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Roots and routes : locating Tibetan identities in diaspora
Includes abstract.
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Social Anthropology
2015
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| _version_ | 1867613214112481280 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Joffe, Ben Philip |
| author2 | Macdonald, Helen |
| author_browse | Joffe, Ben Philip Macdonald, Helen |
| author_facet | Macdonald, Helen Joffe, Ben Philip |
| author_sort | Joffe, Ben Philip |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes abstract. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14265 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:34.479Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Social Anthropology |
| publisherStr | Social Anthropology |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14265 Roots and routes : locating Tibetan identities in diaspora Joffe, Ben Philip Macdonald, Helen Social Anthropology Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-87). Cognisant of a legacy of exotification of Tibet and Tibetans, Tibetan studies scholars have argued for a certain instrumental internalisation of romantic Western portrayals by Tibetans. Exemplifying this perspective, Lopez worries that Tibetans have been forced to perpetuate limiting orientalist fantasies about themselves for political expediency. In reproducing Tibet as some hyper-real Shangri-la, it is turned into a floating signifier that loses its historical, nationalist, and political specificity. While I do not deny the relevance of such claims, I suggest that Lopez's formulation is problematic for how it risks implying that identity performed or articulated for an audience is likely to be less complex, less flexible, and to leave less room for personal innovation, socio-historical complexity and multivocality. In judging some self-representations as instrumental, the existence of a more genuine, entrenched, tacit Tibetan-ness behind such staged performances is presupposed. Seeking to problematise this position, I take as my entry-point the idea of instrumentality, and, sketching a rough trajectory of academic writing about Tibet, probe some of the dominant discourses and implicit strategies that emerge in the literature. I draw upon two months of ethnographic fieldwork where I interacted closely with the 'Office of Tibet' of South Africa (a representative organ of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA)) and the three Tibetan families associated in various capacities with it. As a heuristic strategy, I attempt to locate 'Tibetan-ness' as it emerges (and fades from view) in a variety of contexts. Shifting from strategic and public performances of Tibetan-ness, to everyday gestures and habitus, and back again, I show how convenient distinctions between the public and the private, the local and the global, the political and the religious or cultural, are ultimately unsettled in the face of complex and contingent expressions of ethnic identity that take place in the midst of extensive transnational networks and audiences. As an alternative to a recourse to 'instrumentality,' I propose a rethinking of cultural identity as 'skilful'. 2015-10-25T16:52:38Z 2015-10-25T16:52:38Z 2010 Master Thesis Masters MSocSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14265 eng application/pdf Social Anthropology Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Social Anthropology Joffe, Ben Philip Roots and routes : locating Tibetan identities in diaspora |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Roots and routes : locating Tibetan identities in diaspora |
| title_full | Roots and routes : locating Tibetan identities in diaspora |
| title_fullStr | Roots and routes : locating Tibetan identities in diaspora |
| title_full_unstemmed | Roots and routes : locating Tibetan identities in diaspora |
| title_short | Roots and routes : locating Tibetan identities in diaspora |
| title_sort | roots and routes locating tibetan identities in diaspora |
| topic | Social Anthropology |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14265 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT joffebenphilip rootsandrouteslocatingtibetanidentitiesindiaspora |