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Border

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Abstract

Our concept of border was shaped in particular by European history. Nevertheless, we apply it to phenomena outside the Western world which have their own complex history and for which other cultures and languages have created their own terms and concepts. Moreover, a closer view reveals that in other cultures throughout history, concepts of different origin have met and mingled and that without saying the terms used are always accompanied by specific cultural connotations. Here, the complex and temporary nature of borders is exemplified by a region in the heart of Asia, which today is not organized as a nation-state and which rarely has obtained the attention of general research on borders and border areas but spread over various states and Chinese provinces. The Tibetan Plateau is an example of the complexity and historical dynamics of borders and border areas.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Bernhard Struck, Grenzregionen, in: Europäische Geschichte Online (EGO), Mainz: Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte, 2012, online at: www.ieg-ego.eu/struckb-2012-de URN: urn:nbn:de:0159-2012120307 [2015-05-15], text section 21 (last accessed 28.11.2017).

  2. 2.

    Willem van Schendel, Geographies of Knowing, Geographies of Ignorance: Jumping Scale in Southeast Asia, in: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20 (2002), pp. 647–668.

  3. 3.

    James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.

  4. 4.

    Geoffrey Samuel, “Zomia”: New Constructions of the Southeast Asian Highlands and their Tibetan Implications. Paper presented at the 12th Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies in Vancouver, August 2010.

  5. 5.

    Peter Schwieger, The Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China. A Political History of the Tibetan Institution of Reincarnation, New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

  6. 6.

    Toni Huber, A Guide to the La-Phyi Maṇḍala. History, Landscape and Ritual in South-Western Tibet, in: Alexander W. Mcdonald (ed.). Maṇḍala and Landscape, New Delhi: D.K. Printworld, 1997, pp. 239f; Toni Huber, The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain. Popular Pilgrimage and Visionary Landscape in Southeast Tibet, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 43; Peter Schwieger, Zur Konstruktion von Sinn und Bedeutung in der tibetischen Kultur, in: Stephan Conermann (ed.), Was ist Kulturwissenschaft?, Bielefeld: transcript, 2012, pp. 273–293.

  7. 7.

    Toni Huber, The Holy Land Reborn. Pilgrimage & the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India, Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 2008, pp. 77–79.

  8. 8.

    Peter Schwieger, History as Myth: On the Appropriation of the Past in Tibetan Culture. An Essay in Cultural Studies, in: Gray Tuttle/Kurtis R. Schaeffer (eds.), The Tibetan History Reader, New York 2013: Columbia University Press, 2013, pp. 67f.

  9. 9.

    Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, China. Vielvölkerreich und Einheitsstaat, München: C.H. Beck, 1997, pp. 55, 59f.

  10. 10.

    Yihong Pan, The Sino-Tibetan Treaties in the Tang Dynasty, in: T’oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 78(1/3)/1992, pp. 127f, 131, 136, 138–142, 147.

  11. 11.

    Peter Schwieger, History as Myth: On the Appropriation of the Past in Tibetan Culture. An Essay in Cultural Studies, op. cit., pp. 74f.

  12. 12.

    Toni Huber, Pushing South. Tibetan Economic and Political Activities in the Far Eastern Himalaya, ca. 1900–1950, in: Alex McKay/Anna Balikci-Denjongpa (eds.), Buddhist Himalaya. Studies in Religion, History and Culture. Proceedings of the Golden Jubilee Conference of the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology (Gangtok, 2008). Volume I: Tibet and the Himalaya, Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, 2011, p. 260.

  13. 13.

    Dieter Schuh, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke. Teil 6. Gesammelte Werke des Koṅ-sprul Blo-gros mtha’-yas, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1976, pp. LVI–LVII.

  14. 14.

    Walter Fuchs, Der Jesuiten-Atlas der Kanghsi-Zeit, seine Entstehungsgeschichte nebst Namensindices für die Karten der Mandjurei, Mongolei, Ostturkestan und Tibet, mit Wiedergabe der Jesuiten-Karten in Originalgrösse, Peking: Fu-Jen-Universität, 1943.

  15. 15.

    Sgrolkar, Xiao Huaiyuan, Vodzer et al. (eds.), A Collection of Historical Archives of Tibet. Xizang lishi dang’an huicui (西藏历史档案荟萃). Bod kyi lo rgyus yig tshags gces bsdus. Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House (Wenwu chubanshe文物出版社), 1995.

  16. 16.

    Xiuyu Wang, China’s Last Imperial Frontier. Late Qing Expansion in Sichuan’s Tibetan Borderlands, Lanham, MdD: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield, 2011, pp. 43–88.

  17. 17.

    Clements R. Markham, A Memoir on the Indian Surveys, London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1878 (2nd edition), p. 132.

  18. 18.

    Luciano Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet 1728–1959, Rome: Istituto Italiano Per Il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1973, pp. 147f; Tsepon W.D. Shakabpa, Tibet. A Political History, New York: Potala Publications, 1984 (2nd edition), p. 327.

  19. 19.

    Alastair Lamb, The China-India Border. The Origins of the Disputed Boundaries, London: Oxford University Press, 1964, pp. 25, 33–39, 64–69, 122–126.

  20. 20.

    John MacGregor, Tibet. A Chronicle of Exploration, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, pp. 256–277.

  21. 21.

    Charles Allen, Duel in the Snows. The True Story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa, London: John Murray, 2004.

  22. 22.

    Alastair Lamb, The China-India Border: The Origins of the Disputed Boundaries, op. cit., pp. 142–149, 153–161, 169.

  23. 23.

    Eric Teichman, Travels of a Consular Official in Eastern Tibet. Together with a History of the Relations between China, Tibet and India, Varanasi: Pilgrims Publishing, 2000 (original edition: Cambridge University Press, 1922), p. 168.

  24. 24.

    Toni Huber, Pushing South. Tibetan Economic and Political Activities in the Far Eastern Himalaya, ca. 1900–1950, op.cit., pp. 259f.

  25. 25.

    On the history of this border region see Alastair Lamb, The China-India Border: The Origins of the Disputed Boundaries, op. cit., pp. 74–87, 100–114.

  26. 26.

    B. R. Deepak, India & China1904–2004. A Century of Peace and Conflict, New Delhi: Manak Publications, 2005, pp. 239–264.

  27. 27.

    Wim van Spengen, Tibetan Border Worlds. A Geohistorical Analysis of Trade and Traders, London: Kegan Paul International, 2000, p. 51.

  28. 28.

    Mette Halskov Hansen, Frontier People: Han Settlers in Minority Areas of China, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005, pp. 7f, 199.

  29. 29.

    Peter Schwieger, Chinas Tibet: Die Verfestigung einer Wortverbindung und ihre Implikationen, in: Günther Distelrath/Hans Dieter Ölschleger/Heinz Werner Wessler (eds.). Zur Konstruktion kollektiver Identitäten in Asien, Schenefeld: EB-Verlag, 2007, pp. 75–78.

  30. 30.

    Vibha Arora, ‘Will You Buy My Yaks? I Want to Open a Teashop in Gangtok’. The Crises of Roots and Routes Among the ’Brog pa of Lhonak Valley in North Sikkim, India”, in: Saadet Arslan/Peter Schwieger (eds.). Tibetan Studies. An Anthology. Proceedings of the XIth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (Königswinter 2006), Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2010, p. 46. See also Kenneth M. Bauer, High Frontiers. Dolpo and the Changing World of Himalayan Pastoralists, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, pp. 107–132.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tibetan Studies, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Peter Schwieger

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  1. Political Science, University of Bonn/Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI), Bonn, Germany

    Ludger Kühnhardt

  2. Political Science, History of Ideas and Contemporary History, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Tilman Mayer

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Schwieger, P. (2019). Border. In: Kühnhardt, L., Mayer, T. (eds) The Bonn Handbook of Globality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90377-4_47

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