Tibetans in Nepal: The Dynamics of International Assistance among a Community in Exile

Ann Frechette

Published by Berghahn Books 2002

Tibetans in Nepal

The Dynamics of International Assistance among a Community in Exile

Ann Frechette

Volume 11 in the series Forced Migration

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782387152

Overview
Contents

About this book

Based on eighteen months of field research conducted in exile carpet factories, settlement camps, monasteries, and schools in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, as well as in Dharamsala, India and Lhasa, Tibet, this book offers an important contribution to the debate on the impact of international assistance on migrant communities. The author explores the ways in which Tibetan exiles in Nepal negotiate their norms and values as they interact with the many international organizations that assist them, and comes to the conclusion that, as beneficial as aid agency assistance often is, it also complicates the Tibetans' efforts to define themselves as a community.

Author / Editor information

Ann Frechette is Associate in Research at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research in Cambridge Massachusetts.

Reviews

“Ann Frechette’s multi-sited and multidimensional study, moving back and forth between the local and the global, should serve as a necessary resource for scholars studying other communities in exile or in diasporic circumstances.” • Stanley J. Tambiah, Esther and Sidney Rabb Research Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University

“This valuable book asks some very significant and urgent questions about the Tibetan refugee experience, particularly about the manner in which outside agents (NGO's, governmental aid organizations, and the like), in the course of carrying out important projects, can become part of an interaction that leads to both sides reinforcing a refugee state of mind and being; preserving some of the least beneficial aspects of the situation within a relationship of comfortable dependence.” • Elliot Sperling, Indiana University

“This is a detailed and unsentimental book. It examines and explains the remarkable financial success of the Tibetan refugees in Nepal, by exploring the effects of powerful foreign assistance and lively Tibetan cooperation. The agendas of the political patrons of the Tibetans and the motives of the Tibetans themselves are inspected in a global framework of engineered transformations and organized responses. This is mandatory reading for anyone interested in international affairs and the newest achievements in anthropological fieldwork.” • Sally Falk Moore, Harvard University

“Frechette explicates the social and institutional conditions of Tibetan success in exile in a globalizing world ... A stimulating ethnographic excursion into the landscape of globalization.” • Levent Soysal, European College of Liberal Arts, Berlin

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiv
List of Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xvi
A Note on Tibetan Translations and Transliterations Publicly Available Download PDF	xviii
Introduction: Entitlement Systems and Identity Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Swiss Assistance and Self-Sufficiency Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
2 Containing Communism: The U.S. and a Tibetan Democracy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
3 Friends of Tibet: Variations on a Theme of Liberal Humanism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
4 Weapons of Weak States Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
5 Middlemen and Moral Authority Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
6 Conflict and Consciousness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 244
Keywords: Refugee and Migration Studies; Development Studies

eBook

Published: December 1, 2002
ISBN: 9781782387152