In the Circle of White Stones

Moving through Seasons with Nomads of Eastern Tibet

Gillian G Tan author Stevan Harrell editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Washington Press

Published:1st Dec '16

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This hardback is available in another edition too:

In the Circle of White Stones cover

Gillian Tan's beautifully written, collaborative ethnography offers us a succession of luminous insights into the lives and livelihoods of nomadic Tibetan pastoralists. Favoring intimate narrative accounts of quotidian existence over sweeping generalizations about the economic, religious, and political forces at play in Dora Karmo, Tan succeeds brilliantly in capturing the subtle interplay of continuity and discontinuity in a lifeworld that has always been, in one way or another, on the move. -- Michael D. Jackson, author of As Wide as the World Is Wide: Reinventing Philosophical Anthropology Presents a glimpse into contemporary Tibetan nomad life that moves with a sense of pace and grace that is similar to how one must walk at altitude. The book captures lived experiences of Tibetans at a moment of momentous social, ecological, and economic change. -- Sienna Craig, author of Horses Like Lightning: A Story of Passage through the Himalayas I thoroughly enjoyed reading In the Circle of White Stones. I especially appreciate the portrayals of both (Tan's) interactions with her interlocutors and the changing conditions of life in the pastoral Eastern Tibetan plateau. -- Emily Yeh, author of Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development

This narrative of subsistence on the Tibetan plateau describes the life-worlds of people in a region traditionally known as Kham who move with their yaks from pasture to pasture, depending on the milk production of their herd for sustenance. Gillian Tan’s story, based on her own experience of living through seasonal cycles with the people of Dora Karmo between 2006 and 2013, examines the community’s powerful relationship with a Buddhist lama and their interactions with external agents of change. In showing how they perceive their environment and dwell in their world, Tan conveys a spare beauty that honors the stillness and rhythms of nomadic life.

"Tan's curiosity about pastoral culture and language is obvious in her reported observations and experiences. . . . The author's use of detail could not have been imagined, but only have come from lived experience. . . . I thoroughly enjoyed reading In the Circle of White Stones and its depiction of the reality of a Tibetan herding way of life."

-- Konchok Gelek * Asian Highlands Perspectives *

"This charming book chronicles daily life among nomadic pastoralists in eastern Tibet, in China’s Sichuan Province. . . . Tan describes pastoralist life from the perspective of the women who inhabit one of the Tibetans’ tents, with whom she built up close relations. . . . [and] provides valuable insight into a threatened way of life."

* Journal of Asian Studi

ISBN: 9780295999470

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 454g

176 pages