Traditionalization as a response to state-induced development in rural Tibetan areas of Qinghai, PRC

ABSTRACT

The current state-induced and top-down-implemented development and modernization of the predominantly rural areas of western China can be perceived as a clear demonstration of Chinese power in Tibetan areas, resulting in the repression of expressions of minority culture. This article argues that the local population’s various practices of traditionalization, as demonstrated through an emphasis on the maintenance or (re)invention of representative cultural forms can be understood as efforts to counteract the socio-economic and cultural assimilation measures or even as a form of political resistance. At the same time, in the context of the economic opportunities brought on by the rapid development, in tourism for example, traditionalization has become an important economic asset for both the state and local Tibetans. These (revived) traditions could enhance cultural awareness among visitors to minority areas and strengthen local people’s sense of cultural security and their self-understanding as Tibetans.

KEYWORDS:

• Modernization
• state-induced development
• traditionalization
• rural Tibetan areas
• Qinghai
• cultural security

Acknowledgements

The material in this article was first presented at ESCAS 2015 in Zürich and further developed during the workshop Practices of Traditionalization at the University of Konstanz in 2017. Further research was kindly supported by the Lumina Quaeruntur programme of the Academy Council of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the programme Power and Strategies of Social and Political Order of the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. I would like to express my thanks to all the informants who have helped me understand life in the Tibetan areas of China over the years. Further, I am grateful for the valuable comments made by the editors of the special issue, Judith Beyer and Peter Finke, and by Madeleine Reeves, as well as by the anonymous reviewers for Central Asian Survey, which allowed me develop this article to its present state. I thank also Brian Donahoe for his patience with the English proof-reading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Personal names of interviewees used in this article are pseudonyms.

2 Major sedentarization projects implemented since the launch of the Great Opening of the West include Returning Pasturelands to Grasslands (tuimu huancao gongcheng), Ecological Resettlement (shengtai yimin gongcheng) and Nomadic Settlement (you mumin dingju gongcheng) (Ptackova 2019).