Introduction: Trans-Himalayas as Multistate Margins (original) (raw)
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Trans-Himalayan Borderlands: Livelihoods, Territorialities, Modernities
Trans-Himalayan Borderlands: Livelihoods, Territorialities, Modernities The societies in the Himalayan borderlands have undergone wide-ranging transformations, as the territorial reconfiguration of modern nation-states since the mid-twentieth century and the presently increasing trans-Himalayan movements of people, goods, and capital reshape the livelihoods of communities, pulling them into global trends of modernization and regional discourses of national belonging. This book explores the changes to native senses of place, the conception of border – simultaneously as limitations and opportunities – and what the authors call “affective boundaries,” “livelihood reconstruction,” and “trans-Himalayan modernities.” It addresses changing social, political, and environmental conditions that acknowledge growing external connectivity even as it emphasizes the importance of place. Dan Smyer Yü is professor and director of Center for Trans-Himalayan Studies at Yunnan Minzu University. Jean Michaud is professor of social anthropology at Université Laval, Canada.
2020
Published in 2017, this volume, an anthology of twelve essays by Chinese, European and North American social scientists, is an inaugural, multinational, collaborative project run by the Center for Trans-Himalayan Studies (CTHS) at China's Yunnan Minzu University (YMU). Its genealogy includes conferences and workshops held between 2013 and 2015 by The New School, The Yale Himalaya Initiative and lastly YMU. These events all explored new ground in Himalayan studies by focusing on connectivity, inclusion and new voices in the region from a transboundary perspective. The first thing that might catch the eye of many a reader on first seeing this volume is its title, 'Trans-Himalayan Borderlands', a seemingly questionable nomenclature once one goes through the Table of Contents. A cursory glance shows that of the twelve studies presented in this book, at best only four-the chapters by Sara Schneiderman, Dan Smyer Yü, Hildegard Diemberger and Brendan Galipeau-relate to sites in the 'Trans-Himalayas', if this term is to be understood according to its widespread conventional usage in ecology (eg Shrestha 2000: 1-2) and geology (eg Sorkhabi 2010). This conventional scientific usage traces its etymology to Cunningham (1854) and Hedin (1909-1913), and signifies the region of high-altitude ranges, valleys and plateaus with generally arid or semi-arid biomes that starts immediately north of the Great Himalayan Range, is bound in the north by the rough continuum of Kailas and Nyechenthangla ranges, and in the east extends beyond Lhasa. The other chapters represent studies conducted in regions that are rather distant and eco-geologically very distinct from the Trans-Himalayas as understood in the above-mentioned sense, such as the lower Himalayas of Uttarakhand and Nepal, the Thai-Myanmar border and China's borderlands with Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos.
European Bulletin of Himalayan Research , 2020
Published in 2017, this volume, an anthology of twelve essays by Chinese, European and North American social scientists, is an inaugural, multinational, collaborative project run by the Center for Trans-Himalayan Studies (CTHS) at China's Yunnan Minzu University (YMU). Its genealogy includes conferences and workshops held between 2013 and 2015 by The New School, The Yale Himalaya Initiative and lastly yMU. These events all explored new ground in Himalayan studies by focusing on connectivity, inclusion and new voices in the region from a transboundary perspective. The first thing that might catch the eye of many a reader on first seeing this volume is its title, 'Trans-Himalayan Borderlands', a seemingly questionable nomenclature once one goes through the Table of Contents. A cursory glance shows that of the twelve studies presented in this book, at best only four-the chapters by Sara Schneiderman, Dan Smyer Yü, Hildegard Diemberger and Brendan Galipeau-relate to sites in the 'Trans-Himalayas', if this term is to be understood according to its widespread conventional usage in ecology (eg Shrestha 2000: 1-2) and geology (eg Sorkhabi 2010). This conventional scientific usage traces its etymology to Cunningham (1854) and Hedin (1909-1913), and signifies the region of high-altitude ranges, valleys and plateaus with generally arid or semi-arid biomes that starts immediately north of the Great Himalayan Range, is bound in the north by the rough continuum of Kailas and Nyechenthangla ranges, and in the east extends beyond Lhasa. The other chapters represent studies conducted in regions that are rather distant and eco-geologically very distinct from the Trans-Himalayas as understood in the above-mentioned sense, such as the
Himalayan Borders and Borderlands : Mobility, State Building, and Identity
2020
This review article engages with recent ethnographic research on 'borders' and 'borderlands' in the Himalayan region. We examine how recent scholarship published primarily between 2012-2018 engages with borderland theory as it intersects with issues of state building, ethnicity, language, religion, and tourism. As the scholarly canon moves away from disparate areas studies approaches, this paper investigates how Himalayan scholarship views borders as comprising a multivariate geographical, cultural, and political network of history and relationships undergoing continual transformation. As emerging scholars from both within and outside the Himalaya, we separate the article into four sub-sections that each connect to our respective interests. Our intention is not to propose an alternative conceptual framework or set of terminologies to borderland studies, but to bring together various inter-disciplinary approaches that view borders as sites of continuity and discontinu...
Revisiting Himalayan Borderlands: A Bridge between India and Central Asia
JAY Kay Books, 2022
The Himalayan borderlands are one of the richest and fertile areas for the study of distinct landforms, environment, cultures, language groups, religion and so forth. Various cultural groups co-exist and are settled within this vast mountainous region with links to each other through numerous routes. Its peculiar geographical location has allowed transit for cultures, trade and movement of people from plains of India to the trans-Himalayas and from Tibet, China and Central Asia to India. The many distinct cultures of this region have ancient roots such as the Northern Neolithic people of Kashmir, Swat, Tibet, China and Mongolia; the Indus valley civilisation at Harappa and Mohenjodaro. This region has successfully assimilated many religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam along with indigenous cultures, languages, dialects and ethnicities. For thousands of years this region has held a profound significance for the peoples of South and Central Asia, as their literature, mythologies, and religions reflect. In contemporary times, the Himalayan borderlands have not only witnessed cultural or physiographic upheavels but have also seen a different kind of change – redrawing of political landscapes. It is said that politics changes the history of nation but it has also led changes to its geography. The redrawing of the political landscapes has bearing on the geo-politics of the region as well. Himalayan Borderlands thus was neither a backwater nor a borderland but an area of distinctive physical environment connected with surrounding regions and nearby centres of civilizations through easily accessible routes. The present volume is a collection of papers that refreshes our understanding of shared religions, disparate identities and cultures, trade and commerce and so forth of the Himalayan region. It is a herculean task to cover each and every aspect of the social, political, cultural aspect of many nations that constitute the Himalayan Borderlands within this volume. However, a sincere attempt was made to give space to such relevant papers that broadly encompass syncretic themes from prehistory to modern times of this vast region. This edited volume, therefore, has a special focus on history, art, religion and commerce.
Forming Communities and Negotiating Power on the Himalayan Borders
Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia ( Ed) , 2023
This paper explores the Central Himalayan region as a continuous political entity in spite of forming the borders of several independent nations. The region has a ecological identity and has interacting communities that are dependent on trade and exchange of material goods to survive and prosper. The ecological variations make the sub-regions dependent on each other and cross-border trade has been an established feature of this region. Here the example is of the Bhotiya Community, a generic name for small enclaves of pastoral and trading communities that dot the entire length of the upper Himalayan region. The focus here is on the Tibetan Salt trade and its history in the backdrop of the fluid political arena of the Himalayan region and beyond.
Himalayan Connections: Disciplines, Geographies, Trajectories: A Workshop Report
‘The Himalaya’ has been invoked as an analytical category by a range of actors over time, from scientific, social scientific, humanities, and applied backgrounds. A ‘Himalayan’ framing has long served as a valuable heuristic for understanding the sweep of histories, societies, and environments that connect the region. Yet that same framing has recently emerged as a problem of scale: focusing on commonalities obscures difference, and thus diversity; focusing on difference obscures commonalities, and thus region-wide affinities. Does using ‘Himalaya’ as a broad regional signifier invoke an ecological or cultural determinism that deemphasizes the specificity of political history? Or does it legitimately recognize the webs of ecological, economic and cultural connectivity that have bound together complex entities over time? New Himalayan scholarship, oriented toward connectivity and inclusion, empowered by new collaborations and analytical tools, might learn from its past legacy and ultimately move beyond it. How can new voices thus be included to express greater diversity in Himalayan Studies?
Introduction. The Himalayas from its edges: networks, identities and place-making
European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, 2024
While the perspectives of sovereign nation-states have tended to dominate how the Tibeto-Himalayan region has been shaped, viewed and lived in the last century, we argue for adoption of multidisciplinary perspectives that focus on flows and interactions rather than the limited frames of state-centred exchanges. Collating empirically grounded studies from different parts of the Himalayas, this special issue highlights the cross-border networks, negotiated identities and politics of place that are directly and indirectly enabled by state practices and are enacted in the lives of the people in the region. This issue offers a critical understanding of the tangled role of cultural, material, political and economic factors that have informed historical and contemporary processes in the Himalayas. In this introductory paper, we highlight the Himalayas as a productive site of contestation before identifying some of the connections and ruptures that mark it. A useful way to understand the region and its peoples is through the foregrounding of networks, identities and place-making that mark its lived realities. “Introduction. The Himalayas from its edges: networks, identities and place-making”, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research [Online], 62 | 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/2248 Centre d'études sud-asiatiques et himalayennes (UMR8077 CNRS/EHESS)