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China and Inner Asia
Organized Panel Session
Chinese development projects, policies concerning schooling, and financial incentives are leading growing numbers of Tibetan pastoralists to settle in the newly constructed towns dotting the Tibetan plateau and transforming the ways in which they manage their families and create meaningful social worlds. This paper examines the results of urban settlement for kinship and self-definition, specifically the range of social networks and densities of transactions within them, how mutual obligations are understood, and the sense of social identity. The paper also critically reviews common assumptions about the results of urbanization and modernization, universal education, and differential successes in the modern economy for loyalties to clans and tribes, commitments to providing monetary and other forms of support outside the immediate family, and social stratification. The paper will examine these assumptions using data collected between 1994 and 2015 in pastoralist regions of Gansu, Sichuan, and Qinghai Provinces. To anticipate some of the paper’s findings, a majority of Tibetan pastoralists endeavor to straddle involvements between rural production and urban opportunities, although increasing numbers of individuals are staking a claim to a modern, urban life and seeking advanced educations for their children, improved transportation/communications and schooling are contributing to wider marital choices and expanded kin networks, and while kin ties remain the greatest source of trust and mutual assistance for most people, many are unable or unwilling to bear the costs of relatives who are falling behind in the new economies.
Nancy Levine
University of California, Los Angeles