Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T19:30:10.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Blazing Pelts and Burning Passions: Nationalism, Cultural Politics, and Spectacular Decommodification in Tibet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2013

Emily T. Yeh
Get access

Abstract

A few months after the fourteenth Dalai Lama stated at the Kalachakra Initiation Ceremony in India in January 2006 that Tibetans should cease wearing clothing lined with endangered animal skins, Tibetans across the Tibetan Plateau destroyed millions of yuan worth of otter, leopard, tiger, and other pelts. Outsiders' interpretations of these events have flattened out the complexity of participants' motivations, which included not only religious and national loyalty, but also concerns about inequality wrought by capitalist development, framed through a lens of modern Chinese history. This paper traces heated debates among Tibetans about the burnings, including their implications for Tibetans' global reputation, the survival of Tibetan culture, and the possibility of a moral economy in an era of deepening commodification. It also explores the embodied, visual, and performative elements of the burnings through participants' videos. The role of local filmmaking efforts in spreading the burnings makes the accompanying videos especially relevant.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 319 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2013 

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

Anagnost, Ann. 1997. National Past-times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in Modern China. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Barnett, Robert. 1994. “Symbols and Protest: The Iconography of Demonstrations in Tibet, 1987–1990.” In Resistance and Reform in Tibet, ed. Barnett, Robert, 238–58. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.Google Scholar
Barnett, Robert. 2010. “Digital Video in Tibet: Domestic Videos, Elite Films, and the Work of Padma Tsedan.” Paper presented at DV-Made China: Digital Objects, Everyday Subjects, New York University.Google Scholar
Bo, Yang. [1985] 1992. The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture. North Sydney: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Cooke, Susette. 2003. “Merging Tibetan Culture into the Chinese Economic Fast Lane.” China Perspectives 50:2–17.Google Scholar
Dawa, Tsering. 2004. Bod kyi srol rgyun rig gnas dang deng dus kyi khor yug srung skyob [Traditional Tibetan culture and contemporary environmental protection]. Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles. 1988. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. San Francisco: City Lights Books.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, George. 1999. “The Shugs ldan Affair: History and Nature of a Quarrel.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 21(2):227–70.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1996. “The Impossible Prison.” In Foucault Live: Interviews, 1961–84, ed. Lotringer, Sylvere, 275–86. New York: Semiotext(e).Google Scholar
Fridell, Gavin. 2007. Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market-Driven Social Justice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregson, Nicky, and Rose, Gillian. 2000. “Taking Butler Elsewhere: Performativities, Spatialities and Subjectivities.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18(4):433–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartley, Lauran. 2002. “‘Inventing Modernity’ in Amdo: Views on the Role of Traditional Tibetan Culture in a Development Society.” In Amdo Tibetans in Transition: Society and Culture in the Post-Mao Era: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS, ed. Huber, Toni, 1–25. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Hayes, Jack. 2008. “Environmental Change, Economic Growth and Local Societies: ‘A Change in Worlds’ in Northern Sichuan, 1700–2005.” PhD diss., University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
Hillman, Ben. 2005. “Monastic Politics and the Local State in China: Authority and Autonomy in an Ethnically Tibetan Prefecture.” China Journal 54:29–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, Toni. 1997. “Green Tibetans: A Brief Social History.” In Tibetan Culture in the Diaspora, ed. Korom, Frank, 103–19. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen 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
Human Rights Watch. 2011. “China: End Crackdown on Tibetan Monasteries.” October 12. http://www.hrw.org/node/102319 (accessed December 18, 2012).Google Scholar
Kolås, Åshild. 2007. Tourism and Tibetan Culture in Transition: A Place Called Shangrila. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyi, Jamyang. 2010. “Earthquake in Tibet, Leading Tibetan Intellectual ‘Shogdung’ Detained in Xining.” High Peaks Pure Earth, April 26. http://highpeakspureearth.com/2010/earthquake-in-tibet-leading-tibetan-intellectual-shogdung-detained-in-xining/ (accessed December 18, 2012).Google Scholar
Longhurst, Robyn. 2000. “‘Corporeographies’ of Pregnancy: ‘Bikini Babes.’” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18(4):453–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lopez, Donald. 1998. “Two Sides of the Same God.” Tricycle 7(3):67–69.Google Scholar
Makley, Charlene. 2006. “Competing Conversions: Gendered Development Encounters Among Tibetans in Qinghai.” Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Makley, Charlene. 2007. The Violence of Liberation: Gender and Tibetan Buddhist Revival in Post-Mao China. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oakes, Timothy. 2007. “Welcome to Paradise! A Sino-American Joint Venture Project.” In China's Transformations: The Stories Beyond the Headlines, eds. Weston, Timothy and Jenson, Lionel, 240–64. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Pile, Steve. 2010. “Emotions and Affect in Recent Human Geography.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35:5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sangster, Leigh. 2012. “The Afterlife of Images.” Cultural Anthropology, April 10. http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/542 (accessed February 3, 2013).Google Scholar
Sayer, Andrew. 2003. “(De)commodification, Consumer Culture, and Moral Economy.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21(3):341–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sayer, Andrew. 2007. “Moral Economy as Critique.” New Political Economy 12(2):261–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shakya, Tsering. 1993. “Whither the Tsampa Eaters?” Himal 6(5):8–12.Google Scholar
Tibet Info Net. 2006a. “Accounts of Wildlife Skins Burning.” March 17. http://tibetinfonet.net/content/displacy_image/1703b3 (accessed September 29, 2007).Google Scholar
Tibet Info Net. 2006b. “Fur Burning Incidents in Gansu.” March 29. http://www.tibetinfonet.net/content/update/18 (accessed September 29, 2007).Google Scholar
Tolia-Kelly, Divya P. 2006. “Affect—An Ethnocentric Encounter? Exploring the ‘Universality’ Imperative of Emotional/Affectual Geographies.” Area 38(2):213–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vail, John. 2010. “Decommodification and Egalitarian Political Economy.” Politics & Society 38(3):310–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2002. “New Revolts Against the System.” New Left Review 18:29–39.Google Scholar
Won, Jaeyoun. 2005. “The Making of the Post-proletariat in China.” Development and Society 34(2):191–215.Google Scholar
Yan, Hairong. 2008. New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development, and Women Workers in China. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Yeh, Emily T. 2012. “Transnational Environmentalism and Entanglements of Sovereignty: The Tiger Campaign across the Himalayas.” Political Geography 31:418–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Yeh supplementary movie 1

Burning in Tangkor, as participants shout “Tashi Delek!”

Download Yeh supplementary movie 1(Video)
Video 10.5 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 10

Participants in Tangkor shouting “Offering!”

Download Yeh supplementary movie 10(Video)
Video 10.7 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 2

Participants of the fourth Khampa Arts festival, Kardzé Prefecture, in 2004, heavily adorned with jewelry and pelts. Clip from Meili Ganzi (Enchanting Ganzi), Sichuan Publishing Group.

Download Yeh supplementary movie 2(Video)
Video 6.5 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 3

Beginning of the 18-minute video produced by organizers in Ngawa

Download Yeh supplementary movie 3(Video)
Video 6.4 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 4

The crowd watching and participating in burning in Ngawa

Download Yeh supplementary movie 4(Video)
Video 11.7 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 5

Piling on pelts about to be burned in Tsö

Download Yeh supplementary movie 5(Video)
Video 7.9 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 6

Men lining up to burn leopard pelts in Tsö

Download Yeh supplementary movie 6(Video)
Video 3.5 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 7

Women in Tangkor tearing off pelt trims

Download Yeh supplementary movie 7(Video)
Video 5.6 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 8

Men displaying pelts on their bodies before burning

Download Yeh supplementary movie 8(Video)
Video 15.7 MB

Yeh supplementary movie 9

Men burning pelts and receiving scarves in Litang

Download Yeh supplementary movie 9(Video)
Video 15.7 MB