Academic literature on the topic 'Tibetan communities'

In the remote northwestern Chinese province of Qinghai (Tibetan plateau), the Tibetan people struggle to gather yak dung, wood, straw, and other fuels for heating, boiling, and cooking—the basic necessities for survival. Over the past seven years, extreme cold (-35°C) and drought has had a significant effect on the environment, the Tibetan people, and the livestock and crops upon which these people depend. The environment has become increasingly denuded and many Tibetans, both farmers and herders, are caught in a vicious cycle of destitution. The use of solar cookers as a partial substitute for dung, wood, bushes and straw has helped alleviate this cycle. This paper reports on the accrued benefits to remote Tibetan communities following a program of solar cooker introduction to 48 such recipient communities. Work carried out in 2003 primarily by Tibetan students studying in an English Training Program, at the Qinghai Nationalities Teacher's College, Qinghai Normal University, Xining City, PRC (supported by the Canada Fund) combined with observations over three visits to the region in 2003 and 2004 are discussed.

The post-1959 migration of Tibetans due to Chinese incursion in Tibet impelled them to seek refuge in many countries. Due to socio-cultural, historical and religious ties between Sikkim and Tibetan for centuries and also due to geographical proximity, Sikkim was one of the most desired destinations. Based on the study of Tibetan settlement of Rumtek Dharma Chakra Centre, the largest monastery of Karma Kagyu Lineage in Sikkim, the article is an attempt to make an exploratory study to enquire the process of migration and socio-economic adaptation faced by the migrant Tibetan communities of Rumtek. By revisiting historical references and comparative evaluation of the field carried out in two phases, the article is a sociological exploration to examine the changes and challenges faced by the community.

Abstract This study investigates bilingual students’ attitudes toward the Tibetan language, examining the structural models of the attitudes of Tibetan students and the differences in attitudes between living communities and as moderated by learning years (comparing Tibet-based and Han-based communities). The participants were 1,118 Tibetan students in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China. The results indicated the following: (i) the data supported the three components of attitude (Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral) in terms of bilingual students’ perception of the Tibetan language; (ii) the five lower-level domains of the attitudes toward the Tibetan language can be grouped into two categories – Cognitive (self-concept of the Tibetan language and social status) and Affective (friendliness, helpfulness, and identification) – and there is a causal relationship between them; and (iii) there are significant differences in attitudes toward the Tibetan language dependent on living community and learning year. Practical suggestions for educators in schools for bilingual students learning the Tibetan language are discussed.

Today’s Henan Mongol Autonomous County is located in the southeastern part of present-day Qinghai Province, in the northeastern part of the Tibetan plateau. This historical pastoral area South of the Yellow River is a border area where, a milieu was created due to the long-term mutual contacts between Tibetans and Mongols, in which specific local customs, language patterns, and social communities have emerged. The initial turning point in their ethnical and cultural identity was the integration into the modern Chinese State in 1954, followed by ethnic classification. Moreover the local pastoral Mongol and Tietan populations have been transformed into minority nationalities is-á-vis the Han Chinese, and many Tibetans even were classified as Mengguzu (Mongols), however, perceived as Tibet-Mongols (Tib. Bod Sog) by themselves and their neighbours. By looking at the outstanding historical figure of Tashi Tsering, the last Mongol qinwang of the Henan grasslands at the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, this paper examines how the people of the Henan grasslands integrate their memory of the local traditional leader into their identity construction, and how they revive their Mongolness despite their seclusion from other Mongol communities.

This article examines issues pertaining to the growth of ‘informal’ economic exchanges and relationships of patronage in the Tibetan refugee community of Dharamsala (H-P), India. I firstly review the theoretical and methodological challenges posed by investigations of Tibetan refugee modernity, then focus on one particular form of exchange in the informal economy of exiles: rogs ram, or the sponsorship of Tibetans by foreigners. The article argues that symbolic capital comes to play a particularly important role in communities where economic capital is scarce, acting in fact as a proviso to economic capital. The highly unstable character of symbolic capital means that, for Tibetan refugees as for other communities, its conversion into economic capital is arduous and engenders a tense field of negotiations between sponsors and beneficiaries.

Dharamshala is home to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Its small-town journalism landscape is unique due to specific forms of community journalism practice adopted by Indian and Tibetan journalists. The Tibetan press there faces a paradox: simultaneously “local and community specific” for Tibetans-in-exile, “refugee voices” for the international community, and “foreign journalism” for Indians. This framing study identified interpretive packages in news coverage of conflict and integration between Dharamshala communities, by examining stories from community news outlets. Indian Hindi journalists enact a “community booster” role by actively framing issues of conflict in favor of the community, while Tibetan journalists’ approach was comparatively more balanced.

Residents of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau might experience shifts in their gut microbiota composition as a result of the plateau environment. For example, high altitudes can increase the abundance of obligate anaerobic bacteria, decrease the number of aerobic bacteria and facultative anaerobic bacteria, increase probiotics, and decrease pathogenic bacteria. This study aimed to determine the structure and metabolic differences in intestinal microbial communities among the Tibetan and Han populations on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and shed light on the factors that influence the abundance of the microbial communities in the gut. The structural characteristics of intestinal microorganisms were detected from blood and fecal samples using 16S rRNA sequencing. Metabolic characteristics were detected using gas chromatography–time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC–TOFMS). The influencing factors were analyzed using Spearman’s correlation analysis. Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium were dominant in the intestinal tract of the Han population, while Bacteroides and Prevotella were dominant in that of the Tibetan population, with marked differences in Pseudomonas, Prevotella, and other genera. Ferulic acid and 4-methylcatechol were the main differential metabolites between the Tibetan and Han ethnic groups. This may be the reason for the different adaptability of Tibetan and Han nationalities to the plateau. Alanine aminotransferase and uric acid also have a high correlation with different bacteria and metabolites, which may play a role. These results reveal notable disparities in the compositions and metabolic characteristics of gut microbial communities in the Tibetan and Han people residing on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and may provide insights regarding the mechanism of plateau adaptability.

This article considers the roles of yak bodies in relations between Han Chinese and Khampa Tibetan communities during the early twentieth century. It argues that bovine bodies were sites of Han-Tibetan interaction wherein culture, biology, and locality were intertwined. I chronicle the earliest large-scale engagement of the Chinese state with yak pastoralism in the context of its efforts to consolidate control over the eastern Tibetan region of Kham. Yak husbandry is traditionally an enterprise of Tibetans and other Himalayan ethnic groups, but the yak was targeted for ‘improvement’ by Han Chinese modernizers beginning in the 1930s. An effort to decouple the yak from its Tibetan cultural context at the Taining Experimental Zone saw mixed results. Livestock scientists there made modest gains in productivity, yet they did so by approximating to a high degree the nomadic mode of production from which they were attempting to extract the yak.

In a world where communities across the globe are becoming increasingly interconnected, encounters with diverse cultures and faiths are inevitable. How can diverse communities approach these encounters in a way that fosters dialogue rather than conflict, peace rather than war? Specifically, in the context of Buddhism, how should Buddhists relate to religious diversity in a way that simultaneously remains faithful to their own spiritual traditions while being openminded and respectful towards the beliefs and practices of others? One of the most well-known Buddhist responses to religious diversity was the rimé movement in nineteenth-century eastern Tibet. While the term “rimé” (meaning “impartial” or “non-sectarian” in Tibetan) has become a catchphrase in contemporary Tibetan Buddhist contexts, there has been little sustained engagement with this topic by Buddhists and Buddhist studies scholars. This essay documents and contextualizes the contemporary uses of the term rimé (non-sectarianism) in Tibetan Buddhist communities and situates it within Tibetan Buddhist literature and history. I argue that it is essential for both Buddhists and Buddhist-studies scholars to devote significant attention to the concept of rimé and to engage in interfaith dialogue. For Buddhists, the very survival of their religion depends on it. For Buddhist-studies scholars, it contributes to the development of an accurate understanding of one of the most significant intellectual moments in modern Tibetan history. For humankind, it contributes to interfaith understanding, harmony, and peace.

It is widely known that soil microbes play an important role in biogeochemical cycling, affecting plant growth, and creating soil structure. Faced with the widespread global changes, unravelling the response of soil microbes is essential for understanding soil feedbacks to climate changes. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in studying soil microbial diversity patterns from local to global spatial scales and in investigating changes in soil microbial community diversity and community structure under global changes. However, how soil microbial communities would be altered by natural environmental changes and/or by human induced environmental changes are still not well understood at the regional scale. The Tibetan plateau is known as ‘the third pole’ because of its high elevation of over 4000 m above sea level. Ecosystems in the Tibetan plateau, dominated by alpine grasslands, are fragile and vulnerable to global changes. The increase rate of air temperature is up to three times the global average level. However, we still lack knowledge on responses of soil microbial community to climate gradient and human-induced environmental changes, e.g. climate warming and grazing. This thesis investigated changes in bacterial and fungal community diversity, composition, and co-occurrence along a hydrothermal gradient in the Tibetan plateau grasslands, and the interactive effects of climate changes (warming) and human activities (grazing) on soil microbial functional communities. Specifically, this thesis includes four experiments: Experiment 1 studied the changes in soil bacterial community along an environmental gradient in the Tibetan plateau. The hypothesis was that alpha diversity of soil bacterial community would increase with higher precipitation and air temperature. We therefore selected sampling sites distributed in main grassland types in the Tibetan plateau. Microbial DNA extracted from soil samples were subjected to the next-generation sequencing to characterize soil bacterial diversity and community. Meanwhile, information of environmental factors 44 was also collected to clarify the driving forces of changes in soil bacterial communities. These factors included mean manual precipitation (MAP), mean manual temperature (MAT), soil moisture (SM), elevation, soil total organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), soil carbon: nitrogen ratio (C/N), available phosphorus (AP), soil pH, plant richness, plant aboveground biomass (plant BiomassA), plant belowground biomass (plant BiomassB), NH4+-N, NO3--N, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), soil dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and nitrogen (MBN). We used statistical methods including simple correlation, multivariable analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) to elucidate spatial pattern and the relative importance of biotic and abiotic factors in structuring soil bacterial communities. In the SEM, climate factors were expected to affect soil microbial communities through their influences on plant and soil properties. Main findings included: in terms of overall bacterial diversity, the swamp meadow with better water conditions had significantly higher diversity than other habitat types, while the alpine desert had the lowest diversity. The overall alpha diversity was significantly correlated with factors that can indicate soil nutrient status including total soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, plant aboveground biomass, nitrate nitrogen (N) and other factors. The effect of environmental factors on the overall bacterial community structure variation was greater than that of spatial factors. The effects of mean annual precipitation (MAP) on soil bacterial alpha diversity were mostly indirect through affecting soil dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and plant richness based on the SEM. Among the environmental factors, the most influential factor for the differences of bacterial community structure was MAP. Unlike the effects on bacterial alpha diversity, MAP had a strong direct effect on soil bacterial community structure. Other factors such as soil DOC and soil pH affected soil bacterial community structure directly without through mediating intermediate variables. By contrast, mean annual 68 temperature (MAT) was not significantly related to soil bacterial diversity or community composition. Experiment 2 studied soil fungal community of the same soil samples as described in Experiment 1. We hypothesized that there would be a close association between soil fungal community diversity/composition and plant community diversity or composition. The main findings were: Ascomycetes were the most abundant phylum in all samples (84.56%), followed by Basidiomycetes and the Zygomycota. Significantly positive correlation between the relative abundance of Ascomycota and precipitation was found, while the relative abundance of Glomeromycota was not significantly correlated with precipitation. Based on the best-fitting regression model, the most important predictors of fungal species richness were pH and plant species richness. MAP also had substantial effects on soil fungal richness, mostly through its effects on soil pH and plant richness. Environmental factors and geographic distance can independently explain partial changes of fungal community structure with a higher effect by environmental factors. Compared to strong direct effects of soil pH, MAP affected soil fungal community composition by altering soil pH and plant community structure based on structural equation modeling (SEM). Experiment 3 studied the microbial co-occurrence network along the transect as described in Experiment 1 and 2 by integrating soil bacterial and fungal community data. In this study, Spearman correlation-based network was constructed, and a set of network topological properties were calculated. In addition, the impact factors of network properties were also investigated. The main findings were: The microbial network size of alpine meadows was greater than that of the alpine steppes. However, the modularity of alpine steppe was higher compared to alpine meadow. In addition, networks of alpine steppe had a larger average path length. Based on these differences in network topological features, soil microbial communities of alpine steppe were considered more stable under environmental interferences. 93 Fungal networks were found to have larger modularity, but smaller inter-nodes connectivity compared with bacterial networks. Although betweenness centrality of bacterial nodes was higher in the alpine meadows, degree centrality was higher in the alpine steppes. The regional meta-network (integrating bacterial and fungal taxa) structure was mostly related to MAP. However, the network topological features of alpine meadows and alpine steppe were driven by different factors. MAP and soil moisture were the significant impact factors for alpine steppe network but not for alpine meadow. The network of alpine meadows was strongly associated with plant factors including biomass and diversity. Besides, fungal networks were not associated with plant community factors, but related to climate factors and soil properties, suggesting that drivers of soil fungal network were different from that of fungal community diversity and structure. In Experiment 4, we investigated the effects of warming, grazing and their interaction in a factorial warming (+1.2-1.7 oC) and grazing (moderate intensity with ca. 50% vegetation consumption) experiment in a Tibetan alpine meadow on soil microbial communities by studying functional genes involved in soil carbon and nitrogen cycles. We hypothesize that warming would interact antagonistically with grazing to affect soil microbial functional communities. In this study, soil microbial communities were analysed by Geochip and environmental parameters including temperature, soil properties and plant communities were also collected. The main findings include: microbial functional gene structure and abundances were largely affected by the interactive effect of grazing and warming, rather than the main effect of warming or grazing. Compared to the control, grazing alone significantly increased the functional gene alpha diversity, changed the overall functional community structure, and increased the abundances of C fixation, C degradation, N mineralization and denitrification genes, likely due to the stimulating impact of urine and 118 dung deposition. Warming alone did not change these microbial properties, possibly related to the unchanged soil nutrient status. Despite an increase in soil NO3- concentrations and the deposition of urine and dung, the combined warming and grazing treatment did not change functional gene alpha diversity, community structure, or C/N cycling gene abundances. Our study revealed antagonistic interactions between warming and grazing on microbial functional gene structure and abundances, which remained stable under moderate intensity of grazing in a future warming scenario in the Tibetan alpine meadow. In sum, this thesis indicated that diversity, composition, and inter-taxa association of soil microbial communities are sensitive to environmental changes in the Tibetan plateau grassland. Climate changes and human activities affected soil microbial communities through direct and indirect pathways. More importantly, the evaluation of microbial-mediated processes in the Tibetan Plateau grasslands should take interactions between climate changes and anthropogenic activities into account.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Environment and Sc
Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology
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The dominant discourse surrounding academic research libraries today is one of change and scholarship in the humanities has seen a similar revolution in practice. Yet, most of the documented changes in either have been ascribed to the availability of online journal materials. Despite the accessibility of millions of rare, digitized primary resources freely available on the web, little has been done to understand the impact of these materials on either the practice of scholarship or on libraries. The research described in this proposal is an investigation into digitization projects involving rare and closely guarded materials and the effects of these projects on humanities scholarship. This thesis uses both qualitative and quantitative measures to: Assess the impact of digitized primary resources on the work of humanities scholars; To construct a model based on the findings that explains current use of digitized primary sources; and, To discuss the implications of these findings for academic research libraries. The research questions are answered through a detailed analysis of the role of digitization in the field of Tibetan and Himalayan studies. The author presents detailed evidence of how digitization is changing the inputs, practice, and outputs of scholarship in this field, as well as the characteristics of digitization that have led to these changes. Importantly, these findings separate out the success of individual projects from the success of digitization across the field as a whole. Support for community and innovation as well as the presence of critical mass across the field are stressed as the three most significant factors. Finally, the implications of these findings are assessed within a newly proposed model of academic libraries. This “scholar-centric” model is intended to provide both a theoretical framework for the research findings as well as a normative provocation for structuring future research and discussions about the role of academic libraries and their presence online.

This thesis considers the reputedly constitutive effects of violence and (intergenerational) loss on youth political subjectivities and agencies, with specific regard for young Tibetans of the refugee-diaspora of Northern India. While the effects of violence on socialisation and agency are currently a significant concern, prevailing clinical, cultural, and even radical psychoanalytical explanations tend – in universalising the traumatic event – to advance underdetermined accounts of experience, subjectivity and agency, leading to depoliticisation of the young or overstatement of their agency. In contrast, this study draws on the Foucauldian concept of political subjectification to reflect on the displaced wider overdeterminative material-discursive field through which young subjects, their subjectivities, and agencies are constituted. Through an ethnographically-informed genealogical method I attempt to trace the signification and affective-internalisation of a specific masternarrative of (national) loss, and the displacements the advent of this account has caused –with specific regard for the displacement of classed, gendered and generational experiences of loss. Finally, drawing on Foucault’s parrhesia as a heuristic for decentred agency, I consider how far young people in exile are able to resist patrifilial hegemony through indexing alternative forms of loss.

La thèse se compose d'une introduction et de quatre articles. Elle analyse la représentation du passé du point de vue des communautés tibétaines contemporaines d'Amdo. Cette dernière est une région linguistiquement et ethniquement diverse, située dans la partie nord-est du Plateau Tibétain, qui correspond aujourd'hui en grande partie à la province de Qinghai dans la République Populaire de Chine (RPC).Bien que les études de cas présentées dans les articles aient une portée géographique limitée, elles embrassent une étendue temporelle considérable. Basé sur des récits oraux enregistrés dans le village de Drakar, le premier article retrace l'inscription de trois généraux mongols dans le paysage tibétain par leur transformation en divinités protectrices. Le récit illustre que la division ethnique entre Mongols et Tibétains ne concerne pas seulement les humains, mais se transpose également dans le surnaturel. S'appuyant sur la polysémie du terme « bandit » en tibétain et en chinois, le deuxième article explore la transformation des définitions orales et écrites du banditisme en Amdo et son rôle dans le contexte politique chinois du XXe siècle. Basé sur la notion de participation générique de Derrida et sur la théorie de l'intertextualité des genres de Briggs et Bauman, le troisième article analyse la relation interdépendante entre « récit » et « histoire » à travers l'exemple du récit oral dans une communauté tibétaine du comté de rTse-khog, en rapport avec la Révolution Culturelle (1966-1976).Le quatrième article étudie comment les mémoires locales et les tensions ethniques liées aux activités minières des années 1930-1940 sont rituellement abordées dans un village tibétain du comté autonome hui de Hualong. Ensemble, ces articles démontrent que l'histoire est principalement comprise comme l'organisation narrative d'événements passés significatifs pour les communautés tibétaines contemporaines d'Amdo. Les données de recherche ont été collectées lors de mes missions de terrain en Amdo entre 2010 et 2018. Les sources principales incluent des interviews enregistrées, des photos et des vidéos. La méthodologie reposait sur des interviews qualitatives non structurées que j'ai personnellement menées en tibétain et en mandarin. De plus, j'ai consulté des livres d'histoire locaux publiés officiellement et non officiellement. Le cadre théorique s'appuie sur trois corpus distincts de la littérature académique : l'histoire comme narration, la mémoire collective, et la religion vernaculaire. En ce qui concerne « l'histoire comme narration », j'ai suivi l'approche de la Microstoria pour montrer comment le récit oral tibétain et l'historiographie officielle chinoise partagent une approche narrative du passé. Dans ce contexte, le genre collectif de l'(hi)story souligne la distinction floue entre les genres « histoire » et « récit » qui caractérise les deux. Par « mémoire collective », je fais référence à la dimension sociale où les Tibétains partagent et reproduisent des connaissances sur le passé. En m'appuyant sur la distinction d'Assmann entre mémoire communicative et mémoire culturelle, je soutiens que la mémoire culturelle tibétaine émerge comme une somme sélective de fragments de mémoire communicative que les individus jugent significatifs pour leur identité contemporaine. Selon la définition de Primiano, j'utilise « religion vernaculaire » pour désigner les multiples dimensions expérientielles de la religion telles qu'elles sont vécues par les individus dans leurs expressions verbales et non verbales de croyance. Dans les articles de la thèse, les croyances et rituels tibétains sont analysés comme des réponses aux besoins spécifiques du présent. En se concentrant sur les manières dont le passé est remémoré et réélaboré culturellement dans le contexte des communautés tibétaines d'Amdo, la thèse élargit notre connaissance des pratiques de création d'histoire et de mémoire dans la République Populaire de Chine dans son ensemble
The thesis consists of an introduction and four articles. It analyses the representation of the past from the standpoint of contemporary Tibetan communities in Amdo. The latter is a linguistically and ethnically diverse region in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, which today largely coincides with Qinghai Province in the People's Republic of China (PRC).While the case-studies presented in the articles have a limited geographic scope, they cover a considerable temporal stretch.Based on oral storytelling recorded in Drakar village, the first article retraces the inscription of three Mongol generals into the Tibetan landscape by means of their transformation into protective deities. The storyline testifies that the ethnic divide between Mongols and Tibetans does not only concern humans but is also transposed into the supernatural.Based on the polysemy of the term “bandit” both in Tibetan and Chinese, the second article traces the transformation of the Tibetan oral and written definitions about banditry in Amdo and its role within the political context of China in the twentieth century.Based on Derrida's notion of genre participation and Briggs and Bauman's theory of the intertextuality of genres, the third article analyzes the interdependent relationship between “story” and “history” through the example of oral storytelling in a Tibetan community in Tsekog County with regard to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).The fourth article analyses how local memories and ethnic tensions over mining activities occurred in the 1930s-1940s are ritually addressed in a Tibetan village in Hualong Hui Autonomous County.Together the articles demonstrate that history is primarily understood as the narrative organization of past events that are meaningful to contemporary Tibetan communities in Amdo.The data of the research were collected during my fieldwork trips in Amdo between 2010 and 2018. The main sources consist of audio recorded interviews, photos, and videos. The methodology was based on unstructured qualitative interviews that I personally conducted in Tibetan and Mandarin. In addition, I consulted officially and unofficially published local history books.The theoretical framework draws on three separate bodies of academic literature: history as narration, collective memory, and vernacular religion. With regard to "history as narration", I followed the Microstoria approach to show how Tibetan oral storytelling and Chinese official historiography share a narrative approach to the past. In this respect, the collective genre of (hi)story point at the blurred distinction between the genres “history” and “story” that characterizes both. By “collective memory” I refer to the social dimension wherein Tibetans share and reproduce knowledge about the past. Drawing on Assmann's distinction between communicative and cultural memory, I argue that Tibetan cultural memory emerges as a selective sum of pieces of communicative memory that people consider meaningful to their contemporary identity. Following Primiano's definition, I use “vernacular religion” to refer to the multiple experiential dimensions of religion as it is lived by individuals in their verbal and non-verbal expressions of belief. In the articles of the thesis, Tibetan beliefs and rituals are analysed as responses to specific needs of the present.By focusing on the ways the past is remembered and culturally re-elaborated in the context of Tibetan communities in Amdo, the thesis broadens our knowledge of history-making and memory-making practices in the People's Republic of China at large

State-run formal schools were established as novel educational institutions throughout the Tibetan regions in China in the 1950s. Based on a fifteen-month anthropological fieldwork in a Tibetan region in A mdo, this dissertation examines the impact of formal education on social change in Tibetan communities. Through a comprehensive analysis of: Chinese government policies; economic development; Tibetan educational models and practices; personal narratives from Tibetans of different generations; and traditional rituals, this dissertation investigates the role of formal education in Tibetan society. I argue that formal education is a main factor spurring social change in Tibetan communities. Education, through established formal institutions, integrates Tibetan communities into the national society of China, bringing close contact with non-Tibetan outsiders and binding students together with shared values and goals. This study shows that formal education is a legitimating venue through which Tibetans seek socioeconomic benefits and, as a result, education creates diversification in livelihoods and influences the dynamics of family structure, marriage patterns, identity, gender relations, and labor divisions.

This dissertation analogically applies a framework of minor literary analysis to uniquely political units of the built environment. As urbanism is conventionally understood to be executed per the greatest utility of established communal objectives, an underlying politicization is inherent as such forms must adhere to dominant norms of development which potentially marginalize those who practice cultural methods outside normative standards. Employing a uniquely architectural method of environmental justice advocacy, select communities facing disenfranchisement react by self-producing urban-architectural forms ("UAFs") to protect threatened cultural values from marginalization. Installed to subvert the existing power dynamic, such UAFs are potential exhibitions of minor architecture. Adopting the analytical standards established by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari for evaluating Franz Kafka's literature, this paper tests six UAFs to discover if a minor architecture is possible under contemporary globalization. Employing an enumerated framework of minor production characteristics, an interpretive-historical analysis is the primary method of judgment regarding each unit's execution of minor architecture. Two secondary tests are undertaken to validate the primary findings, the first of which is a physio-logical evaluation that characterizes and measures urban resource utility as per collective minority aims. Second, a newspaper correlation test is undertaken so as to judge the enunciative effectiveness of each community per issues of minority politics. Of the six cases examined, two have their source in cinema including "Bartertown" of MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME (1985) and the "House on Paper Street" of FIGHT CLUB (1999). The four remaining cases include the Tibetan Government-in-Exile of Dharamsala, India; Student Bonfire of Robertson County, Texas; Isla Vista Recreation & Park District of Santa Barbara County, California; and the Emergent Cannabis Community of Arcata, California. Of all the cases studied, only the Tibetan Government-in-Exile met both the conditions of minor architecture and was validated in terms of practiced urban resource use as well as effective representation in mainstream newsprint. Both cinematic cases failed as minor productions of the built environment. Although they did not find full validation, the three remaining real-world UAFs each were found on a course of minor architectural expression at varying stages of execution.

Chapter 3 describes the various communities within which the traditions and institutions of reincarnation lineages developed. It begins by examining a subtle but influential shift in the discourse around reincarnation that occurred during Rangjung Dorje’s lifetime from “manifestation” to “rebirth.” The focus on reincarnates being born again enabled a more ordered succession between members of a reincarnation lineage and evoked familial lines. Belief and support for rebirth were tied closely with the process of recognition; reincarnates themselves, their predecessor’s students, authoritative gurus, and political elites all sanctioned the recognition of one being as the rebirth of another. As this chapter explains, this recognition underpinned the community support that maintained reincarnates’ traditions and institutions. These communities ranged from local Tibetan monasteries and villages to larger political entities like the Mongol empire. Eventually, imperial support for the Karmapa reincarnates conferred an otherwise unattainable intensity of prestige on the Karmapa reincarnation lineage.

This book focuses on the theme of magic in Tibetan contexts, encompassing both premodern and modern text-cultures as well as contemporary practices. Combining the theoretical approaches of anthropology, ethnography, religious and textual studies, the volume aims to shed light on experiences, practices, and practitioners that have been frequently marginalized by the normative mainstream monastic Buddhist traditions and Western Buddhist scholarship, which focuses primarily on meditation and philosophy. The volume addresses the topic of Tibetan magic from a variety of perspectives such as phenomenology, sociology, comparative religion and ritual studies. A special focus will be paid to the intersection between magic/folk practices and Tantra, a complex, socio-religious phenomenon associated not only with the religious and political elites who sponsored it, but also with ‘marginal’ ethnic groups and social milieus, as well as with lay communities at large, who resorted to ritual agents to fulfil their worldly needs. Overall, the book offers a new understanding of the identity and role of magical specialists in both historical and contemporary contexts.

Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism examines how the third Karmapa hierarch, Rangjung Dorjé (1284–1339) transformed Buddhist belief about reincarnation into a Tibetan institution based on lineage. It surveys his life through the portal of his previously untranslated autobiographical stories and songs, which reveal the rudiments of the reincarnation tradition. They include Rangjung Dorjé’s synthesis of the first three Karmapas’ biographies and past-life stories (jātaka), upon which the later tradition was reliant. An analysis of these works shows how they used different strategies to authorize the Karmapas’ reincarnate status: they presented the Karmapa reincarnates as an extension of the Kagyü religious lineage, evoked well-known precedents of reincarnation, and highlighted the recognition they received from religious and secular hierarchs, including the Mongol emperor. This analysis also emphasizes the important role local communities played in maintaining the Karmapas’ institutions and explores how Rangjung Dorjé sought this support by living in the same sacred sites as his predecessors. Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism argues, furthermore, that all of these elements of the tradition worked together; the stories of the Karmapas’ lives enhanced Rangjung Dorjé’s authority, which helped to sanctify the sites in which he lived; this, in turn, elicited more support from local communities, who then continued to tell his multi-life narrative. At the beginning of Rangjung Dorjé’s life, no one had gone looking for a new Karmapa. But his skill in storytelling, together with the elite and community support that he cultivated during his life, meant that after he died, many expected his return.

Love Letters from Golok chronicles the courtship between two Buddhist tantric masters, Tare Lhamo (1938–2002) and Namtrul Rinpoche (1944–2011), and their passion for reinvigorating Buddhism in eastern Tibet during the post-Mao era. In fifty-six letters exchanged from 1978 to 1980, Tare Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche envisioned a shared destiny to "heal the damage" done to Buddhism during the years leading up to and including the Cultural Revolution. Holly Gayley retrieves the personal and prophetic dimensions of their courtship and its consummation in a twenty-year religious career that informs issues of gender and agency in Buddhism, cultural preservation among Tibetan communities, and alternative histories for minorities in China. The correspondence between Tare Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche is the first collection of "love letters" to come to light in Tibetan literature. Blending tantric imagery with poetic and folk song styles, their letters have a fresh vernacular tone comparable to the love songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, but with an eastern Tibetan flavor. Gayley reads these letters against hagiographic writings about the couple, supplemented by field research, to illuminate representational strategies that serve to narrate cultural trauma in a redemptive key, quite unlike Chinese scar literature or the testimonials of exile Tibetans. With special attention to Tare Lhamo's role as a tantric heroine and her hagiographic fusion with Namtrul Rinpoche, Gayley vividly shows how Buddhist masters have adapted Tibetan literary genres to share private intimacies and address contemporary social concerns.

This chapter provides a detailed description of chémar, the auspicious offering reserved for important rituals, ceremonies, and celebrations in all Tibetan communities. The narration illustrates the shape of chémar and the elements that constitute it, along with their symbolic meanings. Furthermore, this chapter also outlines the process of building a table to hold chémar, highlighting the careful selection of materials and skills required for its assembly.