HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 25 Number 1 Himalaya No. 1 & 2 Article 25 2005 Conference Abstracts Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation . 2005. Conference Abstracts. HIMALAYA 25(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol25/iss1/25 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. • Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting March 4-7, 2004 San Diego, California Qing's "Modern" Reforms in Eastern Tibet in the bring stability to their homeland, Ba bas began sojourning in 1900s central Tibet and inland China. The knowledge they brought WANG, Xiuyu, Carnegie Mellon University back to Bathang permanently altered local society. Two, the Qing's "new systems" reforms (xinzheng) in its last decade establishment of American missionary and Republican state along Sichuan's Eastern Tibet (Khams and Amdo) border schools fostered the growth of locally-educated youth who zones demonstrated unusual devices and desires to bring the were soon mobilized by returning sojourners to achieve Tibetans into the state's extending reach. Interior-style ad­ broader goals. Three, decades of local fighting with Qing, ministration (liuguan), intensive farming complemented by Republican, and central Tibetan armies brought economic handicraft and small mechanized industries, and H~n modes collapse to Bathang, and new state extractions following the of life were imposed upon local groups who were previously consolidation of Republican rule in 1939 further destabilized under local officials (iusi) nominally supervised by Sichuan local society. This combination of political, social, and eco­ and loosely connected with each other. Interestingly, though nomic circumstances stimulated the unprecedented rise to plagued by central weakness and financial crisis, metropoli­ power of a new educated elite in Tibetan society under the tan and Sichuan officials' approaches to Khams' resistance to leadership of Phuntsog Wangyal, who founded the Com­ xinzheng, culminating in the 1905 killing of Assistant Amban munist Bathang Underground Party and the Eastern Tibet Fengquan at Batang, oscillated toward armed suppression, Democratic Youth League in 1949. Significantly, many of departing from the usual method of "benevolently soothing" Bathang's educated youths went on to hold important leader­ (en ju) unruly, but stronger, ethnic groups. Inducing these ship positions in China's administration of Tibet after 1950. departures were the significant 1903-1904 Younghusband Tracing their rise to power will shed light on the unique sta­ invasion of Lhasa and the more consequential, internal, and tus of Bat hang in the Republican and early Communist eras. traditional statecraft strategies like agricultural colonization, Han Chinese Immigration to Eastern Khams during Confucian schooling and militia-maintained order. A height­ the Qing Dynasty and the Period of the Republic of ened militarism, financed by the Court but controlled by China provincials like Xiliang, Zhao Erfeng and Ma Weiqi, initiated the reforms, followed by Han bureaucrats. Both responding TSOMU, Yudru, Harvard University to outside pressures and initiating new turns in their inter­ Lying between the two great power centers of China and nal power relations, Khams tusi and monasteries tailored Central Tibet, Eastern Khams (Dkar mdze Tibetan Autono­ their strategies to changes in the balance of power and their mous Prefecture in Sichuan Province) was not only a territory own interests, ranging from fighting Sichuan forces within where cultures intersected, but also a stage where Tibetans, fortresses, ambushing, alliance-making to running away Han Chinese and other ethnic groups have clashed through­ and cooperating. This high tide of violent change, this study out history. Its special geographical position and rugged to­ finds, enmeshed clashing perspectives and interests into an pography have played a role in the unfolding of its history. unstable mix, setting the pattern for the later relationship The issue of non-Tibetan immigration into the region through breakdown between the Central Plain and Khams. most of its history is an important aspect, and its study pro­ vides a window onto the complexity of this region's unique Educated Youths: The Rise of a New Social Class in culture while deepening our understanding of the rationale Late Republican Bathang behind the frontier policies of the Qing and its successors. COLEMAN, William M. IV, Columbia University Because this region was not subjected to extensive military This paper traces the rise of a new class of educated youth colonies or planned immigration, the archival documenta­ in Bathang, a Tibetan principality in southwest Khams, in tion and official accounts of immigration to this region are the first half of the twentieth century. Three primary factors sparse and irregular. This paper explores scattered informa­ . contributed to the development of Bathang's new elite. One, tion about Han Chinese immigrant groups in gazetteers of the demise of Bathang's indigenous leaders and the struggle the counties in Eastern Khams, official Chinese dynastic re­ by various Chinese factions to establish control over the re­ cords, and accounts of local conditions written by Chinese gion in the ea rly Republican period created in local residents military officials and scholars. This paper will mainly focus a sense of political uncertainty. In search of new resources to on the late Qing and Republican Period when much of the immigration occurred. I argue that the Qing court would planning. The making of Xikang also ushered in modern have developed Eastern Khams, as it did other borderlands, ethnographic practices which were distinct from late Qing had it been important economically, politically or militarily. cultural (and primarily military) maneuvers in Khams, and 1 conclude by summarizing major characteristics shared by which continued well into the Anti-japanese War period the Han immigrant groups and their special features. when southwest China served as a wartime base. This paper explores constructions of order and knowledge in relation to Ethnographic Practices and Aesthetics of Politics in ethnographic processes and the building of Xikang province. Modern Khams It examines the scholarly mapping of Khams in its myriad PENG, Wenbin, University of Washington forms (geographical, ethnological, and historical) from the The establishment of Khams and its adjacent areas as Xi­ late 1920s onward and their contributions to ideological and kang (Sikang) province in 1939 inherited in part late Qing administrative practices of the Province in the Republican reform agendas in Khams to consolidate Sino-Tibetan fron­ era. My paper partakes in recent efforts in the field of China tiers. Its creation during the Anti-japanese War, however, studies to push research of ethnicity beyond the PRC era to involved a more complex scenario than late Qing frontier of­ that of Republican China. Departing from previous studies ficials (e.g., Zhao Erfeng and Fu Songmu) would have imag­ working on a crude center-local dichotomy in China, I in­ ined-this provincial project had been enmeshed in multiple tend to pay a closer attention to intersections of the province­ politics, ranging from Khampa self-rule movements, to pro­ building and ethnographic constructions in Khams within a vincial warlordism, and to Central Nationalists' unification framework of nation, region, locality and ethnic identity. Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting March 31-April 3, 2005, Chicago, Illinois Cartographic and Textual Sources for the Amdo Tibet­ historic sources on Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in Amdo an Buddhist Monastery GIS: A Spatial Survey of New (Qinghai and Gansu) has yielded an immense amount of Research Findings geo-referenced information on cycles of monastic foundation, renovation, destruction and revival for some 750 religious in­ RYAVEC, Karl E., University of Wisconsin, Steven's Point stitutions. This material has been most concisely published Recent books published in China since the 1980s on sur­ in two sources: Pu Wencheng's Gan-Qing Zangchuan Fojiao veys of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries offer new research siyuan [Gansu and Qinghai Tibetan Buddhist Temp les] (Xin­ prospects for studying the historical geography of the spread ing: Qinghai renmin chubanshe, 1990) and Nian Zhihai and of Buddhism. These texts, however, usually do not provide Bai Zhengdeng's Qinghai zangchuan fojiao siyuan ming jian geographic coordinates for the locations of sites. At best, the [The Clear Mirror of Tibetan Buddhist Temp les of Qinghai] local administrative division each site is in is merely listed. (Lanzhou: Gansu minzu chubanshe, 1993), which serve as Utilizing these textual data, in tandem with Chinese adminis­ the foundation for the Amdo Tibetan Buddhist Monastery trative maps and census data, and western topographic maps, Database. the approximate geographic coordinates of each monastery This geo-referenced religious institutional material allows were ascertained. This paper describes how these diverse for a broad analysis of the social and political