Tibetan translocalities: navigating urban opportunities and new ways of belonging in Tibetan pastoral communities in China
Abstract
Urban development in Tibetan areas of China lags behind that of other non-coastal, rural areas and occurs at a significantly smaller scale due to remote and mountainous terrain and a lower population density. However, just as in the rest of China, urban development in Tibetan regions is characterized by an unevenness that constitutes and produces new translocal ties, as people belong to multiple localities at the same time. But Tibetan patterns of translocal ties are unique. For college-educated Tibetans, structural factors such as educational institutions and ethnic discrimination and affective factors such as attachment to home places powerfully shape the landscape of urban opportunities along ethnic lines. Instead of educational and employment structures enabling Tibetans to pursue economic opportunities in urban centers across the country, socio-ethnic inequalities and thick relational ties eventually bring many Tibetan graduates back to the urban centers administratively connected to their rural home places in Tibetan areas.
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A common critique among Washul's interlocutors was that urban living Sinicizes young Tibetans, making them less identifiable as Tibetans and more like ethnic Chinese, who are perceived as distant, unfathomable, and even duplicitous.
“A common critique was that: 'urban living Sinicizes them [young Tibetans], making them less identifiable or relatable as Tibetans and more like ethnic Chinese, who are perceived as distant, unfathomable, and even duplicitous' (502).”
From The Aesthetics of In/Authenticity: Buddhism, Commodification, and Ethnoreligious Belonging in a Sino-Tibetan Contact Zone (2021) · cites this paper as Washul 2018: 502
Washul relates a similar narrative of cultural subsistence crisis among Tibetan interlocutors who saw cities as places of loss or threat of loss of a uniquely Tibetan self and way of life.
“In her work on Tibetans in urban China, Eveline Washul relates a similar narrative of cultural subsistence crisis among her Tibetan interlocutors who saw cities as 'places of loss or the threat of loss, of a uniquely Tibetan self and way of life' (2018: 502).”
From The Aesthetics of In/Authenticity: Buddhism, Commodification, and Ethnoreligious Belonging in a Sino-Tibetan Contact Zone (2021) · cites this paper as Washul 2018: 502
Cites
The Battle for Fortune: State-Led Development, Personhood, and Power among Tibetans in China
Makley, C. (2018) · doi:10.7591/9781501719653 · Cited by 25 · cited 2× · see citing works
“…unprecedented outbreaks of unrest across the Tibetan Plateau that scholars of Tibet have characterized as expressions of long-held grievances exacerbated by increased militarization and accelerated state development in Tibetan areas (Barnett 2009; Fischer 2009; Makley 2009; Makley 2018; Yeh 2009b).”
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Brox, T. (2021) · Numen · doi:10.1163/15685276-12341639 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
- Authors
- Washul, E.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Washul, Eveline
- Venue
- Critical Asian Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-10-02
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 493-517
- ISSN
- 1467-2715 (ISSN-L)
- 1472-6033
- OpenAlex
- W2895486215
- Cited by
- 19
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 5.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Critical Asian Studies (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- a Mellon Graduate Dissertation Fellowship
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- Fulbright Association
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance
- Social Sciences › Demography › Diaspora, migration, transnational identity
- Keywords
- translocality, urbanization, ethnic discrimination, educational inequality, university graduates, return migration, urban-rural relations, place attachment, sense of belonging
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