State power and trans-border people in China’s Himalayan borderlands: a study of the Taman people in Kyirong valley, Tibet Autonomous Region

Abstract In China’s Himalayan borderlands, Taman people are officially categorized as a subgroup (ren) of the Tibetan ethnic group (minzu). They are typically discriminated against and marginalized by neighboring Tibetans. Taman people are located at a juncture of critical social and political questions regarding issues such as social hierarchy, state power, and the nation-state’s borders. In this article, I examine how the Taman people react to and interact with state power, focusing on grassroots village organization, economic activities, and government policies at the ground level. In doing so, I draw on ethnicity as an analytical lens and argue that the control of local society does not merely intrude from the outside as a result of “mechanical” state power. Local society also actively transforms and produces governable subjects from within, through interactions with the state.