Mukaddas Mijit is an ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, and Uyghur artist. She was born in Urumqi, in the Uyghur Region. In 2003, she moved to France to pursue her studies and artistic career. She obtained a Master’s degree in ethnomusicology from Paris-Sorbonne University, working on vocal practices in a Sufi ceremony in northern Uyghur regions. In 2015, she completed her PhD at Paris Ouest Nanterre University, following research on the “staging of Uyghur artistic heritage.”

She has published several articles in scientific journals, including the Cahier d’Ethnomusicologie. As a filmmaker, she has directed four documentary films and a series of short films on Uyghur artistic practices. She also co-directed a fiction film, Nikah, released on Arte in 2023. Between 2016 and 2019, she taught visual anthropology and ethnomusicology at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès. In parallel, she developed several projects around traditional dance and singing, presented at numerous world music festivals. Between 2019 and 2021, she participated in a research project led by Prof. Rachel Harris (SOAS) on the transmission and development of Meshrep (a traditional banquet practice) within the Uyghur diaspora.

After conducting research with Vanessa Frangville and Sonya Imin on the cultural and artistic expressions of the Uyghur diaspora, she joined the ULB team in June 2023 as part of the Horizon-Widera project REMOTE XUAR (Remote Ethnography of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: Methodology and Research Capacity Building), co-led with Palacký University Olomouc (PI) and the University of Würzburg. In 2022, she published the first anthology of Uyghur literature translated into French (with Vanessa Frangville).

Links: https://uyghurart.ulb.be/