This pioneering ethnographic analysis provides a far-reaching account of the changing social, political and organizational topography of western China. The seismic changes wrought across this region in recent history are seen through the lens of Trinde, a remote autonomous county on the Tibetan plateau. Drawing on over two years of detailed empirical research in a region never previously investigated by foreign researchers, Beth Meriam traces and interlinks the human, national and global dimensions of continuity and change. Her work provides important new insights into how the challenges and opportunities of Chinas reform era are producing innovative social and political responses from the people in this area. This sensitive, controversial work provides a rare and intimate account of a highly diverse range of people, and highlights their central role in shaping this dynamic, changing society. Set in a region that is never long out of the headlines, the ethnography vividly illustrates how policy fluctuations across this region involve difficult, and often painful, dilemmas for local people. Synthesizing anthropological insight with Tibetological rigour, the study shows how policies and social categories are anything but self-evident or monolithic: instead, local people are actively engaged in creating, reinterpreting and modifying official policies in practice. The book will be of interest to a wide audience, including students and scholars of Chinese nationality studies and Tibetology, as well as those with an interest in social and political anthropology or who are looking for a penetrating and integrated analysis of this hotly-debated and often misunderstood region.
China's 'Tibetan' Frontiers: Sharing the Contested Ground, Beth Meriam, Brill, Hardcover, 356 pp, $125.00

Beth Meriam is a published writer, anthropologist and researcher. Since 1994, she has worked widely across the Himalayan and Tibetan cultural region. Her 1998-99 investigation of culture, development and education in Ladakh was awarded the James Littlejohn Prize (Edinburgh, 1999). In 2001, she published 'Culture' Matters: Developing Ladakhi Education on the Margins of India via the University of Edinburgh, which was the culmination of an in-depth research project. Dr. Meriam was awarded a Cambridge University doctorate that included research undertaken while living and working with pastoralists on the Tibetan plateau, and she continued as a Research Associate at Cambridge between 2006 and 2009.

CONTENTS: China's 'Tibetan' Frontiers
Acknowledgements		ix
List of Figures		xi
A Note on Transliteration and Transcription		xiii
List of Abbreviations		xv
Maps and Plans		xvii
Preface		xxi
Introduction: Opening Vistas, Bordering Spaces		1
I.	Reclassified Societies	55
II.	Stressing Development	82
III.	Cultivating Nationalities	116
IV.	Cultivating Culture	148
V.	Empowering Locales	179
VI.	Other Modernities	212
VII.	Revisualizing Nationalities	244
Conclusion: Common Ground		276
Appendix One: Chronology of China's Reform Era		299
Appendix Two: Glossary of Principal Political Terms		301
References		303
Index		321