'Green Tibetans' in China: Tibetan geopiety and environmental protection in a multilayered Tibetan landscape

• Published in: Asian ethnicity Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 330 - 350
• Main Author: Esler, Joshua
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 03.07.2017; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Buddhism; ecotourism; Environmental protection; geopiety; Gyalthang; Identity; Modern society; Religiosity; Sociocultural factors; Tibetan Buddhism; Zhongdian
• ISSN: 1463-1369; 1469-2953
• DOI: 10.1080/14631369.2015.1090367

This article examines how certain Tibetans and Han Chinese converts to Tibetan Buddhism in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Beijing are articulating various forms of environmental discourse, both in terms drawn from Tibetan 'geopiety', and/or from a Western model of environmental protection. In relation to these trends, I further explore how certain Tibetans are articulating their understanding of Tibetan Buddhism within an apparently localised context, while other Tibetans are more obviously appropriating from discourses originating in the West and/or wider Chinese society to become more 'modern', while at the same time retaining a conceptualisation of Tibetan Buddhism that is hybridised between traditional and modernist understandings. I also explore how some Han practitioners may seek to become more 'Tibetan' by endorsing localised forms of Tibetan Buddhism and/or 'performing' certain Tibetan modes of religiosity, while others, due in part to geographical distance from the Tibetan landscape and cultural context, endorse an understanding of Tibetan Buddhism which is more closely tied to discourses of environmental protection originating in the West. In both Tibetan and Han Chinese cases, informants reflect upon their own beliefs and identity by gazing at the Other (Tibetan, Han, or Westerner), and marking out differences and similarities between Self and Other.