| dc.description.abstract | How have local people in Lhagang, a Tibetan village in Sichuan Province of China, experienced, responded to, and been transformed by the changes that were caused by the state-imposed urbanization policies? How have they created a world of their own, and told their stories in the course of these changes? Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, globalization has spurred on modernization and the rapid development of the Chinese economy. With the primary goal of the state’s development projects being to bring prosperity to the entire country, which means bringing a market-oriented economy to even the remotest regions and smallest villages, urbanization has become one of the state’s fundamental policies for developing the western regions of China. Without exception, urbanization-related development projects have dramatically transformed rural areas in Tibet. It is undeniable that this long-term policy of urbanization has had positive as well as negative consequences for Tibetans, especially those who live in rural areas. However, I argue that local Tibetan communities also play an active and important role in this process of urbanization and are strategically dealing with the changes in which they are involved by employing available resources, both cultural and economic, in their pursuit of new opportunities.
Based on my year-long fieldwork in Lhagang Village in Eastern Tibet, in this dissertation I present a comprehensive study of the community’s experience of, reactions to, and negotiations with the changes that have taken place in their social and economic world since 2000, and their continued exploration of what these changes mean to them. Specifically, it is about the ways that the local community has made use of and appropriated transitions for securing and advancing its economic and social situation as well as asserting its identity. Thus, this dissertation puts the spotlight on Lhagang villagers’ creation and implementation of collective rules, obligations, and restrictions to organize themselves and protect their economic advantage in the face of recent settlement in the village. They have also disseminated and utilized both written and oral narratives regarding the distinctiveness of the landscape of Lhagang and the seventh-century CE Chinese Princess Wencheng’s visit to Lhagang, bringing with her the Lhagang Jowo (Buddha) statue, to promote tourism and justify their claim to be a unique community. Finally, they have presented and consolidated their identity through cultural representations such as the worship of local protective and mountain deities, the horse racing festival, and the Tibetan New Year celebration. I pay particular attention to the villagers’ efforts to shape and strengthen a sense of belonging to the village and their identity as the original community in that location.
In this dissertation, I highlight the local community’s adaptive strategies and activities to deal with these changes and to find its own development strategies in the process of urbanization, based on its distinctive resources grounded in local culture. I contend that practices of the Lhagang villagers are not just local reactions to state-induced social change, but also a complex interaction of elements that go beyond local agency. Therefore, although the case study of the Lhagang community presents a particular scenario, it contributes to the debate on survival strategies of small communities in a resilient way, involving resistance, transformation, and adaptation in the vast and diverse areas of Tibet in contemporary China. The research results presented in this study also have wider implications for the study of people’s struggle for recognition and identity, a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly common in a global context. | en_US |