Producing a Distant Centre: The role of wilderness in the post-Mao Tibetan Buddhist revival

Abstract

AbstractThis article addresses how wilderness—through its qualities of remoteness and wildness—plays an essential role in the production of a vital religious centre in Tibet. By drawing on in-depth ethnographic observations in Yachen Gar, a mega-sized Buddhist encampment in the nomadic grasslands of China's northwestern Sichuan province, I examine the spatial and material features of the encampment, how various agents utilize these features to produce specific relations with it, and how, in this process, Yachen has become a centre of the Buddhist revival in Kham Tibet. I will present three ethnographic accounts—which focus on a Tibetan nun from the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), Chinese pilgrims, and reactions to the spread of electricity in Yachen—to address the ways in which Yachen is emplaced within the spatial and material tensions implemented and imagined by different participants. These accounts ultimately show how materiality plays a crucial role in forging the various contesting relations, actions, and meanings that constitute a social space.