Inner AsiaPub Date : 2019-04-15DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340114
Reinier J. Langelaar
{"title":"Historical Social Organisation on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau","authors":"Reinier J. Langelaar","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340114","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The groups known as tsho-ba in Tibetan are both historically and ethnographically significant for their central role in local social organisation across large stretches of the eastern Himalayan Plateau. Available scholarly descriptions, however, remain both terse and discrepant. To remedy this situation, this article presents a diachronic picture of these groups in the Reb-gong region of eastern Qinghai, People’s Republic of China. Its analysis highlights an important historical shift in the constitution of these units, which often seem to have arisen as individual hamlets yet shed their territorialised identities over time. These findings, as a comparative discussion illustrates, markedly benefit our cross-regional understanding of tsho-ba, which in turn yields an instructive etymology of the term tsho-ba itself. Lastly, the paper addresses the forwarded historical hypothesis that these groups are the remnants of an older but now defunct clan system—a notion it argues must be rejected.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340114","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43666089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2019-04-15DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340117
D. Bumochir, G. Munkherdene
{"title":"Revitalisation of Cultural Heritage in Mongolia","authors":"D. Bumochir, G. Munkherdene","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340117","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In contemporary Mongolia—a country with 29 years’ history of international development policy—the conventional interpretation regarding the oppression of and liberation from the Soviet regime is no longer valid for understanding its politics of cultural heritage. Today, development projects and associated environmental, social and cultural assessments play a central role in safeguarding cultural heritage. Therefore, alternative interpretations are necessary to comprehend current and further processes of cultural heritage politics. This paper introduces two case studies of new cultural heritage politics involving Mongolia’s two ‘megaprojects’: Oyu Tolgoi gold and copper mining, and River Eg hydroelectric station.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340117","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44386163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2019-04-15DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340116
V. Gazizova
{"title":"New Buddhists, ‘Treasure’ Discoveries and (Re)constructed Protective Deities of Kalmykia","authors":"V. Gazizova","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340116","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article investigates how a number of Buddhist groups in Kalmykia, a republic in the southwest of Russia where Buddhism is historically practised by most of its titular population, try to create what they perceive as elements of the local form of Buddhism. Based on interviews with non-monastic Buddhist specialists, the article focuses on the introduction of the worship of two protective deities in several Kalmyk Buddhist centres. Central to the discussion is the deployment of the Tibetan practice of ‘treasure’ discoveries in this renewal.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340116","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41863372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2018-10-23DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340110
G. Kendirbai
{"title":"The Politics of the Inner Asian Frontier and the 1771 Exodus of the Kalmyks","authors":"G. Kendirbai","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340110","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article offers a new explanatory framework for studies of the return of the tsar’s Kalmyk subjects to their ancestors’ lands in Jungaria in 1771, a unique episode of Russian imperial history that illustrates the complex power dynamics of the Inner Asian frontier. By highlighting structural similarities between Russian and Qing approaches to their nomadic counterparts, the article challenges earlier characterisations of the Russian/Kalmyk relationship as one of domination and subjugation, demonstrating instead that Russian imperial authorities continued to adhere to established steppe political practices in their interactions with the Kalmyks until at least the beginning of the nineteenth century.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340110","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44024734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2018-10-23DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340107
T. Thurston
{"title":"The Purist Campaign as Metadiscursive Regime in China’s Tibet","authors":"T. Thurston","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340107","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Tibetans in twenty-first-century China have engaged in an increasingly high-profile campaign to promote language purity. In this purity campaign, Tibetan comedians and rappers have encouraged their audiences to speak pure Tibetan, and a host of neologisms have been coined to help people speak Tibetan even in modern contexts. Although coining new terms involves tremendous innovation, Tibetans almost uniformly view purism in this fashion as promoting traditional knowledge and practices considered to be under threat. This paper examines Tibetan media discourses on language purity to understand the development of new metadiscursive regimes in Tibet that link otherwise contemporary values like language purity with the preservation of Tibetan traditions.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340107","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47873583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2018-10-23DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340109
D. Amogolonova
{"title":"Early Soviet Policy towards Buddhism","authors":"D. Amogolonova","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340109","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper explores the Buryat Bolsheviks’ efforts to replace the religious identity of fellow Buryats with a Soviet identity in the wake of the Russian Revolution, and analyses the ways in which the Buddhist community attempted to adapt to totalitarian rule. In addition to fostering a general atmosphere of intolerance to religion, considered an antagonistic worldview, the Bolsheviks set out to promote the cultural assimilation of this non-Russian population within the Russian ethnic majority. This entailed a programme of education in the spirit of Soviet patriotism and loyalty, designed to ensure the ideological unity of the nation. Over a short historical period from the early 1920s to the early 1930s, the attitude of the Soviet authorities towards Buddhist religion, clergy and believers shifted radically, from tolerance towards the religion of the ‘oppressed non-Russian masses’ to uncompromising antagonism and the targeting of religion as a class enemy that must be annihilated in the name of creating ‘a new man’.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340109","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64558955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2018-10-23DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340111
James Meador
{"title":"Trust and Mistrust in the Economies of the China-Russia Borderlands, edited by Caroline Humphrey","authors":"James Meador","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340111","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340111","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49217562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2018-10-23DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340112
Maureen J. Smith
{"title":"The Historical Dictionary of Mongolia, Fourth Edition, written by Alan J.K. Sanders","authors":"Maureen J. Smith","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340112","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340112","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41387356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2018-10-23DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340106
Lobsang Yongdan
{"title":"Precious Skin","authors":"Lobsang Yongdan","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340106","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Before 2006, otter pelts, the skins of carnivorous mammals from the Lutrinae family, were considered to be among the most precious and sought-after commodities in Tibet, being used for clothing, hats, and cushions. The animal’s flesh and body parts were used as ingredients in Tibetan medicine. However, after the Dalai Lama criticised the use of wild animal furs in 2006 in response to requests from international conservation organisations, most Tibetans not only stopped wearing otter fur, but a significant number of people also set fire to pelts worth thousands of yuan. In this article, by exploring a number of Tibetan religious and historical texts, I discuss the history of otter fur in its broadest context and the change in social values indicated by the cessation of this practice and outline the history of otter fur usage in Tibet, as well as the rise and fall of the material’s trade in the country.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340106","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47095513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inner AsiaPub Date : 2018-10-23DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340108
E. Turk
{"title":"Toxic Care (?)","authors":"E. Turk","doi":"10.1163/22105018-12340108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340108","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In post-socialist Mongolia, unsuccessful treatment, or worse, interventions that result in worsened health conditions, are common concerns. Patients and clients direct scepticism towards a range of practitioners, from biomedical physicians to shamans and ‘folk’ healers (domch). The gap between the ideal treatment and the actual outcome—the prevalence of treatment misfires—invites analysis of infrastructural changes to (health)care and wider contexts of relationality. As state-owned medicine was restructured in the 1990s, healing ‘traditions’ such as shamanism and Traditional Mongolian Medicine considered essentialised aspects of national identity have gained new legitimacy. Many people find it challenging to navigate the multiple authorities on health and wellbeing that exist in contemporary public. Patients and clients often questioned efficacy in terms of toxicity and poison (hor, horlol). Toxicity’s associations with Soviet-era regulation and Buddhist medical contexts articulate the importance of both state-sanctioned regulation and the practitioner’s specialised knowledge.","PeriodicalId":43430,"journal":{"name":"Inner Asia","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105018-12340108","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47974435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}