Frontier Tibet patterns of change in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands / edited by Stephane Gros

Issued as part of book collections on Project MUSE

Includes bibliographical references and index

Frontier (of) experience : introduction and prolegomenon / Stephane Gros -- The increasing visibility of the Tibetan 'borderlands' / Katia Buffetrille -- Boundaries of the borderlands : mapping Gyelthang / Eric D. Mortensen -- Trade, territory, and missionary connections in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands / John Bray -- Settling authority : Sichuanese farmers in early twentieth-century eastern Tibet / Scott Relyea -- Wheat dreams : scientific interventions at Chinese model farms in Kham, 1937-1949 / Mark E. Frank -- The origins of disempowered development in the Tibetan borderlands / C. Patterson Giersch -- Pastoralists by choice : adaptations in contemporary pastoralism in Eastern Kham / Gillian G. Tan -- Money, politics, and local identity : an inside look at the 'diary' of a twentieth-century Khampa trader / Lucia Galli -- The dispute between Sichuan and Xikang over the Tibetan kingdom of Trokyap (1930s-1940s) / Fabienne Jagou -- The rise of a political strongman in Derge in the early twentieth century : the story of Jagö Topden / Yudru Tsomu -- Harnessing the power of the Khampa elites : political persuasion and the consolidation of Communist Party rule in Gyelthang / Dáša Pejchar Mortensen -- Return of the good king : kingship and identity among Yushu Tibetans since 1951 / Maria Turek -- Yachen as process : encampments, nuns, and spatial politics in post-Mao Kham / Yasmin Cho -- Chinese settler colonialism : empire and life in the Tibetan borderlands / Carole McGranahan

Frontier Tibet: Patterns of Change in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands addresses a historical sequence that sealed the future of the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. It considers how starting in the late nineteenth century imperial formations and emerging nation-states developed competing schemes of integration and debated about where the border between China and Tibet should be. It also ponders the ways in which this border is internalised today, creating within the People's Republic of China a space that retains some characteristics of a historical frontier. The region of eastern Tibet called Kham, the focus of this volume, is a productive lens through which processes of place-making and frontier dynamics can be analysed. Using historical records and ethnography, the authors challenge purely externalist approaches to convey a sense of Kham's own centrality and the agency of the actors involved. They contribute to a history from below that is relevant to the history of China and Tibet, and of comparative value for borderland studies