Transcultural Encounters in the Himalayan Borderlands : Kalimpong as a “Contact Zone"

This Collaborative Study Investigates The Hill Station Of Kalimpong And The Larger Eastern Himalayan Borderlands As A Paradigmatic Case Of A “contact Zone.” In The Colonial And Early Post-colonial Era, This Space Enabled A Variety Of Encounters: Between (british) India, Tibet, And China, But Also Nepal And Bhutan; Between Christian Mission And Himalayan Religions; Between Global Flows Of Money And Information And Local Markets And Practices. Using A Plethora Of Local And Global Historical Sources, The Contributing Essays Follow The Pathways Of People From Diverse Cultural Backgrounds And Investigate The New Forms Of Knowledge And Practice That Resulted From Their Encounters And Their Shifting Power Relations. The Volume Provides Not Only A Nuanced Historiography Of Kalimpong And Its Adjacent Areas, But Also A Conceptual Model For Studying Transcultural Processes In Borderland Spaces And Their Colonial And Post-colonial Dynamics. Cover......Page 1 Front Matter......Page 5 Acknowledgements......Page 7 Table of Contents......Page 9 Markus Viehbeck - Introduction: Cultural History as a History of Encounters— A “Contact Perspective”......Page 11 Part I - Christian Mission, Educational Institutions and Identity Formation......Page 33 Jayeeta Sharma - Kalimpong as a Transcultural Missionary Contact Zone......Page 35 Andrew J. May - Our Miniature Heaven: Forming Identities at Dr Graham's Homes......Page 65 Charisma K. Lepcha - The Scottish Mission in Kalimpong and the Changing Dynamics of Lepcha Society......Page 81 Part II - Public Spheres, Public Media, and the Creation of Public Knowledge......Page 103 Clare Harris - Photography in the “Contact Zone”: Identifying Copresence and Agency in the Studios of Darjeeling......Page 105 Anna Sawerthal and Davide Torri - Imagining the Wild Man:Yeti Sightings in Folktales and Newspapers of the Darjeeling and Kalimpong Hills......Page 131 Prem Poddar and Lisa Lindkvist Zhang - Kalimpong: The China Connection......Page 159 Part III - Things that Connect: Economies and Material Culture......Page 185 Emma Martin - Object Lessons in Tibetan: The Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Charles Bell, and Connoisseurial Networks in Darjeeling and Kalimpong, 1910–12......Page 187 Tina Harris - Wool, Toothbrushes, and Beards: Kalimpong and the “Golden Era”of Cross-Border Trade......Page 215 Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa - Sacred Economies of Kalimpong: The Eastern Himalayas in the Global Production and Circulation of Buddhist Material Culture......Page 233 Part IV - Scholars, Power, and Knowledge Production......Page 253 Trine Brox and Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen - Prince Peter’s Seven Years in Kalimpong: Collecting in a Contact Zone......Page 255 Markus Viehbeck - “The First Tibetan at a Western University?”—Entanglements of Scholarship, Buddhism, and Power in Kalimpong and Beyond......Page 283 Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia - Looking Beyond the Land of Rice: Kalimpong and Darjeeling as Modern Buddhist Contact Zones for Sikkimese Intellectual Communities......Page 311 Epilogue......Page 329 Prem Poddar and Cheralyn Mealor - Kalimpong as Fiction or Ethnography? Gorkha/Nepali Sensitivities in the Himalayas......Page 331 List of Contributors......Page 357 Backcover......Page 362 Leere Seite......Page 361