Chih-yu Shih - Tibetan Studies in Comparative Perspective

Politics, history, and religion have long lent Tibet a glamorous air, particularly in the West. But Tibet can be understood in an astonishingly wide variety of other ways, including linguistic, ecological, environmental and climatological, geographical, geological, economic, biologic, sociologic, medicinal. Tibetan Studies in Comparative Perspective touches on all the elements of the Tibet issue, offering invaluable insight to a wide variety of readers, from specialists to those with a general interest in the topic. By putting readers into the shoes of all the stakeholders, from the Dalai Lama in his home in exile and the various Tibetan exile communities, to decision makers in Beijing, New Delhi, Washington and London, the issues at stake come into bold relief. Furthermore, the book examines the potential opportunities that lay ahead, documents where and how Tibetans have been dispersed and offers a glimpse into the social and political undercurrents sending shudders through this exiled nation. With the chasm between exiles and indigenous Tibetans growing ever-larger, what challenges do Tibetans confront just to remain Tibetan? And how will this shape the future of their political movement? The book provides a timely re-examination of the contemporary predicament of Tibetans, both in and out of Tibet.

This book was published as two special issues of Asian Ethnicity.

Chih-yu Shih teaches at National Taiwan University and is author of Civilization, Nation and Modernity in East Asia (Routledge, 2012); Autonomy, Ethnicity and Poverty in Southwestern China (Palgrave, 2007); Negotiating Ethnicity in China: Citizenship as a Response to the State (Routledge, 2002).

Yu-wen Chen teaches at the University College Cork and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Human Security at La Trobe University.

First published 2013

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This book is a reproduction of vol. 12, issue 3 and vol. 11, issue 2 of Asian Ethnicity. The Publisher requests to those authors who may be citing this book to state, also, the bibliographical details of the special issue on which the book was based.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN13: 978-0-415-63484-7

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Publishers Note

The publisher would like to make readers aware that the chapters in this book may be referred to as articles as they are identical to the articles published in the special issue. The publisher accepts responsibility for any inconsistencies that may have arisen in the course of preparing this volume for print.

The following chapters were originally published in various issues of Asian Ethnicity . When citing this material, please use the original page numbering for each article, as follows:

Tibet studies

Claude Arpi

Asian Ethnicity , volume 12, issue 3 (October 2011) pp. 235248

Tibetology in contemporary China: current situation and characteristics

Yongbin Du

Asian Ethnicity , volume 12, issue 3 (October 2011) pp. 249264

Tibet studies in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore

Colin Mackerras

Asian Ethnicity , volume 12, issue 3 (October 2011) pp. 265284

Tibet as a factor impacting China studies in India

Sharad K. Soni and Reena Marwah

Asian Ethnicity , volume 12, issue 3 (October 2011) pp. 285300

India, China and Tibet: fundamental perceptions from Dharamsala, Beijing and New Delhi

B.R. Deepak

Asian Ethnicity , volume 12, issue 3 (October 2011) pp. 301322

A realist hypocrisy? Scripting sovereignty in SinoTibetan relations and the changing posture of Britain and the United States

Simon T. Chang

Asian Ethnicity , volume 12, issue 3 (October 2011) pp. 323336

The Tibet question through the looking glass of Taiwan: comparative dynamics and sobering lessons

Yan Sun

Asian Ethnicity , volume 12, issue 3 (October 2011) pp. 337354

Chinas many Tibets: Diqing as a model for development with Tibetan characteristics?

Ben Hillman

Asian Ethnicity , volume 11, issue 2 (June 2010) pp. 269277

When exile becomes sedentary: on the quotidian experiences of India-born Tibetans in Dharamsala, north India

Susan T. Chen

Asian Ethnicity , volume 13, issue 3 (June 2012) pp. 263286

This book is essentially a reexamination of Tibet, its people, and the discipline of Tibetan studies in the spirit of multi-sited ethnography. If the above sentence is bewildering at first sight, it should be reread focusing on three terms Tibet, Tibetans, and Tibetan studies (or Tibetology) which are the main subjects of discussion in this volume. Multi-sited ethnography is the approach we use to investigate these subjects.