07 NOV 2025 (FRI) 15:00-15:15

GEOG HKU
2 days ago
1 min read

HKU GEOGRAPHY: Monthly Research Talks

Cultural economic geographies of Tibetan thangka in contemporary China

Date: 07 NOV 2025 (Friday)

Time: 15:00-15:15 (HKT)

Via Zoom: https://hku.zoom.us/j/98300713382?pwd=dGdqelhpWUwyOENmTUJyalVKemtHQT09

(No registration required)

Abstract:

This presentation starts from a basic enquiry: Can marketisation and integration into market-based circulation provide a feasible and sustainable means for intangible heritage such as Tibetan thangka to be preserved in the contemporary era? To answer this question, this study investigates the thangka industry and creative clusters in Rebgong, Qinghai Province, providing a perspective into the historical trajectory in which a religious craft is turned into a cultural commodity. Drawing on the literature on marketisation championed by people such as Michel Callon, the talk plays with Callonian concepts, such as dis-embedding and re-embedding, to interrogate how the market configuration of thangka is premised on new economic, social, cultural, and material relations. Specifically, the talk probes into: (1) new labour regime that turn into thangka production into an economic activity; (2) the socio-technical networks and devices that enable thangka to be priced in a market contexts; and (3) the complex dynamics of cultural estrangement and re-attachment for local communities, which has been incurred by new market processes.