Tibet, Self, and the Tibetan Diaspora

The ten papers presented in this eight volume of the Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS, 2000, provide examples of the colourful and lively range of Tibetan self-expressions that exist within the modern homeland and in exile. The scholars here represent the fields of anthropology, sociology, literary studies, history, and political science. Four papers are based in studies in the modern Tibet Autonomous Region, five are grounded in the Tibetan diaspora, and one deals with both classical Tibetan history and current affairs. The mass representation of Tibetan self, delivered through various literary vehicles, by linguistic competence, body decoration, landscape, or individual deportment, constitutes the basic theme of this collection. The volume is useful for any student of Tibet and those interested in the process of identity formation and presentation.

Readership: Tibetologists, sociologists and historians.

P. Christiaan Klieger, Ph.D., is Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He is the author of Tibetan Nationalism (1992) and Tibet-o-Rama: Self and Other in a Tale from the Edge of Tibet (2002) and interested in Tibetans in the homeland and abroad on the theme of self-identity construction. Currently he is researching the peoples on the edge of the greater Tibetan cultural area, specifically in northern-most Myanmar (Burma) among the Rawang peoples.