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Are the Central Himalayas in Zomia? Some scholarly and political considerations across time and space*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2010

Sara Shneiderman
Sara Shneiderman
Affiliation:
St Catharine’s College, Cambridge CB2 1RL, UK E-mail: sbs31@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article examines the applicability of the Zomia concept for social scientific studies of the Himalayan region, with a focus on the Central Himalayas. While for both empirical and political reasons the term Zomia itself may not be entirely appropriate to the Himalayan Massif, the analytical imperatives that underlie James C. Scott’s usage of it – particularly the emphasis on the ethnic, national, and religious fluidity of highland communities, and their intentionality and agency vis-à-vis the states with which they engage – can be of great utility to those working in the Himalayan region. Through a historical review of the area tradition of ‘Himalayan studies’, as well as an ethnographic sketch of the cross-border Thangmi community of Nepal, India, and China’s Tibetan Autonomous Region, I argue that the potential power of the Zomia concept hinges on its ability to provide an additional framework for analysis (and perhaps political struggle), that adds value to, rather than replaces, ‘traditional’ nation-state rubrics.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , July 2010 , pp. 289 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © London School of Economics and Political Science 2010

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References

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14 Scott, Art, p. 19.

15 Ibid., p. 11.

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24 As cited in Donald Lopez, ‘Foreigner at the lama’s feet’, in Donald Lopez, ed., Curators of the Buddha: the study of Buddhism under colonialism, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995, p. 262.

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31 Scott, Art, p. 33.

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34 Ibid., p. 30. Exceptions are Ludwig Stiller, The rise of the house of Gorkha: a study in the unification of Nepal, 1768–1816, New Delhi: Manjusri Publishing House, 1973; Adrian Sever, Nepal under the Ranas, New Delhi: Oxford & IBH Publishing Company, 1993; John Whelpton, A history of Nepal, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

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38 Lopez, Curators.

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43 James Fisher, ‘Introduction’, in Fisher, Himalayan anthropology, p. 1.

44 Ibid., p. 2.

45 Samuel, ‘Tibet’, p. 198.

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47 Des Chene, ‘Is Nepal in South Asia?’, p. 219.

48 Charles Ramble, The navel of the demoness: Tibetan Buddhism and civil religion in highland Nepal, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, ch. 5.

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53 Melvyn C. Goldstein, A history of modern Tibet, 1913–1951: the demise of the Lamaist state, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989; Tsering Shakya, Dragon in the land of snows: a history of modern Tibet since 1947, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999; Gray Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists in the making of modern China, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005; Martin Mills, Identity, ritual and state in Tibetan Buddhism: the foundations of authority in Gelukpa monasticism, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.

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59 Des Chene, ‘Is Nepal in South Asia?’, p. 219.

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67 Slusser, Nepal mandala, p. 55.

68 Lynn Bennett and Dilip Parajuli, Nepal inclusion index: methodology, first round findings and implications for action, Kathmandu: World Bank, 2008.

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70 Ibid., p. 15.

71 See Tanka Subba, Dynamics of a hill society: the Nepalis in Darjeeling and Sikkim Himalayas, New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1989; Piya Chatterjee, A time for tea: women, labor and post/colonial politics on an Indian plantation, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.

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74 George Grierson, Linguistic survey of India (volume I), Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1927, p. 280.

75 Sara Shneiderman, ‘Circular lives: histories and economies of the transnational Thangmi village’, in Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gérard Toffin, eds., The politics of belonging in the Himalayas: local attachments and boundary dynamics, New Delhi: Sage Publications, forthcoming.

76 Scott, Art, p. 174.

77 Charles Taylor, C, Multiculturalism and ‘the politics of recognition’: an essay, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.

78 Arjun Appadurai, ‘The capacity to aspire: culture and the terms of recognition’, in Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton, eds., Culture and public action, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004, pp. 59–84.

79 Shneiderman, ‘Rituals’.

80 See Höfer, Caste hierarchy.

81 See Tanka Subba, Ethnicity, state, and development: a case study of the Gorkhaland movement in Darjeeling, New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 1992.

82 See Shneiderman, ‘Ethnic (p)reservations’; and Sara Shneiderman and Mark Turin, ‘Seeking the tribe: ethno-politics in Darjeeling and Sikkim’, Himal Southasian, 19, 2, 2006, pp. 54–8.

83 See Townsend Middleton and Sara Shneiderman, ‘Reservations, federalism and the politics of recognition in Nepal’, Economic and Political Weekly, 43, 19, 2008, pp. 39–45.

84 Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing history from the nation: questioning narratives of modern China, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

85 Donald Moore, ‘The crucible of cultural politics: reworking development in Zimbabwe’s eastern highlands’, American Ethnologist, 26, 3, 2000, 654–89.

86 See Pitamber Sharma and Narendra Khanal, Towards a federal Nepal: an assessment of proposed models, Kathmandu: Social Science Baha, 2009.

87 Van Schendel, ‘Geographies’, p. 657.