Identity & Nation in Bhutan
My current research and book project “Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Travel: Identity- and Nation-Building in Bhutan” (2022–24), which is funded by a Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, is an investigation into identity- and nation-building in 18th-century Bhutan with a particular focus on the agency of Bhutanese Buddhist masters as important intermediaries in Bhutan’s entangled history with Tibet and the East India Company/British Raj. In particular, it is centered around the diplomatic travels of the 9th Chief Abbot of the Bhutanese Drukpa Kagyü school Shākya Rinchen (1710–59) to Tibet from 1740 onwards.
My research design combines historical-philological methods by analyzing a thus far largely untranslated corpus of Bhutanese, Tibetan, and colonial British primary sources with a theoretical framework from religious studies focusing on identity and social differentiation. More specifically, I trace the fourfold and multidimensional relationship between religious-doctrinal identity, socio-cultural identity, identity policies, and nation-building.
The chosen diachronic perspective deliberately goes forth and back in time between the 18th and 21st centuries to trace critical processes of continuation, disruption, and transformation. This contributes to a deeper understanding of Bhutan’s religious and political history in a global context, particularly, its Buddhism-induced development model of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which has not yet received systematic historical analysis despite its global popularity as a role model of sustainable development. Equally important, for the first time, Bhutan’s historical role in linking South Asia, the British Raj, and East Asia will be systematically addressed from an emic Bhutanese perspective.
My research project included archival research at the British Library and a collaboration with the British Library Endangered Archives Programme. Moreover, my research work has been very much influenced by my longstanding association and exchange with the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities“ from 2017 until 2024 and a close exchange with the Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe) at Leipzig University.
To know more about this project, please listen to this talk/podcast held at Oxford University in November 2023 and consult the EU project page.
