Diaspora 12:2 2003 A Contemporary Story of “Diaspora”: The Tibetan Version Dibyesh Anand University of Bath Introduction Until the last two decades of the twentieth century, Tibetan studies suffered from an overemphasis on Buddhism and pre-1950s Tibetan history. Since the late 1980s, however, the situation has gradually changed. One increasingly comes across works related to Tibet that draw upon new ideas culled from various social, literary, and cultural theories. One such concept that is gaining currency is Diaspora.1 Taking their cue from the changing discourses of other dispersions, Tibetanists2 working with Tibetan exile/refugee communities have adopted the term. While this development brings Tibetan studies in line with similar disciplines and reflects the selfconfidence of the field itself, often the term is used in an undertheorized manner, as a mere synonym or substitute for “refugee” or “exile.” This is problematic, since Diaspora is not just another word for exiles or refugees but a concept with its own history. And this history is necessarily messy and contested. This article is about the contested nature of the concept of Diaspora and the significance of its use together with the identity marker “Tibetan.” Has the Tibetan exile community undergone some structural change that warrants the use of the term “Diaspora ”? Or is it more a question of the “discovery” of Diaspora as a useful category that enables new Tibetanist discourse to capture more adequately the already existing, complex lives that Tibetan refugees and exiles have been living as a collective entity? Is it both? Even though recent theorists of diaspora largely neglect the Tibetans, this has not discouraged many Tibetanists from using the term. Furthermore, we must ask whether the neglect of Tibetans in and by diaspora studies is benign or whether it is exemplary of the limitations of current conceptualizations, which are mostly concerned with diasporic communities living in the Western world. It must be stressed that though the Tibetan case has similarities with the classical Jewish Diaspora, Tibetanists began using the term only in response to recent re-conceptualizations of “Diaspora,” thanks to which the term has become more capacious and has moved 211 Diaspora 12:2 2003 beyond the classical application of it (to Jews, Greeks, and Armenians ) to refer to numerous other communities. The interaction between the concept of Diaspora and discourses by and about the Tibetan diaspora is not a one-way street, for the latter, too, has much to offer to a more robust conceptualization of Diaspora. The category “Tibetan diaspora” has a latent potential to unsettle several given meanings of the term in Western diaspora studies that are in need of rethinking. It also questions the given understanding of discourses of Tibetanness within the exilic/ refugee/diasporic community and emphasizes their historicized, politicized, and constructed character. At the same time, it renders problematic some of the current formulations of the concept of Diaspora that either promote a purely theoretical version devoid of specificities or use the term in a theoretically unsophisticated manner, as a signifier for any people living outside their homeland. How do we appreciate the (de)constructive role that has been and may further be played by Diaspora theory when used in conjunction with the marker “Tibetan”? How do we theorize the Tibetan diaspora in a manner that takes into account the complexities and contradictions involved? I shall begin by arguing that Edward Said’s “traveling theory” (Said 226–47) offers a way out of (/into) the conundrum. Drawing upon Said, I contend that a reconsideration of Diaspora as a traveling concept and of its specific Tibetan itinerary will complicate productively our understanding of various complementary and competing discourses involved within the wider discursive frame of Tibetan diaspora. My use of Said’s term and concept may not do justice to some of the specific contexts in which his argument was originally embedded, but it does not do violence to the core of meanings and attributes with which Said’s usage endowed the term “traveling theory.” Diaspora as a Traveling Concept: Beginning of the Road In The World, the Text, and the Critic, Said argues that theory moves from one place to another. The travels of theory are enabling for intellectual...
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Mar 12, 2010
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