Anthropology of Tibet - Univ of Colorado

04/14/2025

Next week at CU - Boulder: a Tibetan Film Festival. Come one, come all!

Welcome to the CU Tibetan Film Festival! We are excited to announce the upcoming showing of two films at the University of Colorado. These events are free and

09/12/2024

The Dalai Lama's Future Succession: a keynote lecture by Dr. Dawa Lokyitsang about the Dalai Lama's ongoing contributions, Chinese insecurities, and the future of Tibet and the Tibetan people. Free and open to the public. This event will be live-streamed and recorded; link is in the comments below.

Tomorrow: Friday, September 13 at 4 pm Mountain Time.

09/11/2024

This Friday’s Keynote at 4pm by Dr. Dawa Lokyitsang

“At a recent tenshug, a long-life ritual and prayer ceremony offered by the Tibetan, Mongolian, and Himalayan communities to the 14th Dalai Lama in New York, the Dalai Lama affirmed once again that he would live well past the age of 100. The crowd responded with boisterous applause. Yet, everyone including the Chinese government, Western governments and academics, former Tibetan politicians and activists have been in a rush to weigh in on his future succession. Why is this? My presentation will answer this question by contextualizing the 14th Dalai Lama’s legacy as a refugee who created foundational Tibetan institutions in exile for the thrivance of the Tibetan refugee community and their cause for freedom. In addition, given the Dalai Lama’s status as a formidable leader with immense global influence, he is capable of shaping and challenging the People’s Republic of China’s international relations and its legitimacy in Tibet. Understanding how and why international debates about the Dalai Lama’s succession have evolved requires a detailed consideration of his leadership accomplishments in exile.”

The Dalai Lama's Future Succession: Understanding

08/27/2024

New article by Dr. Dawa Lokyitsang "Are Tibetans Indigenous? The Political Stakes and Potentiality of the Translation of Indigeneity" in this volume of Made in China Journal.

"How does settler-colonial imperialism operate in Asia, and what are the ways in which Asian Indigeneities become mobilised? To address this question, in 2017, I brought together scholars who are observing various settler-colonial and imperial dynamics and developments across Asia for a panel discussion titled ‘Asian Settler-Colonialisms and Indigeneities’ at the 116th annual American Anthropological Association conference. At that time, scholarly considerations about Asian land and resource extraction emphasised capitalism, development, and governmentality, with scant consideration of settler colonialism,
even though the last remains a vital framework for understanding the structural nature of imperial projects (Wolfe 2006). Even the literature that adopted this frame drew its analysis primarily from Euro-American–centred examples, implicitly suggesting that settler colonialism is an innately Western phenomenon (Pels 1997). Yet, capitalist developments with imperial consequences continue to impact Asia at varying scale (Tsing 2005). Such contemporary developments, alongside long Asian imperial histories, including those of China, Japan, and India, complicate this assumption. This provokes questions such as: How does settler domination work when those involved in it are neither white nor from the West? How can we critically engage with this while not Orientalising this history as a cultural peculiarity or delinking it from the deep influence of Western empires?

With these questions in mind, I drew from recent innovative scholarship in anthropology, Native studies, and ethnic studies to bring attention to the potential of interdisciplinary approaches for rethinking Asian settler colonialisms and indigeneities. For example, how might North American–centred settler-colonialism literature complicate relationships between Asian nation-states and their ‘Indigenous’ populations, especially when the latter, for a multitude of reasons, often do not identify as, nor are categorised as, Indigenous? In my intervention on that panel I focused on the question: ‘Are Tibetans Indigenous?’ Since I made this article available to the public on the popular online Tibetan platform Lhakar Diaries in 2017, my intervention has influenced other scholars to ask similar questions, including regarding Uyghurs (Musapir and Roberts 2022). Settler colonialism as a topic of interest was even raised at the 2024 Asian American Studies conference."

How does settler-colonial imperialism operate in Asia, and what are the ways in which Asian Indigeneities become mobilised? To address this question, in 2017, I brought together scholars who are observing various settler-colonial and imperial dynamics and developments across Asia for a panel discuss...

05/30/2024

What was life like in the secret CIA-Tibet training site at Camp Hale? Why were 300 Tibetan soldiers in Colorado from 1959-1964? On Friday, June 7, CU Professor Carole McGranahan will give a joint presentation at Vail Symposium with talented filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam and retired CIA officer Bruce Walker who was one of the trainers at the camp.

Live and live-streamed one week from today, Friday 7 June. All are welcome to attend in person or tune in for free!

In partnership with the Eagle County Historical Society From 1958 to 1964, in an effort to support Tibetan freedom fighters, the CIA operated a secret training facility nicknamed Dumra (“the garden”) at Camp Hale. Until very recently, the exact location of the training facility had been lost to ...

05/07/2024

Sunday, June 9 – a commemorative ceremony at Camp Hale National Monument near Leadville, Colorado. This memorial gathering is to commemorate the CIA-Tibet training camp which operated at Camp Hale from 1958-1964. The Tibetan men who trained there were members of the Chushi Gangdrug army, a citizens’ army formed to defend the Dalai Lama, Tibet, and Buddhism against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The CIA offered training and support to the Tibetan resistance, including this secret project at Camp Hale. The CIA officers called the training camp “The Ranch.” The Tibetan soldiers called it “Dumra,” meaning garden. In 2010, a plaque was officially installed at Camp Hale that for the first time publicly acknowledged the CIA-Tibet training camp. At that installation ceremony, the actual location of the training camp was lost to time. Recently, we have located the exact footprint of the camp. Our June 9 ceremony will be held at this exact site. The event is free and open to the public.

04/08/2024

DUMRA/THE SECRET GARDEN: An Invitation

It is our pleasure to invite you to a very special event - “Dumra/The Secret Garden.” On Sunday, June 9 at 12 noon, we will hold a memorial gathering at Camp Hale National Monument in Colorado. This event is to commemorate the CIA-Tibet training camp which operated at Camp Hale from 1958-1964. The Tibetan men who trained there were members of the Chushi Gangdrug army, a citizens’ army formed to defend the Dalai Lama, Tibet, and Buddhism against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The CIA offered training and support to the Tibetan resistance, including this secret project at Camp Hale. The CIA officers called the training camp “The Ranch.” The Tibetan soldiers called it “Dumra,” meaning garden.

In 2010, a plaque was officially installed at Camp Hale that for the first time publicly acknowledged the CIA-Tibet training camp. At that installation ceremony, the actual location of the training camp was lost to time. Recently, we have located the exact footprint of the camp. Our June 9 ceremony will be held at this exact site.

The formal commemorative program will be followed by a Tibetan luncheon picnic. This event is open to the public. All are welcome to join. We welcome you to join us in learning more about this history, remembering those who served here together, and honoring all those who fought for freedom in Tibet.

Böd Gyalo!

Organizers:
Colorado Chushi Gangdrug
University of Colorado

04/11/2023

Tonight at the University of Colorado in Boulder: former two-term Sikyong Lobsang Sangay. All are welcome to join us at 7 pm in the Old Main Chapel. This event is free and open to the public.

In 2011, the Dalai Lama stepped down as political leader of the Tibetan exile government. For the first time ever, the Tibetan community democratically elected a new political leader: Mr. Lobsang Sangay. He served two terms as Sikyong (President) from 2011-2021. As Sikyong, Mr. Sangay traveled the w...

07/15/2021

THREE YEAR POSTDOC TO STUDY LOVE IN TIBETAN BUDDHISM IN NEPAL (SEE BELOW)

TWO 2-3 YEAR POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS in the HEART OPENINGS project focusing on the cultivation and experience of love in religious and contemplative traditions.
Deadline for applications is SEPTEMBER 15, 2021.

Earliest starting date is FEBRUARY 1, 2022, but could also be later.

The project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC-STG) and is planned to be conducted over five years in collaboration with Buddhists, Christians and Muslims in Denmark, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Egypt (and possibly also including additional contemplative communities in other parts of the world).
Using audiovisual and microphenomenological methods, HEART OPENINGS will examine in detail the sensory and emotional structures of concrete experiences of love. Through participant observation and life history interviews, the project will examine and compare how the cultivation and experiences of love impact and emerge from people’s everyday lives across different contemplative and religious traditions.

For further information please contact the project leader Christian Suhr, [email protected]

https://international.au.dk/about/profile/vacant-positions/job/two-2-3-year-postdoctoral-positions-the-experience-and-cultivation-of-love-in-religious-and-contemplative-traditions-the-department-of-anthropology-and-the-interacting-minds-centre-aarhus-university?fbclid=IwAR1OrtAONHz946-kqZ4R--A0uPiazTtT8iZt1IiakLt7SdB0V7Zg9pFJt6w

Vacancy at School of Culture and Society - Anthropology, Department of, Aarhus University

06/21/2021

"How do present forms of colonialisms persist in what is presumed to be the ‘post’ colonial era? One-way colonialism persists in the current era is through the state’s ‘modification’ of its identity according to Indigenous studies scholar Glen Coulthard (2014). Scholars of Empire studies have long stressed how the colonial state constructs its own identity in the process of constructing the identities of its colony and subjects (Cooper and Stoler 1997, Stoler 2010). In this article, I consider this question through the framework of Tibet and China and ask, how is China’s current relationship to Tibet understood as state and subject, rather than colonizer and colonized? In the following, I suggest this in part has to do with how Tibetans are understood to be ‘Chinese’ in the present moment. Through a careful examination of China’s different and successive government’s discursive and rhetorical mechanisms, I explore how Tibetan identity is reinvented and state identity modified to construct Tibet in China’s national imagination as part of China. Such reconfiguration of identities, which centers the history of Tibet’s development through Chinese frameworks rather than Tibetan ones, function to counter and erase past and ongoing histories of Tibetan nationalism that continually challenge China’s sovereign claims over Tibet. The discursive ramification of such state-produced historical erasures and identity reconfigurations is that it allows modern nation states such as China to operationalize systematic colonialisms in its colonies while distancing itself from its colonial identity. This is how present forms of colonialisms under new modern orders continue to function anew in what is presumed to be the ‘post’ colonial era."

How do present forms of colonialisms persist in what is presumed to be the ‘post’ colonial era? One-way colonialism persists in the current era is through the state’s ‘modification’ of its identity…