Between Desire and Duty: On Tibetan Identity and its Effects on Second-Generation Tibetans

Abstract

This article examines the life of second-generation Tibetans in India and Switzerland. Descendants of Tibetan refugees often feel a responsibility to get politically involved for Tibet or to maintain Tibetan values and cultural traditions. This article focuses on their relationship with their Tibetan origins and raises the question of how, and under what circumstances, the construction and articulation of a so-called Tibetan identity within the diaspora influences the identification of second-generation Tibetans with their Tibetan origins and the Tibetan people in general. [web URL: http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/4421]