Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - Institute of Asian and African Studies

Mapping Amdo Series

The edition Mapping Amdo serves as the written platform of the ARN. It provides space for publication of papers from various disciplines concerning the Amdo region. The aim of the Mapping Amdo series is to contribute to the creation of a comprehensive picture of Amdo and to serve not only the academic, but as well the broader public, facilitating a deeper understanding of this multicultural and multiethnic region.

 

1. volume

Mapping Amdo: Dynamics of Change

2017. Ptackova & Zenz (eds.). Prague: Oriental Institute. ISBN: 978-80-85425-66-6.

 

The first volume, subtitled "Dynamics of Change,” follows the first ARN workshop held at the Humboldt University of Berlin in December 2014. Based on recent ethnographic fieldwork and other new data sources, the contributors of this unique volume touch on a wide range of both contemporary and historical topics, ranging from socio-economic transformations and dynamics of ethnicity and relatedness to religious and ecological dimensions. 

 

cover and content

The Mapping Amdo: Dynamics of Change is available here, or at the email: aror@orient.cas.cz.

Price: 350 CZK/14 EUR

 

 

2. volume

Mapping Amdo: Dynamics of Power

2019. Ute Wallenboeck, Bianca Horlemann, and Jarmila Ptáčková (eds.). Prague: Oriental Institute. ISBN: 978-80-85425-68-0.

 

The second volume of the Mapping Amdo Series continues to aim to channel the research on the multiethnic and multicultural region of Amdo, which, positioned at the crossroads of the Tibetan, Mongol, and Chinese cultural and policital spheres of influence, has been, and still is, of major strategic importance. Throughout the history of Amdo representatives of both the secular and the religious communities have engaged in power struggles within their own communities as well as in confrontation with each other. Apart from military or spiritual power, this volume also discusses economic, cultural, and sociopolitical aspects of power as executed by various players throughout Amdo history. 

 

cover and content

The Mapping Amdo: Dynamics of Power is available here, or at the email: aror@orient.cas.cz.

Price: 350 CZK/14 EUR

 

 

3. volume (forthcoming) 

Mapping Amdo: Language Diversity in Amdo. Changes and Challenges

Giulia Cabras, Shannon Ward, and Keith Dede (eds.)

 

The Amdo region is an area of language contact and extreme linguistic diversity: across centuries Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolic, and Turkic languages have developed similar features, and their communitites similar lifestyles and cultural elements. In this context of multidirectional contact, Amdo Tibetan has been historically the model language, and Tibetan communities played a role influencing the area's lifecycles practices, folklore, and architecture. 

In the last decades, Amdo urban centres and rural areas have been increasingly involved in the Chinese state economic and social development project. Standard Chinese has affirmed itself in Amdo as the language of modernity and social mobility. This linguistic hierarchy can be summarized distinguishing high status at the national level, i.e. Standard Chinese, languages officially recognized in the region and taught at schools in autonomous prefectures, i.e. Tibetan, languages officially recognized but practically not supported by the State and endangered, e.g. Salar and Monguor, and languages not officially recognized, e.g. Wutun. 

Currently, several languages in Amdo are endangered, Tibetan is the language of cultural identification for some ethnolinguistic groups such as Baonan and Wutun, and bilingualism is becoming a common phenomenon, in particular in urban areas. So far, the new "bilingual education" has spared minority autonomous areas, but from time to time officials criticized a low mastery of the national language and call for increasing the role of Chinese in education. 

This volume explores the complex language dynamics in which Amdo's ethnolinguistic groups are involved, taking into account patterns of power, contacts and mobility at the local and global level.