This project supports the dissertation research of a cultural anthropologist from Cornell University in Nepal. Using ethnographic methodology, the student will study a diverse group of Tibetan refugees to see how they maintain and construct their Tibetan ethnic identity in the face of alternate ethnic identities and foreign influences. The project will focus on the production of Tibetan religious artifacts and their sale to foreigners. Using in depth interviews, the student will study how the Tibetan emigrant population defends its sense of itself as a separate ethnic group. This research is important because the rate of inter-cultural mixing, borrowing and merging in the contemporary world is unprecedented at the same time that the strength of particular ethnic identities (and inter-ethnic hostilities) seems to be growing. This is a global phenomenon, and the micro-processes by which groups maintain and re-create their ethnic identities to fit novel social situations is relatively little studied. Understanding the issues involved in this one case will help develop general theory.
