Book Workshop
“Exploring New Grounds in Himalayan Studies: Niched Living, Transboundary State Effects, and Sustainability of Ethno-Ecological Heritages”
Yunnan Minzu University, Kunming, China
July 3-5, 2015
Organizers: Dr.Prof. Wang Deqiang (Ronpa Tashi)
Director of Yunnan Tibetology Research Center
Vice President of Yunnan Minzu University
Dr.Prof. Dan Smyer Yu
Founding Director of Center for Trans-Himalayan Studies
Yunnan Minzu University
anthrotopia@hotmail.com, dsmyeryu@gmail.com
+86 139-1060-3084
Aims and Scope
This book workshop is geared toward exploring and interpreting the multi-dimensional meanings of what we call “niched living” in the modern greater Himalayan region. By “niched living,” we mean both the place-making process of a given native human population in an eco-geological sense and/or that population’s trans-environmental and transboundary mode of being in a geopolitical sense. Our emphasis is on the diverse human agentive responses to regionally transformative changes engendered by intensified inter-regional human migration, movements of capital, goods and technologies, and by climate change. Niched living is then understood as a complex mode of being forged by indigenous ecologically determined affordances and extragenous forces of change in both material and symbolic senses. We thus continue to identify the ecological, cultural and existential significances of how local environments shape the histories of diverse human communities in the greater Himalayan region. At the same time our critical inquiries include the questions of how the idea of modernity and the practices of modernization and globalization have complicated the meanings of geological contiguity, ecological continuity, indigenous modes of being, pan-regional cultural and religious traditions, and inter-civilizational contacts; how the trans-border effects of state-building engender the simultaneity of boundary marking, identity reclamation, flexible citizenship, and collaborative/contentious appropriation of natural resources; and how the highlands of the greater Himalayan region are increasingly becoming a focal point of global discourses on climate change, heritage preservation, and peace-building.
Partcipants and panel co-chairs
Ashok Gurung, India China Institute, the New School
Gunnel Cederlöf, History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Hildegarde Diemberger, Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (MIASU), Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Georgina Drew, Anthropology, the University of Adelaide, Australia
Brendan A. Galipeau, Anthropology, the University of Hawaii at Manoa
David Germano, Religious Studies/Tibetan Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Alexander Horstmann, Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen
Li Quanmin, Anthropology, Yunnan Minzu University
Li Yunxia, Anthropology, Yunnan Minzu University
Adam Liebman, Anthropology, University of California at Davis
Liang Yan, Ethnology, Southwest University for Nationalities
Losang Lindro Dorje (Luosang Lingzhi Duojie), China Tibetology Research Center
Jean Michaud, Anthropology, Université Laval
Nyingch Dorje, Tibetan Studies/Religious Studies, Minzu University of China
Qi Jinyu, Ethnology, Minzu University of China
Andrew Quintman, Religious Studies/Yale Himalaya Initiative, Yale University
Geoffrey Samuel, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University
Shen Haimei, Anthropology, Yunnan Minzu University
Dan Smyer Yu, Anthropology/Modern Tibetan Studies, Yunnan Minzu University
Tsebhe (Caibei), Tibetan Studies, Qinghai Minzu University
Sarah Turner, Geography, McGill University
Wang Deqiang (Ronpa Tashi), Tibetan Studies, Yunnan Minzu University
Wang Jianhua (Nyawrbyeivq Aryoeq), Anthropology, Yunnan Minzu University
Yang Cheng, Anthropology, Yunnan Minzu University
Emily Yeh, Geography, University of Colorado Boulder
Zengji Zhuoma, Institute for Panchen Studies, Qinghai Normal University
Li Zhang, Anthropology, University of California at Davis