Dautcher, Jay. Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009.

Dautcher's book is the result of ethnographic research among Uygurs in Yining, Xinjiang, China beginning in 1995.  With regard to Islam, he discusses life cycle rituals, shrine visits, mahalla life, the meshrep, and Ramadan.  The comparison of the olturash (men's drinking parties) and the meshrep (parties where alcohol drinking is punished on religious grounds) is very interesting. The question of what is truly Islamic is present.  Dautcher quotes a lot of poems and jokes and has too much of a focus on sexuality.

Sections: Maps; Introduction; I-Local Identities of Space and Place (3-Desettling the Land: The Destruction of Uyghur Chthonic Identity (Mazar: The Tombs of Holy Men and Women); 4-Gleaming Eyes, Evil Eyes: Cradle and Cure in Uyghur Child Rearing); II-Gender and the Life Cycle (6-Marriage, Mistresses, and Masculinity: Gender and Adult Social Life (The Wedding Ceremony; Guesting and Gifting in Women's Lives)); III-Markets and Merchants on the Silk Road; IV-Islam in the Mehelle: The Social Dimensions of Uyghur Religious Practice (11-The False Hajim and the Bad Meshrep: Piety and Politics in Uyghur Islam; 12-The Hungry Guest: Rhetoric, Reverence, and Reversal in a Uygur Ramadan (Prayers; Exchanges Associated with Ramadan; The Daytime Guest, Roz Ghojam; The Nighttime Guest, Shiweqedir, Ramadan Singing)). 

Descriptors: 2000s, anthropology, birth, book, China, D, ethnography, holidays, identity, mahalla, marriage, meshrep, post-Soviet, Ramadan, rituals, sacred sites, spirits, Uygur, Xinjiang, Yining; Qurbon Hayit, Roza Hayit