BEING A TIBETAN BORN IN INDIA. THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY IN EXILE (Byc Tybetanczykiem urodzonym w Indiach. Polityka tozsamosci na uchodzstwie)

• Authors: Bloch Natalia
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The largest Tibetan diaspora in the world lives in India. This year it is celebrating fifty years of its existence. A large percentage of this community are 'born refugees' - a young generation, who have never seen Tibet and the only reality that they know of is India. What is striking is a very limited impact of the Indian culture on the view and attitudes of young Tibetans. Young Tibetans have an ambivalent attitude to their 'new motherland'. On the one hand they realise that Indian authorities have offered their families an asylum and have extended considerable financial support within the framework of refugee adaptation schemes. They know that they should be grateful for that. At the same time, however, they feel like second class citizens - they have no electoral rights, they have no passports, they cannot buy land. In everyday life Tibetans hardly ever make friends with members of a host society. Marriages with them are even less frequent. They perceive them as xenophobic and dull. They oppose Buddhist equality to social inequalities imposed by the caste system. They despise the Indian policy for corruption and exploitation; they do not trust the Indian justice system. This article attempts to answer the question how young Tibetans born in India perceive Indian culture and how they minimise its influence upon their own lives. The author also discusses the extent to which such practices are the result of the intentional policy of the Tibetan Government in Exile, oriented to non-assimilation and building of a pan-Tibetan identity in the diaspora

Keywords

EN

EXILE; IMAGINED MOTHERLAND; INDIA; NON-ASSIMILATION; POLITICS OF IDENTITY; STEREOTYPES; STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE; TIBETANS

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze
• Journal: Lud
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 93
• Pages: 69-91
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Bloch Natalia

• Natalia Bloch, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej, ul. sw. Marcin 78, 61-809 Poznan, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

09PLAAAA07074