On The Margins Of Tibet

Download or read book On the Margins of Tibet written by Ashild Kolas and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The state of Tibetan culture within contemporary China is a highly politicized topic on which reliable information is rare. Based on fieldwork and interviews conducted between 1998 and 2000 in China's Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures, this book investigates the present conditions of Tibetan cultural life and cultural expression.

Download or read book On the Margins of Tibet written by Ashild Kolas and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The state of Tibetan culture within contemporary China is a highly politicized topic on which reliable information is rare. But what is Tibetan culture and how should it be developed or preserved? The Chinese authorities and the Tibetans in exile present conflicting views on almost every aspect of Tibetan cultural life. Ashild Kolas and Monika Thowsen have gathered an astounding array of data to quantify Tibetan cultural activities--involving Tibetan language, literature, visual arts, museums, performing arts, festivals, and religion. Their study is based on fieldwork and interviews conducted in the ethnic Tibetan areas surrounding the Tibetan Autonomous Region--parts of the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan, and Qinghai. Aware of the ambiguous nature of information collected in restricted circumstances, they make every effort to present a complete and unbiased picture of Tibetan communities living on China's western frontiers. Kolas and Thowsen investigate the present conditions of Tibetan cultural life and cultural expression, providing a wealth of detailed information on topics such as the number of restored monasteries and nunneries and the number of monks, nuns, and tulkus (reincarnated lamas) affiliated with them; sources of funding for monastic reconstruction and financial support of clerics; types of religious ceremonies being practiced; the content of monastic and secular education; school attendance; educational curriculum and funding; the role of language in Tibetan schools; and Tibetan news and cultural media. On the Margins of Tibet will be of interest to historians and social scientists studying modern China and Tibetan culture, and to the many others concerned about Tibet's place in the world.

Download or read book Medicine and Memory in Tibet written by Theresia Hofer and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only fifty years ago, Tibetan medicine, now seen in China as a vibrant aspect of Tibetan culture, was considered a feudal vestige to be eliminated through government-led social transformation. Medicine and Memory in Tibet examines medical revivalism on the geographic and sociopolitical margins both of China and of Tibet�s medical establishment in Lhasa, exploring the work of medical practitioners, or amchi, and of Medical Houses in the west-central region of Tsang. Due to difficult research access and the power of state institutions in the writing of history, the perspectives of more marginal amchi have been absent from most accounts of Tibetan medicine. Theresia Hofer breaks new ground both theoretically and ethnographically, in ways that would be impossible in today�s more restrictive political climate that severely limits access for researchers. She illuminates how medical practitioners safeguarded their professional heritage through great adversity and personal hardship.

Download or read book Mapping Shangrila written by Emily T. Yeh and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2001 the Chinese government announced that the precise location of Shangrila�a place that previously had existed only in fiction�had been identified in Zhongdian County, Yunnan. Since then, Sino-Tibetan borderlands in Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, and the Tibet Autonomous Region have been the sites of numerous state projects of tourism development and nature conservation, which have in turn attracted throngs of backpackers, environmentalists, and entrepreneurs who seek to experience, protect, and profit from the region�s landscapes. Mapping Shangrila advances a view of landscapes as media of governance, representation, and resistance, examining how they are reshaping cultural economies, political ecologies of resource use, subjectivities, and interethnic relations. Chapters illuminate topics such as the role of Han and Tibetan literary representations of border landscapes in the formation of ethnic identities; the remaking of Chinese national geographic imaginaries through tourism in the Yading Nature Reserve; the role of The Nature Conservancy and other transnational environmental organizations in struggles over culture and environmental governance; the way in which matsutake mushroom and caterpillar fungus commodity chains are reshaping montane landscapes; and contestations over the changing roles of mountain deities and their mediums as both interact with increasingly intensive nature conservation and state-sponsored capitalism.

Download or read book Religious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands written by Koen Wellens and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This full-length study of the Premi, the first in a language other than Chinese, makes a valuable contribution to our ethnographic knowledge of Southwest China, as well as to our understanding of contemporary Chinese religious and cultural politics.

Download or read book Tibet written by Paul Christiaan Klieger and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2021-05-19 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of Tibet has long intrigued the world, and so has the dilemma of its future—will it ever return to independence or will it always remain part of China? How will the succession of the aging and revered Dalai Lama affect Tibet and the world? This book makes the case for a fully Tibetan independent state for much of its 2,500-year existence, but its story is a complex one. A great empire from the seventh to ninth centuries, in 1249, Tibet was incorporated as a territory of the Mongol Empire—which annexed China itself in 1279. Tibet reclaimed its independence from China in 1368, and although the Manchus later exerted their direct influence in Tibetan affairs, by 1840 Tibet began to resume its independent course until communist China invaded in 1950. And since that time, Tibetan nationalism has been maintained primarily by over 100,000 refugees living abroad. This book is a valuable, fascinating account of a region with a rich history, but an uncertain future.

Download or read book Frontier Tibet written by Stephane Gros and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frontier Tibet addresses a historical sequence that sealed the future of the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. It considers how starting in the late nineteenth century imperial formations and emerging nation-states developed competing schemes of integration and debated about where the border between China and Tibet should be. It also ponders the ways in which this border is internalised today, creating within the People's Republic of China a space that retains some characteristics of a historical frontier. The region of eastern Tibet called Kham, the focus of this volume, is a productive lens through which processes of place-making and frontier dynamics can be analysed. Using historical records and ethnography, the authors challenge purely externalist approaches to convey a sense of Kham's own centrality and the agency of the actors involved. They contribute to a history from below that is relevant to the history of China and Tibet, and of comparative value for borderland studies.