Yudru Tsomu

This project explores westward migration, settlement development and community formation by Han Chinese immigrants in Eastern Tibet, during the late Qing and Republican periods. Following recent trends in frontier studies that view frontiers as permeable zones of contact between migrants and indigenes, my project will examine these encounters and their effects in Eastern Tibet. This project focuses on the Han population and migration into ethnic Tibetan areas of present day Sichuan Province. My project will investigate unexplored archival sources and include extensive field-work. I will use innovative approaches to examine Sino-Tibetan relations, while expanding this scholarship from the narrow political arena to larger issues of textual and social discourse.