Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:08:41.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Development as Entangled Knot: The Case of the Slaughter Renunciation Movement in Tibet, China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2015

Gaerrang (Kabzung)
Get access

Abstract

A common conceptualization of development as a binary relationship between trustees and target groups is inadequate. This article proposes the metaphor of development as an entangled cultural knot, constituted by multiple power relations. It uses this concept to analyze a recent slaughter renunciation movement, in which some leading Tibetan Nyingma masters from Larung Gar have suggested that Tibetan herders give up selling their livestock to the slaughter market for religious reasons. The movement reflects an alternative form of development articulated by several leading Tibetan Buddhist teachers, particularly Khenpo Tsultrim Lodroe, yet it goes against the state project of developing the yak meat industry. This movement has been criticized not only by state officials, but also by secular Tibetan intellectuals, as well as by herders. This article argues that the complex relationships among Tibetan Nyingma teachers, state officials, Tibetan secularists, and herders; their shared and competing interests; and the apparently contradictory positions they take on various issues require a much more sophisticated conceptual tool than the simple dichotomous conceptualization of development.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , November 2015 , pp. 927 - 951
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Ashiwa, Yoshiko, and Wank, David. 2009. “Making Religion, Making the State: An Introductory Essay.” In Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China, eds. Ashiwa, Yoshiko and Wank, David, 1–21. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Banks, Tony. 2003. “Property Rights Reform in Rangeland China: Dilemmas on the Road to the Household Ranch.” World Development 31(12):2129–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, Robbie. 2012. “Restrictions and Their Anomalies: The Third Forum and the Regulation of Religion in Tibet.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 41(4):45–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barstow, Geoffrey Francis. 2013. “Food of Sinful Demons: A History of Vegetarianism in Tibet.” PhD diss., University of Virginia.Google Scholar
Bauer, Ken. 2005. “Development and the Enclosure Movement in Pastoral Tibet since the 1980s.” Nomadic Peoples 9(1–2):53–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, George. 1996. “A.T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka.” In Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, eds. Queen, Christopher and King, Sallie, 121–46. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Cabezón, José, Ignacio, . 2008. “State Control of Tibetan Buddhist Monasticism in the People's Republic of China.” In Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation, ed. Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui, 261–94. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, Matthew. 2013. “Understanding the Nexus between Religion and Development.” In Handbook of Research on Development and Religion, ed. Clarke, Matthew, 1–16. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costello, Susan. 2008. “Choices and Change in Tribal and Buddhist Moralities in Golok, a Tibetan Pastoral Area.” PhD diss., Boston University.Google Scholar
Cowen, Michael, and Shenton, Robert. 1995. “The Invention of Development.” In Power of Development, ed. Crush, Jonathan, 27–43. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Crush, Jonathan. 1995. “Introduction: Imagining Development.” In Power of Development, ed. Crush, Jonathan, 1–23. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dodin, Thierry, and Räther, Heinz. 2001. Imagining Tibet: Perceptions, Projections, and Fantasies. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Escobar, Arturo. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Escobar, Arturo 2001. “Culture Sits in Places: Reflections on Globalism and Subaltern Strategies of Localization.” Political Geography 20:139–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, James. 1990. The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1991. “Governmentality.” In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, eds. Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter, 87–104. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ga, Dawa Cairang. 2008. “Ganzi Waxu Seda youmu buluo de zongjiao xinyang lunsu” [A discussion on the faiths of tribal society of Garze Wasu Sertar]. Journal of Tibetology 4:50–59.Google Scholar
Gaerrang, . 2013. “Tibetan Identity and Tibetan Buddhism in Trans-regional Connection: Contemporary Vegetarian Movement in the Pastoral Areas of Tibet, China.” Conference Paper for the 13th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Ulaanbaatar.Google Scholar
Gayley, Holly. 2011a. “Eating Monkey Brains: Exoticizing the Chinese Banquet in a Tibetan Buddhist Argument for Vegetarianism.” Conference Paper for Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Gayley, Holly 2011b. “The Ethics of Cultural Survival: A Buddhist Vision of Progress in Mkhan po ‘Jigs phun's Heart Advice to Tibetans for the 21st Century.” In Mapping the Modern in Tibet, ed. Tuttle, Gray, 435–502. Andiast, Switzerland: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies.Google Scholar
Gayley, Holly 2013. “Reimagining Buddhist Ethics on the Tibetan Plateau.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 20:247–86.Google Scholar
Germano, David. 1998. “Re-membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet: Contemporary Tibetan Visionary Movements in the People's Republic of China.” In Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet: Religious Revival and Cultural Identity, eds. Goldstein, Melvyn and Kapstein, Matthew, 53–94. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gupta, Akhil. 1998. Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Richard. 2009. “Rangeland Degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: A Review of the Evidence of Its Magnitude and Causes.” Journal of Arid Environments 74:1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Yasheng. 1996. “Central-Local Relations in China during the Reform Era: The Economic and Institutional Dimensions.” World Development 24(4):655–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, Toni. 1997. “Green Tibetans: A Brief Social History.” In Tibetan Culture in the Diaspora: Papers Presented at a Panel of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, ed. Korom, Frank, 103–19. Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.Google Scholar
Huber, Toni 2001. “Shangri-la in Exile: Representations of Tibetan Identity and Transnational Culture.” In Imagining Tibet: Perceptions, Projections, and Fantasies, eds. Dodin, Thierry and Räther, Heinz, 357–72. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Ji, Zhe. 2008. “Secularization as Religious Restructuring: Statist Institutionalization of Chinese Buddhism and Its Paradoxes.” In Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation, ed. Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui, 233–60. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Khabdha, . n.d. http://www.khabdha.org (accessed June 2014).Google Scholar
Phuntsok, Khenpo Jikme. 1995. “Dus rabs nyer gcig pa’ gangs can pa rnams la phul ba’ snying gtam sbrin gyi rol mo” [Advice to Tibetans of the twenty-first century]. In chos rje dam pa yid bzhin nor bu ‘Jigs med phun tshogs ‘byong gnas dpal bzang po'i gsung ‘bum [The collected works of Khenpo Jikme Phuntsok]. Vol. 4. Sertar County, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan: Bla Rung (Larung Gar) Gzhung Las Do Dam Khang [Seda Buddhist Institute Administrative Office].Google Scholar
Phuntsok, Khenpo Jikme 2000. “Gang can pho mo yongs kyi snyan lam du phul ba'i zhu yig” [An appeal to men and women of snow land]. In Chos rje dam pa yid bzhin nor bu ‘Jigs med phun tshogs ‘byong gnas dpal bzang po'i gsung ‘bum [The collected works of Khenpo Jikme Phuntsok]. Vol. 4. Sertar County, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan: Bla Rung (Larung Gar) Gzhung Las Do Dam Khang [Seda Buddhist Institute Administrative Office].Google Scholar
Lodroe, Khenpo Tsultrim. 2003a. Dus su bab pa’ gtam lugs gnyis gsal ba’ me long [Timely advices: A mirror that clarifies the two systems]. Publisher unknown.Google Scholar
Lodroe, Khenpo Tsultrim 2003b. Yang dag lam gyi ‘jug sgo blo gsar yid kyi dga ston [A gate to the right path: A feast for the novice]. Fojiao Cihui Fuwu Zhongxin.Google Scholar
Kyi, Jamyang. 2014. “The Impact of the So-Called Ten Virtues.” High Peaks Pure Earth. http://highpeakspureearth.com/2014/the-impact-of-the-so-called-ten-virtues-by-jamyang-kyi/ (accessed June 2014).Google Scholar
Li, Tania Murray. 1999. “Compromising Power: Development, Culture, and Rule in Indonesia.” Cultural Anthropology 14(3):295–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Tania Murray 2007. The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Lopez, Donald. 1998. Prisoners of Shangri-la: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luorong, Zhandui. 2008. “Qing zang Tie lu yu Xi zang Mumin de Zeng shou” [Research on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and increasing income of Tibetan farmers and nomads]. Journal of Tibetology 4:101–7.Google Scholar
Makley, Charlene. 2014. “The Amoral Other: State-Led Development and Mountain Deity Cults among Tibetans in Amdo Rebgong.” In Mapping Shangrila: Contested Landscapes in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, eds. Yeh, Emily and Coggins, Chris, 229–54. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
McMahan, David. 2008. The Making of Buddhist Modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Donald S. 2000. “The Crucible of Cultural Politics: Reworking ‘Development’ in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands.” American Ethnologist 26(3):654–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penny, Benjamin. 2008. “Animal Spirits, Karmic Retribution, Falungong, and the State.” In Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation, ed. Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui, 135–54. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Phuntsho, Karma. 2004. “H.H. Khenpo Jigme Phuntsho: A Tribute and a Translation.” Journal of Bhutan Studies 11(11):129–36.Google Scholar
Pigg, Stacey Lee. 1992. “Inventing Social Categories through Place: Social Representations and Development in Nepal.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34(3):491–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qinghai Lake Note [Mtsho sngon po bod yig zin bris]. n.d. http://blog.amdotibet.cn/strayyak/archives/95656.aspx (accessed April 2015).Google Scholar
Richard, Camille, Zhaoli, Yan, and Guozhen, Du. 2006. “The Paradox of the Individual Household Responsibility System in the Grassland of the Tibetan Plateau, China.” USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-39: 83–91. http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_p039/rmrs_p039_083_091.pdf (accessed July 30, 2015).Google Scholar
Rudnyckyj, Daromir. 2010. Spiritual Economies: Islam, Globalization, and the Afterlife of Development. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Sangdor, . n.d. http://www.sangdor.com (accessed December 2012; URL now defunct).Google Scholar
Shrestha, Nanda. 1995. “Becoming a Development Category.” In Power of Development, ed. Crush, Jonathan, 266–77. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, James Howard. 2008. Bewitching Development: Witchcraft and the Reinvention of Development in Neoliberal Kenya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomalin, Emma, and Starkey, Caroline. 2013. “Buddhism and Development.” In Handbook of Research on Development and Religion, ed. Clarke, Matthew, 31–50. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Yibo, Gengxu, Wang, Yongpin, Sheng, and Yanli, Wang. 2005. “Degradation of the Ecoenvironmental System in Alpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau.” Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology 27:634–40.Google Scholar
Xu, Jun. 2008. “San Jiang yuan sheng tai yi min yan jiu hui gu yu zhan wang” [A review of the Sanjiangyuan ecological resettlement program]. Journal of Tibetology 4:164–74.Google Scholar
Yan, Zhaoli. 2005. “Rangeland Privatization and Its Impacts on the Zoige Wetlands on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau.” Journal of Mountain Science 2:105–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yan, Zhaoli, Wu, Ning, Yeshi, Dorji, and Ru, Jia. 2005. “A Review of Rangeland Privatization and Its Implications in the Tibetan Plateau, China.” Nomadic Peoples 9(1–2):31–51.Google Scholar
Yeh, Emily. 2003. “Tibetan Range Wars: Spatial Politics and Authority on the Grasslands of Amdo.” Development and Change 34(3):499–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeh, Emily 2007. “Tropes of Indolence and the Cultural Politics of Development in Lhasa, Tibet.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 97(3):593–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeh, Emily 2012. “Blazing Pelts and Burning Passions: Nationalism, Cultural Politics, and Spectacular Decommodification in Tibet.” Journal of Asian Studies 72(2):319–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeh, Emily 2013. Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeh, Emily, and Gaerrang, . 2011. “Tibetan Pastoralism in Neoliberalising China: Continuity and Change in Gouli.” Area 43(2):165–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yonten, Nyima. 2012. “Converting Pastures to Grasslands: State Interventions into Pastoral Livelihoods and Grassland Ecosystems in Tibet.” PhD diss., University of Colorado Boulder.Google Scholar
Yu, Dan Smyer. 2012. The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China: Charisma, Money, Enlightenment. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zhao, Xinquan, and Huakun, Zhou. 2005. “Eco-Environmental Degradation, Vegetation Regeneration and Sustainable Development in the Headwaters of the Three Rivers on the Tibetan Plateau.” S&T and Society 20:471–76.Google Scholar
Zheng, Zhou, and Zemei, Zhang. 2008. “Xizang nong mumin anju gongcheng jianshe yanjiu – jiyu shehui zhuyi xin nongcun jianshe shijiao de fenxi” [A study of Tibetan herders’ settlement project in the Tibet Autonomous Region: A perspective of the new socialist countryside]. Journal of Tibetology 4:108–18.Google Scholar
ZhogsDung, . 2005. Dogs slong snying stobs [The spirit of critical thinking]. Gansu: Nationalities Publishing House.Google Scholar
ZhogsDung, 2008. Dpyod shes rgyang ‘bod [A distance call for scrutiny]. Gansu: Nationalities Publishing House.Google Scholar