Disappearing the Cofounders: The Story of Imagine, a Language School in Xinjiang

This short essay tells the stories of how two of our mutual Uyghur friends have disappeared into the Xinjiang "reeducation" system over the past few years. Taking up a redaction practice that we liken to skillful revelation of skillful concealment—a definition of magic coined by anthropologist Michael Taussig—we produced a narrative about our friendships suffused with state power and the allure of a blank signifier. Thinking about this narrative in relation to a 1985 Uyghur novella titled “Classmates,” written from the perspective of a young Uyghur man as he is released following ten years of  “reeducation through hard labor,” produced another revelation: in the midst of extreme social violence, daring to think and imagine offers a form of survival and risk. Writing the redacted nonfiction stories of our friends lives while thinking about the fictional novella placed us in dialogue with a state that appears to be simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, devouring all of life. It also allows for a more intimate form of magic, a way for us to remain in relation with our friends and for them to remain, at least partially, the authors of their own stories.