[Upcoming Seminar] Zones, Landmarks and Spatialized Conflict in a NE Tibetan Town

Title: Zones, Landmarks and Spatialized Conflict in a NE Tibetan Town
Speaker: Mark STEVENSON (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Date and time: 1:00 – 2:30 pm, 7 Oct 2016

Venue: Room 11, Humanities Building New Asia College, CUHK

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When the Tongren County People’s Government was proclaimed in the ethnic Tibetan territory of Amdo Rebkong on 22 September, 1949, the new administration inherited a site governed by a complex cultural overlay. Historically, the arrangement of new settlements in the vicinity of Rongwo Monastery had to conform with ritual precedence expressed through a principle of elevation. In this paper I will present evidence that the new administration, while participating in the local principle of vertical precedence, instituted a new logic of horizontal domination. I will then discuss how the copresence of the two spatial regimes supports on-going symbolic conflict even as Tongren is transformed into a rural-urban landscape intended to evoke national unity.

Dr Mark Stevenson (Adjunct Assistant Professor, CUHK; Honorary Fellow, Victoria University) is a social anthropologist with broad interests in cultural history, literary translation, and the history of ideas. His research with Tibetan communities is predominantly focused on interpreting transformations in contemporary visual culture, particularly in the northeast Tibetan region of Amdo Rebkong (Huangnan, Qinghai). He also works on text-based cultural-historical research concerned largely with gender, sexuality and social space in late-imperial China.

ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME!

(A light lunch will be served at 12:30 pm. First come first served.)