Is Tibet a genre in its own right? Blog four of four on the Chinese film industry in Tibet: this is a coda. #gabriellafitte Movie directors in China have a hard time. Directors anywhere must juggle finance, script, casting, shifts in public taste, and the years it usually takes between acquiring rights and hitting the […]
Among the many reasons China has failed to colonise the Tibetan Plateau, none is more foundational than Han shortness of breath when lowlanders ascend to Tibetan heights. Over many centuries of Han expansion, China has developed many methods for peopling conquered lands with Han peasants, backed by Chinese garrisons who not only guard the new […]
CLIMATE CHANGE IN TIBET: ALL GOOD? You may have heard rumours that the climate of Tibet is warming remarkably fast, and this is dangerous. China’s official media, however, assure us that climate change in Tibet is all good, even that it contributes to the construction of ecological civilisation. There is nothing to worry about if […]
TIBETAN EMPLOYMENT IN NATIONAL PARKS ཡུལ་དང་དུས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་འགྱུར་ལ་བརྟེན་ནས། བོད་ལ་ལས་དང་མ་རྩའི་དོན་ལ་བརྟག་པ༎ Blog one of three on the fate of Tibetan nomads, frogs, green iron rice bowls and highland clearances (This blog is an expanded version of a presentation by Gabriel Lafitte to the Paris seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, July 2019) SECURE STATE EMPLOYMENT FOR SPECIALISTS […]
Blog two of three on Tibetan nomads, frogs, green iron rice bowls and highland clearances CAN NOMADS, WILDLIFE AND YAKS STILL COEXIST SUSTAINABLY? China’s program of steadily depopulating rural Tibet, especially in the upper watersheds of the Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong Rivers, is not the only possible way ahead. Quietly, Chinese NGOs such as Shan […]
Blog three of three on Tibetan nomads, frogs, green iron rice bowls and highland clearances INSECURITY AS THE MODE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE Pastoralism worldwide is confined to drylands, which receive enough rain for grass to grow, but not forests. The drylands are between the desert and the arable. By definition, such lands are inland, often […]
BIODIVERSITY, ETHNIC DIVERSITY: CAN YOU HAVE BOTH? A new urgency about effective action on climate change is evident wherever you look, from striking school children marching on city streets, to the endless torrent of scary warnings from panels of scientists. The 2015 Paris agreement, which let each country set its own climate change targets, already […]
CRUNCH TIME FOR TIBET’S DRI CHU RIVER: a blog about UNESCO’s inability to hold China accountable for endangering World Heritage Will UNESCO be the first major agency of the United Nations to fall to Chinese money, patronage, soft power projection and suasion? At first, this sounds like a slur on a venerable multilateral institution with […]
When China’s first railway line into Tibet opened in 2006, Tibetans outside Tibet, and their supporters, condemned it, for many reasons. It would only intensify Han Chinese emigration to Tibet, they warned, would disrupt migratory wild animals seeking safe, wolf-free remote pastures to give birth, would cause erosion and degradation, and other disasters as well. […]
ANNOUNCEMENT: RUKOR SUMMER SCHOOL Skills training for Tibetans and their friends in Europe, in researching and analysing China’s plans for Tibet. Have you wondered how the Rukor blog obtains information and assesses China’s plans to transform Tibet? How does Rukor find its’ stories, verify and document China’s agenda for the future of Tibet? This European […]