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Flexible Liminality Among The Tibetan Diaspora: Tibetan Exiles Adjusting Cultural Practices In Dharamsala, India And The United States, Sneha Thapa

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

In this dissertation, I investigate the characteristics and quality of liminality among the Tibetan exile community in Dharamsala, India, and the United States. I argue that the quality of their liminality defines this exile community’s ability to maneuver and voice their influence to geo-political community of states that surround them, all while within their liminal condition. The Tibetan exile people live as stateless foreigners in India but have a better standard of living and better opportunities to acquire transnational resources than their surrounding host community. In the U.S., Tibetan diaspora people live as asylum-seekers and naturalized Tibetan-Americans but have established …