The Qing empire and the Dalai Lama-led Geluk School of Tibetan
Buddhism came into contact in the eighteenth century. Their
interconnections would shape regional politics and the geopolitical
history ...of Inner Asia for centuries to come. In Common
Ground , Lan Wu analyzes how Tibetan Buddhists and the Qing
imperial rulers interacted and negotiated as both sought strategies
to expand their influence in eighteenth-century Inner Asia. In so
doing, she recasts the Qing empire, seeing it not as a monolithic
project of imperial administration but as a series of encounters
among different communities. Wu examines a series of interconnected
sites in the Qing empire where the influence of Tibetan Buddhism
played a key role, tracing the movement of objects, flows of
peoples, and circulation of ideas in the space between China and
Tibet. She identifies a transregional Tibetan Buddhist knowledge
network, which provided institutional, pragmatic, and intellectual
common ground for both polities. Wu draws out the voices of
lesser-known Tibetan Buddhists, whose writings and experiences
evince an alternative Buddhist space beyond the state. She
highlights interactions between Mongols and Tibetans within the
Qing empire, exploring the creation of a Buddhist Inner Asia. Wu
argues that Tibetan Buddhism occupied a central-but little
understood-role in the Qing vision of empire. Revealing the
interdependency of two expanding powers, Common Ground
sheds new light on the entangled histories of political, social,
and cultural ties between Tibet and China.
Rehearsing the State presents a comprehensive investigation of the institutions, performances, and actors through which the Tibetan Government- in-Exile is rehearsing statecraft. McConnell offers new ...insights into how communities officially excluded from formal state politics enact hoped-for futures and seek legitimacy in the present. * Offers timely and original insights into exile Tibetan politics based on detailed qualitative research in Tibetan communities in India * Advances existing debates in political geography by bringing ideas of stateness and statecraft into dialogue with geographies of temporality * Explores the provisional and pedagogical dimensions of state practices, adding weight to assertions that states are in a continual situation of emergence * Makes a significant contribution to critical state theory
China's Last Imperial Frontier explores imperial China's frontier expansion in the Tibetan borderlands during the last decades of the Qing. The empire mounted a series of military attacks against ...indigenous chieftaincies and Buddhist monasteries in the east Tibetan region seeking to replace native authorities with state bureaucrats by redrawing the politically diverse frontier into a system of Chinese-style counties. Historically, at all the strategic frontier locations, the state had been for the most part outstripped by local institutions in political, military, and ideological strengths. With perceived threats from the Anglo-Russian “Great Game” accentuating Qing vulnerability in Tibet, the Sichuan government took advantage of the frontier crisis by encroaching upon local and Lhasa domains in Kham. Even though the Kham campaign was portrayed in Qing official discourse as a part of the nationwide reforms of “New Policies” (xinzheng) and administrative regularization (gaitu guiliu), its progress on the ground was influenced by the dynamics of interregional relations, including Sichuan’s competition with central Tibet, power struggles among Qing frontier officials, and varied Khampa responses to the new regime. The growing regionalism intensified the resistance of local forces to imperial authority. Despite the uneven results of the late Qing campaign, it had come to serve as an important source of sovereignty claims and policy inspirations for the subsequent governments.
In the aftermath of the cataclysmic Maoist period, three Tibetan
Buddhist scholars living and working in the People's Republic of
China became intellectual heroes. Renowned as the "Three
Polymaths," ...Tséten Zhabdrung (1910-1985), Mugé Samten (1914-1993),
and Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (1927-1997) earned this symbolic title
for their efforts to keep the lamp of the Dharma lit even in the
darkest hour of Tibetan history. Lineages of the Literary
reveals how the Three Polymaths negotiated the political tides of
the twentieth century, shedding new light on Sino-Tibetan relations
and Buddhism during this turbulent era. Nicole Willock explores
their contributions to reviving Tibetan Buddhism, expanding Tibetan
literary arts, and pioneering Tibetan studies as an academic
discipline. Her sophisticated reading of Tibetan-language sources
vivifies the capacious literary world of the Three Polymaths,
including autobiography, Buddhist philosophy, poetic theory, and
historiography. Whereas prevailing state-centric accounts place
Tibetan religious figures in China in one of two roles,
collaborator or resistance fighter, Willock shows how the Three
Polymaths offer an alternative model of agency. She illuminates how
they by turns safeguarded, taught, and celebrated Tibetan Buddhist
knowledge, practices, and institutions after their near destruction
during the Cultural Revolution. An interdisciplinary work spanning
religious studies, history, literary studies, and social theory,
Lineages of the Literary offers new insight into the
categories of religion and the secular, the role of Tibetan
Buddhist leaders in modern China, and the contested ground of
Tibet.
Despite more than a decade of rapid economic development, rising living standards, and large-scale improvements in infrastructure and services, China's western borderlands are awash in a wave of ...ethnic unrest not seen since the 1950s. Through on-the-ground interviews and firsthand observations, the international experts in this volume create an invaluable record of the conflicts and protests as they have unfolded-the most extensive chronicle of events to date. The authors examine the factors driving the unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang and the political strategies used to suppress them. They also explain why certain areas have seen higher concentrations of ethnic-based violence than others.
Essential reading for anyone struggling to understand the origins of unrest in contemporary Tibet and Xinjiang, this volume considers the role of propaganda and education as generators and sources of conflict. It links interethnic strife to economic growth and connects environmental degradation to increased instability. It captures the subtle difference between violence in urban Xinjiang and conflict in rural Tibet, with detailed portraits of everyday individuals caught among the pressures of politics, history, personal interest, and global movements with local resonance.
This narrative of subsistence on the Tibetan plateau describes the life-worlds of people in a region traditionally known as Kham who move with their yaks from pasture to pasture, depending on the ...milk production of their herd for sustenance. Gillian Tan's story, based on her own experience of living through seasonal cycles with the people of Dora Karmo between 2006 and 2013, examines the community's powerful relationship with a Buddhist lama and their interactions with external agents of change. In showing how they perceive their environment and dwell in their world, Tan conveys a spare beauty that honors the stillness and rhythms of nomadic life.
The sensitive permafrost environments along the Qinghai–Tibet Engineering Corridor (QTEC) from Golmud to Lhasa are controlled by periglacial processes, geography, geocryology and the local climate. ...During the past 50 years, permafrost has been degrading at a rapid rate due to the combined influences of steadily increasing human activities and persistent climatic warming, and extensive accelerated degradation has been observed along the QTEC. In many locations, the surface vegetation and the top soils have been completely removed, or destroyed, and have led to significantly increased water and soil erosion, with extensive and serious environmental and engineering impacts. The vegetation along the QTEC is dominated by alpine grasslands and meadows. The alpine grasslands have a better capability for recovery from the damages than the meadows. At sections where the vegetation and soils were severely damaged, it will take 20–30 years for alpine grasslands to recover their ecological structures and biodiversity similar to that of the original conditions, whereas it will take 45–60 years for the alpine meadows. The environmental management and protection along the QTEC are urgent and important for the long-term stability of engineering foundations, and for the sustainable development on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP). The proper protection and management requires the development of a non-interference plan and acceleration in the enactment and enforcement of environmental protection (laws, regulations and stipulations) based on an extensive and thorough understanding and practical rehabilitation techniques for disturbed or damaged permafrost environments.
Frontier Tibet: Patterns of Change in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands 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.
This is a cross-cultural study of the significance of the female in the philosophy and symbolism of Tibetan Buddhism. It approaches female identity through an account of the historical context of ...archaic images of the female, and takes a psychoanalytical perspective on the philosophy surrounding the key figure of female embodiment in Tibetan Buddhism, the "dakini". Througn an examination of the unusual patriarchal system which developed in Tibet, important questions are raised concerning the meaning and relevance of the secret sexual practices of Tibetan Tantra, and the issues of power and authority as they relate to the potential subjectivity of women today.
This extensive survey documents Tibetan society over five decades, including population structure in rural and urban areas, marriage and migration patterns, the maintenance of language and ...traditional culture, economic transitions relating to income and consumption habits, educational development, and the growth of civil society and social organizations. In addition to household surveys completed over twenty years, the book provides a systematic analysis of all available social and census data released by the Chinese government, and a thorough review of Western and Chinese literature on the topic. It is the first book on Tibetan society published in English by a mainland China scholar, and covers several sensitive issues in Tibetan studies, including population changes, Han migration into Tibetan areas, intermarriage patterns, and ethnic relations.
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