Money, Politics, and Local Identity An Inside Look at the 'Diary' of a Twentieth-Century Khampa Trader

Lucia Galli (1, 2)

1 EPHE - École Pratique des Hautes Études
2 CRCAO - Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l'Asie Orientale

This chapter analyses the socioeconomic role played by Khampa traders in twentieth-century Tibet, focusing in particular on the increasing political and economic power gained in the 1940s and 1950s by members of the most influential eastern Tibetan trading firms. The discussion is enriched by information drawn from the travel journal of Khatag Dzamyag, an otherwise unknown Khampa trader. The author's recollection, spanning over a period of thirteen years (1944-1956), mainly spent journeying, trading, and pilgrimaging, provides the scholar with an insider's perspective on events until now known only through the conventional historiographical writing.

Mots clés: twentieth-century Tibet; Khampa identity; Khampa traders; travel journal

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Histoire

Lucia Galli. Money, Politics, and Local Identity An Inside Look at the 'Diary' of a Twentieth-Century Khampa Trader. Frontier Tibet: Patterns of Change in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, 2019, ⟨10.5117/9789463728713_ch09⟩. ⟨halshs-02502645⟩