Tibetan Subjectivities on the Global Stage: Negotiating Dispossession [Hardcover]

Tibetan Subjectivities on the Global Stage: Negotiating Dispossession explores the many ways Tibetans are reimagining their cultural identity since the communist takeover of Tibet in the 1950s. Focusing on developments taking place in Tibet and the diaspora, this collection of essays addresses a wide range of issues at the heart of Tibetan modernity. From the political dynamics of the exiled community in India to the production of contemporary Tibetan literature in the PRC, the collection delves into various aspects of current significance for the Tibetan community worldwide such as the construction of Bon identity in exile, the strategic use of the discourse of development or the issue of cultural and linguistic purity in an increasingly hybrid and globalized world. Moving away from the preservationist paradigm that regards Tibetan culture as an endangered and precious object, the essays in this book portray Tibetan identities in motion, as lived subjectivities that travel, change and creatively reimagine themselves on various global stages. Even if recent Tibetan history is marked by imposed transitions and a sense of dispossession, this collection highlights the ways Tibetans have not only managed traumatic historical events but also become agents of change and reinventors of their own traditions.

Shelly Bhoil is writer and research scholar and has previously taught at Delhi University and Amity University.
Enrique Galvan-Alvarez is associate professor at Universidad Internacional de La Rioja-UNIR.

The book is a valuable resource for people in Tibetan studies trying to familiarize themselves with the current debates within the community. . . The book makes important connections between Tibetans in Tibet and those in exile by focusing on modes of literary and visual production and religious networks operating across this political divide. . . . This book is a careful selection of interconnected processes that shape the flows of identity in Tibet and TilsÐ