senft and Savage 2003; Roberts and Palmer 2005, 7; Cohen 2006). Beginning in the 1980s, however, socio-legal scholars however, sociolegal scholars have questioned some of the assumptions behind the assumptions underlying the popularization of ADR by arguing that it marginalizes the very populations it is designed it was designed to support (Merry and Silbey 1984; Nader 1991). Critics view governments’ co-optation 1991). These critics view government co-optation of informal mechanisms as productive of power as just another way to maintain power inequalities [Change OK here? "productive of" was somewhat obscure] (Santos 1980; Fiss 1984; Luban 1988; Roberts 1993). Data from China confirms the state’s attempt to rein in non-state dispute in nonstate dispute resolution mechanisms, but shows co-dependence instead of hegemony mechanisms but reveals a codependence rather than a hegemony.

Dispute resolution in Hui communities blurs the distinction between informal law and community-based mediation. Clerics between community-based mediation and informal law. Clerics mediate inter-personal problems mediate interpersonal problems among their followers in accordance with Islamic law. While state ["While" is ambiguous...Note: You will see several places where I change that ambiguous "While" to either "Although" (or "Though") or "Whereas," whichever is appropriate] law. Although state socialist law is anathema is ostensibly anathema to Islamic law, nonetheless, the ["nonetheless" is redundant with "Although" (or the ambiguous "While")] law, the Party-State, through the Party-state, through a variety of arrangements, has incorporated clerics and other Hui leaders into the lowest rungs of the legal-juridical bureaucracy. Such arrangements are far from facile, however. There are conflicts of law between conflicts between Islamic law and PRC state law that may find expression in the process of dispute resolution. I call Hui leaders who collaborate with officials and cadres “Muslim mandarins.” I cadres Muslim mandarins. [Italic (not quoted) at this first instance (other than in the Abstract) of an important term in your paper, in accordance with CMS recommendations] I use the term “mandarin,” most term mandarin, most familiar in the imperial Qing context, as a modern analogue to underscore Muslim leaders’ administrative relationship to the state bureaucracy. Muslim mandarins include clerics, Sufi shaykhs (masters), Hui elders, teachers, and other mosque leaders.

Hui are The Hui are frequently depicted as “good as the “good Muslims” as opposed to Uyghurs to the Uyghurs (Turkic Muslims), the “bad Muslims” (Wang 2013; Gardner 2014). In recent years, some Uyghurs have allegedly committed terroristic acts against the Party-State and the Party-state and the Han majority. Uyghurs consider majority. The Uyghurs, who consider the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (the “XUAR”) their Region, the XUAR, their homeland and have experienced more restrictions on religious homeland, have suffered severe restrictions on their religious practice, language, and cultural traditions. Hui, however traditions; the PRC is currently cracking down on those it perceives as Islamic militants in the XUAR. The Hui, however, are geographically disbursed throughout China, speak mostly Mandarin, and have undergone a long process of adaptation to Chinese culture since the first Muslims arrived in China in the seventh century C.E. (Gladney 1996[1991]). The PRC is currently engaged in a crackdown against what it perceives as Islamic militants in the XUAR. Counterterrorism policies are aimed century CE (Gladney [1991] 1996). [See CMS 15.38 for author-date references that have more than one year; the earlier year gets listed first] Nonetheless, counterterrorism policies that are aimed primarily at Uyghurs but such measures are Uyghurs are over-inclusive and also affect Hui mobility both mobility, both within the country and internationally. Hui internationally. The Hui, it should be stressed, are not mere lackeys. Their commitments to Their commitment to their communities may conflict with the dictates of the Party-State. Furthermore the Party-state. Furthermore, they may use benefits derived from the Party-State to the Party-state to achieve goals counter to that of the regime, for example, spread to those of the regime—for example, to spread consciousness of Islamic law.

While mediation Although mediation in China has experienced vicissitudes under Party-State rule, recently, scholars have observed under Party-state rule, scholars have recently observed a ‘return’ to a “return” to mediation and queried and have queried whether such informal law increases access law improves access to justice (Hand 2011). I take the experience 2011). In this paper I consider the experience of Hui using of the Hui in using ADR-like mechanisms as an intervention in debates on informal law in China. One empirical site for the investigation of this relationship is so-called mechanisms to intervene in informal-law disputes, in particular, their use of the so-called “Islamic ADR” or mediation ADR”—that is, mediation that applies Islamic law (Shah law, or shari‘a (Shah 2010; Edge 2013; Keshavjee 2013). [Is my revision of this sentence (actually combining two of your sentences) OK? You will see many instances where I change frozen nominalizations (e.g., interventions) into active verbs (e.g., intervene) to liven up academic prose that tends to cause readers' eyes to glaze over. Nominalizations should be restricted to summarizing sentences, not to the main laying out of points. Verbs grab and hold reader interest. Here I have interpreted your words to mean that Islamic ADR is the particular ADR-like mechanism you want to focus on in your paper, a particular mechanism the Hui people use to intervene in disputes] The integration of Islamic Integrating Islamic ADR into the formal state legal system has presented difficulties in has proved difficult in secular states, based on presumed antinomies between [antimony (Sb) is a metal, number 51 in the Periodic Table of Elements] states, because of the presumed antagonisms between Western liberalism and Islamic norms. In China, the relationship between people’s courts and Muslim leaders who mediate disputes in their communities has likewise proved onerous (Ma 2006; Bai 2011).

The remainder of this paper is organized into the following parts: First, I describe my methodology and data. [the heading is simply "Methodology" (not "Methodology and Data"), and your readers will assume that data collection is part of your methodology] I then provide a brief overview methodology. Second, by exploring [in any paragraph purporting to describe your paper's organization, you need to explicitly tie in the actual subheadings in the paper. Otherwise, your reader will be confused and lost, not comprehending where you are going with your arguments. With my insertion here, I am equating your first major subheading after "Methodology"--"Governing Legal Pluralism in the PRC" on page 8--with this overview (not necessarily "brief," by the way) on informal law and ADR... and the text subsumed under this major subheading will continue until you develop your "third" part of your organization described in this paragraph, your extended case studies (all the way to page 20). In other words, the two headings "Making Muslim Mandarins" (p. 11) and "Mediating Legal Orders" (p. 18) should be second-level subheadings subsumed under the major first-level subheading. "Governing Legal Pluralism in the PRC." See my next comment on the organization you are describing in this paragraph] how legal pluralism is governed in the PRC, I provide an overview of informal law and ADR, specifically, mediation, in of ADR—specifically, mediation—and [I have reversed the order of ADR and informal law in this sentence to match the order of the corresponding sections (ADR with formalization of mediation and informal law with informalization of adjudication. The appositive enclosed by a pair of em dashes ("specifically, mediation") I am assuming applies to ADR, not to ADR and informal law--correct? If "mediation" should apply to both, please move "and informal law" before the first em dash. (CMS stipulates that em dashes are closed up on both sides.)] informal law in China and their relationship to the official legal system. I explain that religious explain how religious leaders are enfolded into an expansive bureaucracy through personalistic relationships. Such leaders mediate relationships, and how they use their positions to mediate between secular and religious legal orders through such positions. Third orders. Third, I develop two extended case studies of processes I call the ‘informalization processes that show the multiple functions of mediation that vary according to the different Hui populations in Northwest China, processes [I reversed the order of the two "case-study" processes here because of the order you actually describe them in the paper, according to the following major subheadings: "The Formalization of Mediation" on page 20 and "The Informalization of Adjudication" on page 26. By the way, the terms are introduced here within quotation marks, but where they are introduced (and defined) in their respective sections on pages 22 and 26, respectively, they will be in italics (at their first instance), in line with CMS recommendations] I call the “formalization of mediation,” which deals with the benign collaboration between cadres and clerics in communicating policy to non-elite Hui, and the “informalization of adjudication’ and the ‘formalization of mediation’ that show the multiple functions of mediation that vary according to different Hui populations in Northwest China. The first process functions to diffuse conflicts between parties that may otherwise snowball of adjudication,” wherein conflicts between parties are diffused, conflicts that might otherwise snowball into broader communal strife. The latter communicates the message of benign collaboration between cadres and clerics to non-elite Hui. Taken together, these processes show different examples of strife. Each of these processes is an example of the secular project of delinking Muslim authority from Islamic law. Following the case studies, I provide some tentative implications I discuss [Change OK? Here you need to tie the page 32 final major subheading, "Secularism as Securitization: The China Model?" where you provide those tentative implications] how the Chinese model of secularism as securitization provides tentative policy recommendations as well as implications for the study of Muslim mandarins in secular security states.

METHODOLOGY

From 2009 to 2012, I conducted 19 months of intensive fieldwork, based Between 2009 and 2012, [your "From 2009 to 2012" (a span of 36 months) seems to contradict your 19 months of fieldwork... so your fieldwork was off and on during that 3-year period, and "Between 2009 and 2012" allows for that possibility] while based in Linxia (imperial name Hezhou) in Linxia (its imperial name was Hezhou) in Gansu or what Hui Gansu Province, a city the Hui call “China’s Little Mecca,” one of the great centers of Islam in China. In China, I conducted nineteen months of intensive fieldwork, gathering ethnographic data from different communities in Northwest China to compare diverse strategies of governance in Muslim areas. In China, there are 10,586,087 Hui, [this seems like an overly precise number; by my calculations there must be 340 Hui babies born each day. I recommend rounding here--say, "10.6 million," a significant figure that ought to be accurate (or precise enough) for at least 5 years] most of whom are concentrated in Northwest China (Anon. 2013)2 By Northwest China, I refer principally to Gansu province, Qinghai province, and Ningxia 2013),2 principally in Gansu Province, Qinghai Province, and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (the “NHAR”). Linxia has Region (NHAR). Linxia itself has a population of 274,466 people, slightly less than 50 274,466, [again, I recommend rounding to 275,000] nearly 50 percent of whom are Muslim (Province) 2012, 70-107). I also took data collection trips to Qinghai, the NHAR. In addition, I collected Muslim (Gansu sheng renkou pucha bangongshi 2012, 70–107). I collected data in Qinghai, in the NHAR, as well. (I also collected data from the XUAR, where Uyghurs reside, although this study is primarily focused on Hui. I gathered ethnographic data from different communities in Northwest China to compare diverse strategies of governance in Muslim areas. on the Hui.) [I made the sentence parenthetical, but consider deleting it, since your paper focuses on the Hui, not on the Uyghurs]

In total, I conducted over 200 interviews conducted more than two hundred interviews, about half with Muslim mandarins and the other half with officials in legal, judicial, and public safety bureaus and cadres, as well as teachers, students, and merchants. I collected merchants. To develop extended case studies, I selected several influential Muslim mandarins, defined by their leadership at “administrative mosques”3 or Sufi tombs (where founders of orders are buried). The core data set of my study is the thirty-four mosques and the twenty-three main Sufi tomb complexes in Linxia.4 [There are no endnotes numbered 5 or 6. The next one after this one is numbered 7. But, as far as I can tell, no actual endnote has disappeared; just the numbering is off. (In the "Original" version, it appears that endnote numbers 3 and 4 are missing.)] I collected interviews by use of “snowball sampling” (Atkinson and Flint 2003; Bernard 2006), which extended my network of interlocutors through the social networks of social connections of individuals I had previously interviewed. The core data set of my study is the 34 mosques and the 23 main Sufi tomb complexes in Linxia.5 Interviews interviewed. Interviews were semi-structured and were semistructured, and whenever possible, more possible, I followed up with more informal interviews were conducted as follow-up. I selected several influential Muslim mandarins, defined by their leadership at “administrative mosques”6 or Sufi tombs (where founders of orders are buried), to develop extended case studies. interviews.

GOVERNING LEGAL PLURALISM IN THE PRC ^

3 pages later

Making Muslim Mandarins Making Muslim Mandarins ^[(1) The journal author guidelines stipulate that second-level headings should be mixed-case bold, not mixed-case bold italic. (2) See my organization comments on page 6. This is the first of two second-level subheadings, under the main subheading "Governing Legal Pluralism in the PRC" (page 8).]

7 pages later

Mediating Legal Orders Mediating Legal Orders ^ [See my organization comments on page 6. This is the second of two second-level subheadings, under the main subheading "Governing Legal Pluralism in the PRC" (page 8).]

2 pages later

THE FORMALIZATION OF MEDIATION ^

6 pages later

THE INFORMALIZATION OF ADJUDICATION ^

6 pages later

SECULARISM AS SECURITIZATION: THE CHINA MODEL? ^

5 pages later

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ENDNOTES

1 Islamic law is “Islamic law” is the common English translation for shari‘a, the legal and ethical system to which Muslims are beholden. It includes the Qur’ān and the Sunna, which the sunna, which takes the form of hadiths (reports) of hadiths [the English "s" indicates the plural of this foreign word, so that letter is not italic] (reports) on the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad (Hallaq 2009). Muhammad. In addition to the revealed sources, there are additional forms of reasoning and consensus that are conventionally considered “Islamic law” (Hallaq 2009). [I inserted the preceding sentence after our online discussion of this endnote.]
2 According to the 2010 national census, there are a total of 23,142,104 are 23,142,104 [I recommend rounding the population number to "23.1 million"; the number provided by the 2010 census is not only "low," it is far too precise (and would have been accurate for maybe a minute or two on a given day, and only perhaps in the year 2010) and, in fact, silly] Muslims in China, including ten China, distributed among the ten officially recognized Muslim ethnic groups. The official number is most likely low, however, as it however, since it fails to consider Muslim Han and Muslim Tibetans, among other converts.
3 This is Administrative mosque is a local Hui term, not a governmental designation. Administrative mosques are where designation. It refers to the mosque where members of smaller mosques go to attend the Friday prayer.
4 Interviews were conducted principally in I conducted the interviews primarily in Mandarin. As my proficiency in the local dialect (which incorporates proficiency in the local Bafanghua dialect (a creole that incorporates Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Tibetan, Mongolian, and various other local dialects and other dialects of Muslim ethnicities including Dongxiangyu and Salarhua) increased, I held conversations in Bafanghua ethnicities, including Dongxiangyu and Salarhua), I was able to converse in it. [Is my revision OK? Is Bafanghua a creole language (a developed pidgin of these various languages)?][There are no endnote numbers 5 and 6. (In the Original, the missing numbers are 3 and 4.)]

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This paper analyzes dispute resolution practices among Chinese Muslim minorities (in particular, the Hui people) in Northwest China, practices occurring where a secular socialist legal system intersects with an unofficial Islamic legal order. Recent findings in the study of law and religion (Kuru 2009; Stepan 2011; Fox and Akbaba 2013) and the anthropology of Islam (Asad 2003; Mahmood 2005; Agrama 2012) have shifted understandings of secularism from one of neutrality (e.g., “the separation of church and state”) to one that actively shapes the form that religion takes and vice versa. This paper extends these insights to describe the different effects that secularism has on religious law and its authorities.

Ethnographic data from China shows that whereas, on the one hand, the secular state has sought to institutionally and discursively sever Muslim leaders from the practice of Islamic law,1 on the other hand, the local Party-state has become dependent on the charisma of this religious elite to maintain its rule. Such dependence has made possible a “backdoor” for Islamic law practice, although this practice has no official legal status in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Distinctions between “formal” law and “informal” law, especially religious law, become taken for granted in the context of nation-building projects and secularist inventions. Instead, secular state law manages Islamic law through a variety of impositions, such as mobilizing it for socialist rule or denying it legal grounds. This process draws attention to partnerships between secular states and Muslim communities in the post-9/11 order and, more broadly, provides grounds for rethinking assumptions of power that underlie sociolegal conceptualizations of “state” as opposed to “popular” forms of justice.

In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, governments have engaged the leaders of Muslim minority communities to address a number of concerns from national security and terrorism to civil liberties and religious freedom (Emon 2007; Rohe 2007; An-Na‘im 2008; Ramadan 2008; Fadel 2009; An-Na‘im 2014). The majority of research related to such collaborations has taken place in Western liberal states, where there are perceived established norms for transparency, “rule of law,” and public accountability. This study, however, examines such partnerships in an East Asian “authoritarian” state—the PRC. As in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, officials in China coordinate with Muslim leaders to solve problems and handle conflicts, but they do so largely in a context of poorly implemented administrative law and weak procedural rights vis-à-vis the Party-state (O’Brien and Li 2005; Biddulph 2007; Lee 2007; Sapio 2010).

The study of dispute resolution among the Hui involves multiple lines of inquiry, one of which revolves around alternative dispute resolution (ADR), a concept that encompasses a broad array of practices, each differing from adjudication, practices such as community-based mediation, defined as the facilitation of joint decision making by a third party in a nonbinding forum (Roberts and Palmer 2005, 156). Since the 1960s, ADR has gained traction in the US and other postindustrial Western states.

A second set of inquiries stems from studies of nonstate forms of private ordering—alternately called “community/informal/popular justice,” informalization, or delegalization, but hereinafter termed “informal law” (Abel 1982; Harrington 1985; Hofrichter 1987; Merry and Milner 1993; Riles 2002). These nonstate processes, institutions, and norms are usually perceived as independent of the state and official law (Ellickson 1991; Bernstein 1992; Feldman 2006; Richman 2006); disputants apply informal norms or legal rules sometimes through third-party facilitation.

ADR and informal may overlap in the forms they assume, but as Marc Galanter has pointed out, they have different relations with the official legal system: the former may be integrated into the official system, but the latter is deemed as irreconcilable with state law (1974, 124–35). The proponents of ADR and informal law do share arguments, however. Each is considered a means for increasing access to justice and for lowering caseloads in an overworked court system (see for example, Sander 1979).

Legal reformers have sought to integrate ADR into official legal orders, both domestically through instituted court-appointed mediation as well as internationally in developing countries (Galanter 1985; Nader and Grande 2002; Senft and Savage 2003; Roberts and Palmer 2005, 7; Cohen 2006). Beginning in the 1980s, however, sociolegal scholars have questioned some of the assumptions underlying the popularization of ADR by arguing that it marginalizes the very populations it was designed to support (Merry and Silbey 1984; Nader 1991). These critics view government co-optation of informal mechanisms as just another way to maintain power inequalities (Santos 1980; Fiss 1984; Luban 1988; Roberts 1993). Data from China confirms the state’s attempt to rein in nonstate dispute resolution mechanisms but reveals a codependence rather than a hegemony.

Dispute resolution in Hui communities blurs the distinction between community-based mediation and informal law. Clerics mediate interpersonal problems among their followers in accordance with Islamic law. Although state socialist law is ostensibly anathema to Islamic law, the Party-state, through a variety of arrangements, has incorporated clerics and other Hui leaders into the lowest rungs of the legal-juridical bureaucracy. Such arrangements are far from facile, however. There are conflicts between Islamic law and PRC state law that may find expression in the process of dispute resolution. I call Hui leaders who collaborate with officials and cadres Muslim mandarins. I use the term mandarin, most familiar in the imperial Qing context, as a modern analogue to underscore Muslim leaders’ administrative relationship to the state bureaucracy. Muslim mandarins include clerics, Sufi shaykhs (masters), Hui elders, teachers, and other mosque leaders.

The Hui are frequently depicted as the “good Muslims” as opposed to the Uyghurs (Turkic Muslims), the “bad Muslims” (Wang 2013; Gardner 2014). In recent years, some Uyghurs have allegedly committed terroristic acts against the Party-state and the Han majority. The Uyghurs, who consider the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the XUAR, their homeland, have suffered severe restrictions on their religious practice, language, and cultural traditions; the PRC is currently cracking down on those it perceives as Islamic militants in the XUAR. The Hui, however, are geographically disbursed throughout China, speak mostly Mandarin, and have undergone a long process of adaptation to Chinese culture since the first Muslims arrived in China in the seventh century CE (Gladney [1991] 1996). Nonetheless, counterterrorism policies that are aimed primarily at Uyghurs are over-inclusive and also affect Hui mobility, both within the country and internationally. The Hui, it should be stressed, are not mere lackeys. Their commitment to their communities may conflict with the dictates of the Party-state. Furthermore, they may use benefits derived from the Party-state to achieve goals counter to those of the regime—for example, to spread consciousness of Islamic law.

Although mediation in China has experienced vicissitudes under Party-state rule, scholars have recently observed a “return” to mediation and have queried whether such informal law improves access to justice (Hand 2011). In this paper I consider the experience of the Hui in using ADR-like mechanisms to intervene in informal-law disputes, in particular, their use of the so-called “Islamic ADR”—that is, mediation that applies Islamic law, or shari‘a (Shah 2010; Edge 2013; Keshavjee 2013). Integrating Islamic ADR into the formal state legal system has proved difficult in secular states, because of the presumed antagonisms between Western liberalism and Islamic norms. In China, the relationship between people’s courts and Muslim leaders who mediate disputes in their communities has likewise proved onerous (Ma 2006; Bai 2011).

The remainder of this paper is organized into the following parts: First, I describe my methodology. Second, by exploring how legal pluralism is governed in the PRC, I provide an overview of ADR—specifically, mediation—and informal law in China and their relationship to the official legal system. I explain how religious leaders are enfolded into an expansive bureaucracy through personalistic relationships, and how they use their positions to mediate between secular and religious legal orders. Third, I develop two extended case studies of processes that show the multiple functions of mediation that vary according to the different Hui populations in Northwest China, processes I call the “formalization of mediation,” which deals with the benign collaboration between cadres and clerics in communicating policy to non-elite Hui, and the “informalization of adjudication,” wherein conflicts between parties are diffused, conflicts that might otherwise snowball into broader communal strife. Each of these processes is an example of the secular project of delinking Muslim authority from Islamic law. Following the case studies, I discuss how the Chinese model of secularism as securitization provides tentative policy recommendations as well as implications for the study of Muslim mandarins in secular security states.

METHODOLOGY

Between 2009 and 2012, while based in Linxia (its imperial name was Hezhou) in Gansu Province, a city the Hui call “China’s Little Mecca,” one of the great centers of Islam in China, I conducted nineteen months of intensive fieldwork, gathering ethnographic data from different communities in Northwest China to compare diverse strategies of governance in Muslim areas. In China, there are 10.6 million Hui, most of whom are concentrated in Northwest China (Anon. 2013),2 principally in Gansu Province, Qinghai Province, and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR). Linxia itself has a population of some 275,000, nearly 50 percent of whom are Muslim (Gansu sheng renkou pucha bangongshi 2012, 70–107). I collected data in Qinghai, in the NHAR, as well.

In total, I conducted more than two hundred interviews, about half with Muslim mandarins and the other half with officials in legal, judicial, and public safety bureaus and cadres, as well as teachers, students, and merchants. To develop extended case studies, I selected several influential Muslim mandarins, defined by their leadership at “administrative mosques”3 or Sufi tombs (where founders of orders are buried). The core data set of my study is the thirty-four mosques and the twenty-three main Sufi tomb complexes in Linxia.4 I collected interviews by use of “snowball sampling” (Atkinson and Flint 2003; Bernard 2006), which extended my network of interlocutors through the social connections of individuals I had previously interviewed. Interviews were semistructured, and whenever possible, I followed up with more informal interviews.

GOVERNING LEGAL PLURALISM IN THE PRC

3 pages later

Making Muslim Mandarins

7 pages later

Mediating Legal Orders

2 pages later

THE FORMALIZATION OF MEDIATION

6 pages later

THE INFORMALIZATION OF ADJUDICATION

6 pages later

SECULARISM AS SECURITIZATION: THE CHINA MODEL?

5 pages later

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ENDNOTES

1 “Islamic law” is the common English translation for shari‘a, the legal and ethical system to which Muslims are beholden. It includes the Qur’ān and the sunna, which takes the form of hadiths (reports) on the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad. In addition to the revealed sources, there are additional forms of reasoning and consensus that are conventionally considered “Islamic law” (Hallaq 2009).
2 According to the 2010 national census, there are 23.1 million Muslims in China, distributed among the ten officially recognized Muslim ethnic groups. The official number is most likely low, however, since it fails to consider Muslim Han and Muslim Tibetans, among other converts.
3 Administrative mosque is a local Hui term, not a governmental designation. It refers to the mosque where members of smaller mosques go to attend the Friday prayer.
4 I conducted the interviews primarily in Mandarin. As my proficiency in the local Bafanghua dialect (a creole that incorporates Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Tibetan, Mongolian, and other dialects of Muslim ethnicities, including Dongxiangyu and Salarhua), I was able to converse in it. …

 

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