Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations Arts & Sciences Summer 8-15-2015 From Tibetan Refugees to Transmigrants: Negotiating Cultural Continuity and Economic Mobility Through Migration Namgyal Choedup Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds Recommended Citation Choedup, Namgyal, "From Tibetan Refugees to Transmigrants: Negotiating Cultural Continuity and Economic Mobility Through Migration" (2015). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 643. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/643 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts & Sciences at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Department of Anthropology Dissertation Examination Committee: Geoff Childs, Chair John Bowen Bret Gustafson James Wertsch Gautam Yadama From Tibetan Refugees to Transmigrants: Negotiating Cultural Continuity and Economic Mobility through Migration by Namgyal Choedup A dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2015 St. Louis, Missouri ©2015, Namgyal Choedup Table of Contents List of Figures..………………...……………………………...……………......…………...…. ..iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………….....………....……………... .v Abstract……………….………………………………………………….............……………....vii Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................1 1.1 Connecting Diasporic Imaginary to Transnational Migration Studies ...............................4 1.2 Research Site and Methodology.......................................................................................14 1.2.1 Rationale for Choosing the Particular Fieldwork Site..........................................14 1.2.2 Situating the Anthropologist.................................................................................15 1.3 Structure of the Dissertation.............................................................................................28 Chapter 2: Constructing Collective Identity in Exile .....................................................................32 2.1 Locating the Tibetan Nation ............................................................................................33 2.2 Representing Tibet: Colonialisms and Tibet....................................................................40 2.3 Historicizing the Tibetan Nation: Tibet as a Geo-political Entity...................................51 2.4 Tibetan Exile Politics: History, Collective Memory and National Narrative..................55 2.5 Tibet: History War...........................................................................................................58 2.5.1 Peaceful liberation or invasion of Tibet.................................................................59 2.6. Tibetan Exile’s Imagined Nationhood or Nation without Territory................................67 2.6.1 Tibet as the Dalai Lama.........................................................................................69 2.7 Chapter Summary............................................................................................................73 Chapter 3: Recreating Tibetan Spaces in India..............................................................................76 3.1 History and Development of Tibetan Exiles in India. .....................................................77 3.2 Doeguling Tibetan Settlement: A Brief History.............................................................89 3.3 Physical layout of Doeguling Tibettan Settlement.........................................................96 3.4 Demographic Description...............................................................................................99 3.5 Administration..............................................................................................................108 3.6. Livelihood.....................................................................................................................112 3.7 Chapter Summary.........................................................................................................119 Chapter 4: Doeguling as a Tibetan Place.....................................................................................122 4.1 Official Discourse on Indo-Tibetan Relationship .........................................................127 4.2 Historicizing the Local Indo-Tibetan Interface.............................................................131 4.3 Boundary Maintenance: Indian Servants and Inter-marriages......................................137 4.4 Maintaining Moral space: Liquor Sale and Gambling prohibition...............................141 4.5 2008-2009: A Period of Communal Tension................................................................150 4.6 Monastic Influence: A Source of Tension....................................................................157 4.7 Economic Competition: Indian Auto Drivers Versus Tibetan Taxi Drivers................160 ii 4.8 Ordinary Tibetans’ Understanding of Indo-Tibetan Relationship...... .........................164 4.9 Preferential Treatment of Tibetans and the Issue of Indian Citizenship.......................169 4.10 Tibetan Citizenship in Exile: From Subjects or “Serfs” to Citizens.............................172 4.11 Legal Status of Tibetans in India: Foreigners or Citizens............................................175 4.11.1 Bureaucratic Messiness of Citizenship............................................................177 4.11.2 Indian Citizenship for Tibetans: Multiple Voices and Exile agency...............186 4.12 Chapter Summary..........................................................................................................190 Chapter 5: Tension Between Settlement and Mobility.................................................................194 5.1 Exile Discourses on Revitalizing the Settlements .........................................................198 5.2 Going Abroad and its Discontensts...............................................................................206 5.3 Generational Attitudes Toward Going Abroad.............................................................215 5.4 Depopulating the Settlements and the Demise of Farming...........................................225 5.5 Sweater Selling and Economic Diversification.............................................................229 5.6 Chapter Summary.........................................................................................................236 Chapter 6: Households, Individuals and Migration....................................................................240 6.1 Household Case Studies .................................................................................................241 6.1.1 Household #1: Empty Nesters.............................................................................241 6.1.2 Household #2: Potential Empty Nesters..............................................................244 6.1.3 Household #3: Emigrating Family.......................................................................246 6.1.4 Household #4: Transnational Family...................................................................250 6.1.5 Household #5: Large Household with two Immigrant Monk Sons.....................256 6.1.6 Household #6: Young Non-immigrant Family....................................................259 6.1.7 Household #7: Ten-member Poor Household......................................................262 6.1.8 Household #8: Single-parent Poor Family...........................................................264 6.2 Individual Migration Stories.........................................................................................266 6.3 Chapter Summary..........................................................................................................275 Chapter 7: Conclusion.................................................................................................................277 Works Cited.................................................................................................................................296 iii List of Figures Figure 3.1: Population pyramid of the lay population of Doeguling.……………………....…..100 Figure 3.2: Male migration by age group……………………………………….……………...104 Figure 3.3: Female migration by age group………………………………………….…………105 iv Acknowledgments I owe debts of gratitude to many people and organizations in producing this dissertation thesis, the final product of my eight years of advanced graduate training. To begin, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Social Science Research Council and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St Louis for funding this dissertation research project. My sincere gratitude goes to Dr. Geoff Childs, my advisor, colleague and friend, who I first met in Dharamsala in 2001 during his fieldwork research in the Tibetan exile society. Our shared research interest in the Tibetan demography grew into collaborative