Title: Of camps and communities-in-exile: the case of Tibetan refugees since the exodus

Authors: Sudeep Basu

Addresses: School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, Sector – 29, Gandhinagar – 382029, Gujarat, India

Abstract: One vital underpinning of the generalisation of the refugee in contemporary discourses is to be found, in the common assumption that the refugee is apparently stripped of the specificity of culture, place and history once the border is crossed. They seem to lose the tag of being the 'representatives' of their community. The Tibetan case provides an interesting challenge to this claim, in that, through a process of reification of cultural authority, many Tibetan refugees regard themselves as the true or authentic representatives of Tibet. In thinking through the particularity of Tibetanness, this paper enquires into exile life which shows how a camp, throws up a whole new generation of India-born Tibetan refugees who oscillate between the need to keep the notion of the homeland and culture alive on the one hand and the different kinds of material investments, affective and social ties with host populations on the other.

Keywords: Tibetanness; liminality; place; diaspora; homeland; culture; history; self-help; refugee camps; communities in exile; Tibetan refugees; Tibet; cultural authority; material investments; affective ties; social ties; host populations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMBS.2016.075559

International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 2016 Vol.2 No.2, pp.176 - 186

Received: 30 Jan 2015
Accepted: 23 Jul 2015

Published online: 28 Mar 2016 *

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