In Diasporic Lands (Tibetan Refugees and their Transformation since the Exodus)

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A large number of Tibetans migrated to India following the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1950. Till the end of the twentieth century, Tibetan studies focused primarily on Buddhism and pre- 1950s Tibetan history in relation to Tibetan exiles, influenced largely by Western notions of Tibetan culture in an exotic 'Shangri-La'. In Diasporic Lands moves away from this norm to study the dynamics of Tibetan refugees' emergent culture in the midst of their hosts, and in distinctly urban settings.

Based on the author's ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Darjeeling town, West Bengal, this volume looks at how places and identities are redefined and transformed by refugees negotiating their 'belonging' in an alien country over time. The earlier strategy of the 'myth of return' to their homeland has had to be reworked, and in the process, Tibetan refugees have moved away from the stereotyped ways in which they are portrayed to create plural identities of their own. The volume also looks at how the refugee-host dynamic-where the 'hosts' are Indians, Nepalis and 'Bhutia' Tibetans-plays out in such a situation.

Tibetan refugees in India grapple with notions of what Tibet as the homeland stands for, what it means to truly belong to the host territory and to acquire Indian citizenship. The ethnographic analysis, which reflects on Tibet's past and the 'exile present', helps us to understand the 'lived meanings' that Tibetan refugees in Darjeeling attach to their life in exile and to the spaces they live and work in. It also shows how the experience of movement to and from a place alters the idea that people have of their relation to a specific place in the diaspora, and how this 'sense of place' adds meaning and purpose to refugee lives.

This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, social anthropology, politics, cultural studies and migration studies, as well as policy makers and human rights activists.

Sudeep Basu is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Studies in Social Management, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar.

Never before in its history has forced migration studies in India faced such an acute crisis as it does now. The discipline seems to have reached a plateau and unless we are able to make some radical breakthrough sooner rather than later, the future of the discipline, by all means, looks extremely bleak. For one thing. the nature and context of migration have changed in a way that it no longer becomes possible to understand the phenomenon with the help of the same tools and concepts that one would have used and deployed in the post-War era. The circularity of forced migration in which one migrates by being displaced from one's home and reaches a destination and then finds (or does not find) a way to return home is being seriously challenged now. For another, forced migration studies today is caught as it were in a quandary and is perched rather uneasily between the twin extremes of positivistic analysis supplemented more often than not by hard facts and figures on the one hand and cultural studies with deeper understanding of texts and field narratives on the other-without any communication whatsoever being established between them. Basu's book, in that sense, offers a welcome relief insofar as it seeks to explore the possibilities of dialogue between these two extremes without falling prey to either.

Most importantly, he views homelessness as part of the lived experience. As one lives in a protracted state of homelessness, one is too often assumed to be what Said would have called 'out of place' and one yearns for returning to home. Forced migration studies of this genre continuously shuttles between protracted homelessness and the yearning for home, in short the loss and recovery of home. In general, migration studies is thus informed by-as Laclau puts it albeit in a different context-'a sense of lack' that pushes the political subjects to replenish and compensate it in order that the refugees might return home-returning to where one flees from is the same as going home'. Basu's book interrogates this commonplace assumption of circularity by developing the argument that as one lives, so one makes home wherever one migrates.

**Contents and Sample Pages**