Cultural citizenship in the Tibetan exile: Movies, media, and personal stories

While Benedict Anderson emphasized the importance of print capitalism in the imagining of national belonging, I look at other types of storytelling---whether visual or oral, textual or hypertextual---in the imagining of a transnational, exile belonging. That is, media produced or participated in by Tibetan exiles shapes and sustains a sense of belonging to a Tibetan "nation" that actually floats above nation-state borders. I argue these productions and participations constitute practices of cultural citizenship in that exile transnation.;Based on fieldwork, participant observation, interviews, and the analysis of archival data, the dissertation argues that narratives can be ways that Tibetans practice an exile citizenship. The narratives discussed include films made by exile Tibetans, and personal stories told by Tibetan former political prisoners. While these particular narratives attempt to participate in the construction of a Tibetan nation and to challenge various representations of Tibetan identity and history, I argue that they also challenge previously validated ways of contributing to the Tibetan exile nation and provide a new way for the tellers to do so.;While the legal citizenship of Tibetans outside Tibet varies, many exiles feel a desire and a sense of obligation to contribute to the transnational, exile nation. I argue that media (including filmmaking) and storytelling are potent means of performing citizenship and belonging, and that in fact they are practices of cultural citizenship. For filmmakers and former political prisoners, exile cultural citizenship can be expressed through creative productions or the telling of personal narratives. This departs somewhat from other ideas about cultural citizenship, because it emphasizes practice and media production, not political participation.