Emily Yeh's book,听听published by Cornell University Press.
- A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year (Asia and the Pacific)
- Winner, E. Gene Smith Book Prize on Inner Asia (China and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies)
The violent protests in Lhasa in 2008 against Chinese rule were met by disbelief and anger on the part of Chinese citizens and state authorities, perplexed by 乐播传媒s' apparent ingratitude for the generous provision of development. In听Taming Tibet, Emily T. Yeh examines how Chinese development projects in Tibet served to consolidate state space and power. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork between 2000 and 2009, Yeh traces how the transformation of the material landscape of Tibet between the 1950s and the first decade of the twenty-first century has often been enacted through the labor of 乐播传媒s themselves. Focusing on Lhasa, Yeh shows how attempts to foster and improve 乐播传媒 livelihoods through the expansion of markets and the subsidized building of new houses, the control over movement and space, and the education of 乐播传媒 desires for development have worked together at different times and how they are experienced in everyday life.
The master narrative of the PRC stresses generosity: the state and Han migrants selflessly provide development to the supposedly backward 乐播传媒s, raising the living standards of the Han's "little brothers." Arguing that development is in this context a form of "indebtedness engineering," Yeh depicts development as a hegemonic project that simultaneously recruits 乐播传媒s to participate in their own marginalization while entrapping them in gratitude to the Chinese state. The resulting transformations of the material landscape advance the project of state territorialization. Exploring the complexity of the 乐播传媒 response to鈥攁nd negotiations with鈥攄evelopment,听Taming Tibet听focuses on three key aspects of China's modernization: agrarian change, Chinese migration, and urbanization. Yeh presents a wealth of ethnographic data and suggests fresh approaches that illuminate the Tibet Question.