Exile from the Grasslands

At the beginning of the new millennium, the Chinese government launched the Great Opening of the West, a development strategy targeted at remote areas inhabited mainly by indigenous ethnic groups. Intended to modernize infrastructure and halt environmental degradation, its tactics in western China have resulted in the displacement of pastoral Tibetans to urban residence and sedentary livelihoods, causing massive social and economic shifts and uncertainty and eventually leading to signs of discontent in ethnically Tibetan regions.

Based on more than a decade of fieldwork, Exile from the Grasslands documents the viewpoints of both the people affected--Tibetan pastoralists in Qinghai Province--and the Chinese officials charged with relocating and settling them in newly constructed housing projects. As China's international influence expands, the welfare of its ethnic minorities and its handling of environmental issues are receiving close media scrutiny. Jarmila Pt�čkova's study documents a politically and ecologically significant process that is happening--unlike events in Lhasa or Xinjiang--largely outside the view of the wider world.

La inceputul noului mileniu, guvernul chinez a lansat Marea Deschidere a Occidentului, o strategie de dezvoltare care vizeaza zonele indepartate locuite in principal de grupuri etnice indigene. Destinat sa modernizeze infrastructura si sa opreasca degradarea mediului, tactica sa in vestul Chinei a dus la deplasarea tibetanilor pastorali catre resedinta urbana si mijloacele de trai sedentare, provocand schimbari si incertitudini sociale si economice masive si ducand in cele din urma la semne de nemultumire in regiunile etnice tibetane. in mai mult de un deceniu de munca pe teren, Exile from the Grasslands documenteaza punctele de vedere atat ale persoanelor afectate - pastorii tibetani din provincia Qinghai -, cat si ale oficialilor chinezi insarcinati cu mutarea si stabilirea lor in proiecte de locuinte nou construite.