Learning to be safe citizens

State-run boarding schools and the dynamics of Tibetan identity

Bibliographic Data

ID4524801
AuthorsMiaoyan Yang (0000-0001-9463-9806, Xiamen University)
Year2017
Volume21
Issue7
Pages824-841
Publication date2017-10-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621025.2017.1353738
OpenAlexW2735608005
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited31

Drawing on individual interviews with graduates of the state-run boarding program in the Chinese heartland called ‘inland Tibet classes’ (ITC), this paper examines how such individuals respond to state schooling aimed at minority citizen-making by interpreting their ethnicity and negotiating ethnic boundaries in the Han Chinese-dominant society. Considering citizenship as a process of being made and self-making in relation to state powers, this paper examines the complexities, internal tensions, and dilemmas in citizenship making for these young Tibetans. This paper finds that push and pull factors – their ontological insecurity in inland cities and state-guaranteed secure jobs and ontological security in Tibet respectively – together have contributed to the process of ITC graduates studied learning to be ‘safe citizens’. Although the ITC policy succeeded in cultivating numerous ‘safe citizens’, the state’s failure to establish a ‘safe space’ at large for Tibetans might jeopardize the larger aims of this state project in the long term

Aesthetics · Citizenship · Ethnic group · Identity (music · Negotiation · Ontological security · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Security studies · Sociology · State (computer science · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Law · Public Administration

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