I spent my twenties taking pictures, crafting stained glass in my uncle's workshop, working as a gardener, acting and directing theatre plays, and doing graphic design to make a living. At 28, I started reading anthropology and found in it the most useful tool for seeing and understanding the world around me.
I started travelling and enrolled as a student at Zurich University. I completed my MA in Zurich in 2005 and my PhD at Oxford in 2010. I was a post-doc in the Open Cluster at the Asia Research Institute (ARI) in Singapore and a Marie Curie research fellow at LMU Munich. Since 2015, I am the principle investigator of the ERC Starting Grant project “Remoteness & Connectivity: Highland Asia in the World”. Supervisors: Charles Ramble, Elisabeth Hsu, and Michael Oppitz Address: LMU Munich Department of Social and Cultural Anthropololgy Oettingenstr. 67 80538 Munich Germany
How does remoteness emerge from the very connections envisioned to unmake it? And how do connecti... more How does remoteness emerge from the very connections envisioned to unmake it? And how do connections arise from remoteness? In this article, I address these questions by taking remoteness and connectivity not as opposites but as entangled forces that condition each other. To explore this evolving nexus, I focus on provisions: the notion of provision denotes, at once, a foresight or visions of a better future, a rule or law, and supplies coming in from the outside. Looking into three junctures of cutting connections and forging ties in the Tajik Pamirs – the Soviet system of Moscow provisioning, wayfaring Pajero drivers and international trophy hunting – I show how provisions (of all three kinds) were instrumental in shaping the repeating return of remoteness in the region.
Remoteness has returned to world politics. Instead of the flat world’ once proclaimed by leading ... more Remoteness has returned to world politics. Instead of the flat world’ once proclaimed by leading liberal voices, the world map today looks more rugged and uneven than it has in a long time. While some areas are smoothly connected to global capital and cultural flows, others are becoming more marginalised and ‘distant’, at least from the viewpoint of global centres of power. In this introduction, we build an analytical approach to remoteness as a social and political process rather than a primordial condition. We emphasise three key aspects of remoteness: its deep entanglement with forms of connectivity; its economic usefulness; and its amenability to ‘remote control’. In considering these aspects, we bring anthropology’s long heritage of studying ‘marginal’ societies to bear on the political resurgence of remoteness in a new world disorder of proliferating global dangers, lucrative frontier economies and heritage-making.
Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands, edited by Alexander Horstmann, Martin Saxer and Alessandro Rippa. Milton Park and New York: Routleldge, pp. 1-14., 2018
Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, 2016
The idea of center and periphery has been highly infuential in shaping mental maps of how the wor... more The idea of center and periphery has been highly infuential in shaping mental maps of how the world is spatially structured. For certain geographical configurations, however, neither periphery, nor center – nor any point along the axes between them –provides a useful description. Taking the village of Walung in eastern Nepal as a vantage point, I propose the notion of pathways as a concept and field site, and suggest co-itinerant ethnography as a methodological approach to the study of remoteness and connectivity. Pathways, I argue, are a key to understanding a particular set of seemingly remote places at the edge of nation-states.
Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 2016
Over the past 150 years, a great number of cartographic anxieties and hopes have shaped lives and... more Over the past 150 years, a great number of cartographic anxieties and hopes have shaped lives and relations in the Pamirs. The Great Game over imperial spheres of influence was followed by Soviet and Chinese anxieties regarding territorial integrity and the loyalty of their borderland populations; since the end of the Cold War, settling the remaining demarcated borders has become a primary concern in Central Asia; meanwhile, mining companies are anxious to claim territories for mineral extraction, and the maps of national parks and nature reserves aim at mitigating ecological anxieties and claim spaces for conservation. The result is a veritable spectacle of maps. Following Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge (2007), this article argues that maps are “ontogenetic” rather than representational—they foster realities on the ground. Map-making projects derived from cartographic anxieties are embedded in particular visions of the future, and thus they can serve as a vantage point from which to explore the changing modes of outside engagement in the Pamirs.
The relation between ethnicity and religion has had a troubled history in the People's Republic o... more The relation between ethnicity and religion has had a troubled history in the People's Republic of China. Conflating religious practice with ethnic culture is considered to carry the risk of breeding " splittism " – especially in Tibet and Xinjiang. While in the post-Mao era the outright hostility against religion has given way to a religious revival, keeping religion and (nationality) politics separate has remained a major concern for the Chinese Communist Party. Religion is supposed to be a private matter that does not interfere with politics. Against this backdrop, a recent phenomenon in the Tibet Autonomous Region is all the more remarkable: the (re-)fusion of eth-nicity and religion under the label of cultural heritage and its protection. This paper approaches this officially endorsed re-fusion ethno-graphically and examines its wider implications. I argue that endorsing religion as an attribute of Tibetan heritage corresponds to the concept of defining public spaces and events in which religious practice is legitimate and expected. Simultaneously, religious practices outside these dedicated spaces and events become even more problematic , leading to everyday Buddhist practices, such as circumambulation, being seen as (and performed as) political acts.
EASA CFP - deadline 15 Feb (see attachment)
ABSTRACT: For a brief post-Cold War moment, it seeme... more EASA CFP - deadline 15 Feb (see attachment)
ABSTRACT: For a brief post-Cold War moment, it seemed as if marginal regions would be rewired into the world economy and global divisions would yield to connectivity. But instead we have seen new forms of 'remoteness' emerge in ways we have yet to fully understand. This panel focuses ethnographically on the global 'return of remoteness' by bringing to the foreground our discipline's legacy of studying marginal, out-of-the-way places (Ardener 1987). In recent years anthropologists have radically reframed remoteness, showing how seemingly 'distant' or marginal areas are fundamentally tied into national and global orders (Harms et al 2014; McDougall and Scheele 2012; Piot 1999; Tsing 2005). Building on this debate, the panel focuses on the intersection of remoteness and power. Insecurity has, in the post-9/11 years, come to be emblematic of many new 'danger zones', from the Sahara to the Hindu Kush, and world powers are actively drawing distance between themselves and these zones. Yet global 'centres' are at the same time actively forging connections with these areas, albeit often in shallow, brutal or counterproductive ways, as seen in the 'remote-controlled' drone attacks in the 'AfPak' borderlands, the long-distance interventions of Somalia or northern Mali, or the 'criminal' networks linking the Sahara or Highland Asia to national or global markets. In casting an ethnographic eye on these power dynamics, this panel will debate the politics of remoteness in today's world, while arguing for a 'return to remoteness' in anthropology itself as we critically reactivate our disciplinary heritage.
Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 2013
Upper Humla, an area in northwestern Nepal bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region, has lost much o... more Upper Humla, an area in northwestern Nepal bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region, has lost much of its prosperity over the past five decades. The region's recent history has been shaped by modernization efforts and development initiatives on both sides. However, the author argues that, contrary to the common conception that Communist reform in Tibet dismantled the traditional economic foundation of trade-based Himalayan livelihoods, different forces were at work in the case of upper Humla. Three benevolent development initiatives in public health, wildlife conservation, and community forestry triggered the decline. The "second lives" of successful development, rather than the side effects of modernist planning, are responsible for upper Humla's current predicament.
This paper takes as its starting point the conflicting claims about the present condition of Tibe... more This paper takes as its starting point the conflicting claims about the present condition of Tibetan culture. While the Dalai Lama argues that a "cultural genocide" is going on in Tibet, the Chinese Party State emphasises its efforts to safeguard and promote Tibetan cultural heritage. Regardless of the different meanings the notion of " culture" adopts and the different agendas it serves, both sets of claims rely on a remarkably similar rhetoric, which couches cultural heritage not only in political or economic but also in moral terms. Both the " cultural genocide " thesis and the Party State's alleged efforts to safeguard Tibetan culture are thereby enmeshed in the larger " ethico-politics" surrounding the " Tibet question " and the rise of China in the world. How to understand the fusion of the economic, the political, and the moral? What happens when the political economy of cultural identity (development, tourism, property and benefits) meets with the ethico-politics of cultural survival? I argue that a new form of moral economy has emerged at the conjuncture of "cultural survival " and "safeguarding cultural heritage" – a moral economy of cultural identity, similar in structure but different in form and style from the classical cases of moral economies.
This article discusses the contemporary cross-border trade in medicinal plants between Nepal and ... more This article discusses the contemporary cross-border trade in medicinal plants between Nepal and Tibet. As Tibetan pharmacy extensively relies on raw materials not native to Tibet, long-distance trade in medicinal materials is not a new phenomenon. However, with the recent creation of a Tibetan medicine industry in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the increasing demand for herbs from India and Nepal, the contemporary herb trade is facing new challenges. Surging trade volumes, notions of patient safety, growing ecological concerns, and the current political situation in Tibet have led to increased efforts at rendering legible and controlling the transit of traders and herbs across the border. The ethnographic account of a Tibetan plant trader's business trip to Nepal serves as a starting point for a discussion of these efforts and the traders' tactical manoeuvres to deal with them. The notion of 'border regimes' is introduced to analyse the regulations, their implementation and side-effects that condition the current situation.
Remoteness has returned in world politics. Focusing on the intersection of remoteness and power, ... more Remoteness has returned in world politics. Focusing on the intersection of remoteness and power, we ask how certain parts of the world are being reimagined – once more – as remote and dangerous, how they are intervened upon, and what the legacies of anthropology can teach us about these dynamics.
Dear Penny and Hannah,
We recently had the pleasure of reading your new book Roads: An Anthropol... more Dear Penny and Hannah,
We recently had the pleasure of reading your new book Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. The occasion was the first session of the Contemporary Anthropology Reading Group organized by the Highland Asia Research Group at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. The book generated a lively discussion around a number of important issues. Afterward, we felt that a conventional book review would not be enough to capture the breadth of the discussion, nor would it be a suitable option to discuss some of the questions that the book raised. What follows then, is what we are calling a review letter: our attempt to further engage with some of the most challenging arguments that your book makes.
Over the past decades, living in proximity to an increasingly powerful China has gained new meani... more Over the past decades, living in proximity to an increasingly powerful China has gained new meanings. ‘Rising China’ – the nation, the notion, and the buzzword – sparks dreams and triggers fears. The experiences and realities of relation-making across China’s borders shape life in profound and lasting ways.This book takes the experiences and politics of relation-making across China’s borders as a starting point of an anthropological inquiry into neighbouring. Neighbouring is thereby understood as both agency and experience. It involves, at once, mental and material processes; it entails techniques of negotiating proximity and makes use of asymmetries in power and wealth; it informs desire and stimulates distrust; and it denotes collective and individual efforts to manage evolving relations that we will call agonistic intimacies.
How does remoteness emerge from the very connections envisioned to unmake it? And how do connecti... more How does remoteness emerge from the very connections envisioned to unmake it? And how do connections arise from remoteness? In this article, I address these questions by taking remoteness and connectivity not as opposites but as entangled forces that condition each other. To explore this evolving nexus, I focus on provisions: the notion of provision denotes, at once, a foresight or visions of a better future, a rule or law, and supplies coming in from the outside. Looking into three junctures of cutting connections and forging ties in the Tajik Pamirs – the Soviet system of Moscow provisioning, wayfaring Pajero drivers and international trophy hunting – I show how provisions (of all three kinds) were instrumental in shaping the repeating return of remoteness in the region.
Remoteness has returned to world politics. Instead of the flat world’ once proclaimed by leading ... more Remoteness has returned to world politics. Instead of the flat world’ once proclaimed by leading liberal voices, the world map today looks more rugged and uneven than it has in a long time. While some areas are smoothly connected to global capital and cultural flows, others are becoming more marginalised and ‘distant’, at least from the viewpoint of global centres of power. In this introduction, we build an analytical approach to remoteness as a social and political process rather than a primordial condition. We emphasise three key aspects of remoteness: its deep entanglement with forms of connectivity; its economic usefulness; and its amenability to ‘remote control’. In considering these aspects, we bring anthropology’s long heritage of studying ‘marginal’ societies to bear on the political resurgence of remoteness in a new world disorder of proliferating global dangers, lucrative frontier economies and heritage-making.
Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands, edited by Alexander Horstmann, Martin Saxer and Alessandro Rippa. Milton Park and New York: Routleldge, pp. 1-14., 2018
Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, 2016
The idea of center and periphery has been highly infuential in shaping mental maps of how the wor... more The idea of center and periphery has been highly infuential in shaping mental maps of how the world is spatially structured. For certain geographical configurations, however, neither periphery, nor center – nor any point along the axes between them –provides a useful description. Taking the village of Walung in eastern Nepal as a vantage point, I propose the notion of pathways as a concept and field site, and suggest co-itinerant ethnography as a methodological approach to the study of remoteness and connectivity. Pathways, I argue, are a key to understanding a particular set of seemingly remote places at the edge of nation-states.
Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 2016
Over the past 150 years, a great number of cartographic anxieties and hopes have shaped lives and... more Over the past 150 years, a great number of cartographic anxieties and hopes have shaped lives and relations in the Pamirs. The Great Game over imperial spheres of influence was followed by Soviet and Chinese anxieties regarding territorial integrity and the loyalty of their borderland populations; since the end of the Cold War, settling the remaining demarcated borders has become a primary concern in Central Asia; meanwhile, mining companies are anxious to claim territories for mineral extraction, and the maps of national parks and nature reserves aim at mitigating ecological anxieties and claim spaces for conservation. The result is a veritable spectacle of maps. Following Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge (2007), this article argues that maps are “ontogenetic” rather than representational—they foster realities on the ground. Map-making projects derived from cartographic anxieties are embedded in particular visions of the future, and thus they can serve as a vantage point from which to explore the changing modes of outside engagement in the Pamirs.
The relation between ethnicity and religion has had a troubled history in the People's Republic o... more The relation between ethnicity and religion has had a troubled history in the People's Republic of China. Conflating religious practice with ethnic culture is considered to carry the risk of breeding " splittism " – especially in Tibet and Xinjiang. While in the post-Mao era the outright hostility against religion has given way to a religious revival, keeping religion and (nationality) politics separate has remained a major concern for the Chinese Communist Party. Religion is supposed to be a private matter that does not interfere with politics. Against this backdrop, a recent phenomenon in the Tibet Autonomous Region is all the more remarkable: the (re-)fusion of eth-nicity and religion under the label of cultural heritage and its protection. This paper approaches this officially endorsed re-fusion ethno-graphically and examines its wider implications. I argue that endorsing religion as an attribute of Tibetan heritage corresponds to the concept of defining public spaces and events in which religious practice is legitimate and expected. Simultaneously, religious practices outside these dedicated spaces and events become even more problematic , leading to everyday Buddhist practices, such as circumambulation, being seen as (and performed as) political acts.
EASA CFP - deadline 15 Feb (see attachment)
ABSTRACT: For a brief post-Cold War moment, it seeme... more EASA CFP - deadline 15 Feb (see attachment)
ABSTRACT: For a brief post-Cold War moment, it seemed as if marginal regions would be rewired into the world economy and global divisions would yield to connectivity. But instead we have seen new forms of 'remoteness' emerge in ways we have yet to fully understand. This panel focuses ethnographically on the global 'return of remoteness' by bringing to the foreground our discipline's legacy of studying marginal, out-of-the-way places (Ardener 1987). In recent years anthropologists have radically reframed remoteness, showing how seemingly 'distant' or marginal areas are fundamentally tied into national and global orders (Harms et al 2014; McDougall and Scheele 2012; Piot 1999; Tsing 2005). Building on this debate, the panel focuses on the intersection of remoteness and power. Insecurity has, in the post-9/11 years, come to be emblematic of many new 'danger zones', from the Sahara to the Hindu Kush, and world powers are actively drawing distance between themselves and these zones. Yet global 'centres' are at the same time actively forging connections with these areas, albeit often in shallow, brutal or counterproductive ways, as seen in the 'remote-controlled' drone attacks in the 'AfPak' borderlands, the long-distance interventions of Somalia or northern Mali, or the 'criminal' networks linking the Sahara or Highland Asia to national or global markets. In casting an ethnographic eye on these power dynamics, this panel will debate the politics of remoteness in today's world, while arguing for a 'return to remoteness' in anthropology itself as we critically reactivate our disciplinary heritage.
Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 2013
Upper Humla, an area in northwestern Nepal bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region, has lost much o... more Upper Humla, an area in northwestern Nepal bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region, has lost much of its prosperity over the past five decades. The region's recent history has been shaped by modernization efforts and development initiatives on both sides. However, the author argues that, contrary to the common conception that Communist reform in Tibet dismantled the traditional economic foundation of trade-based Himalayan livelihoods, different forces were at work in the case of upper Humla. Three benevolent development initiatives in public health, wildlife conservation, and community forestry triggered the decline. The "second lives" of successful development, rather than the side effects of modernist planning, are responsible for upper Humla's current predicament.
This paper takes as its starting point the conflicting claims about the present condition of Tibe... more This paper takes as its starting point the conflicting claims about the present condition of Tibetan culture. While the Dalai Lama argues that a "cultural genocide" is going on in Tibet, the Chinese Party State emphasises its efforts to safeguard and promote Tibetan cultural heritage. Regardless of the different meanings the notion of " culture" adopts and the different agendas it serves, both sets of claims rely on a remarkably similar rhetoric, which couches cultural heritage not only in political or economic but also in moral terms. Both the " cultural genocide " thesis and the Party State's alleged efforts to safeguard Tibetan culture are thereby enmeshed in the larger " ethico-politics" surrounding the " Tibet question " and the rise of China in the world. How to understand the fusion of the economic, the political, and the moral? What happens when the political economy of cultural identity (development, tourism, property and benefits) meets with the ethico-politics of cultural survival? I argue that a new form of moral economy has emerged at the conjuncture of "cultural survival " and "safeguarding cultural heritage" – a moral economy of cultural identity, similar in structure but different in form and style from the classical cases of moral economies.
This article discusses the contemporary cross-border trade in medicinal plants between Nepal and ... more This article discusses the contemporary cross-border trade in medicinal plants between Nepal and Tibet. As Tibetan pharmacy extensively relies on raw materials not native to Tibet, long-distance trade in medicinal materials is not a new phenomenon. However, with the recent creation of a Tibetan medicine industry in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the increasing demand for herbs from India and Nepal, the contemporary herb trade is facing new challenges. Surging trade volumes, notions of patient safety, growing ecological concerns, and the current political situation in Tibet have led to increased efforts at rendering legible and controlling the transit of traders and herbs across the border. The ethnographic account of a Tibetan plant trader's business trip to Nepal serves as a starting point for a discussion of these efforts and the traders' tactical manoeuvres to deal with them. The notion of 'border regimes' is introduced to analyse the regulations, their implementation and side-effects that condition the current situation.
Remoteness has returned in world politics. Focusing on the intersection of remoteness and power, ... more Remoteness has returned in world politics. Focusing on the intersection of remoteness and power, we ask how certain parts of the world are being reimagined – once more – as remote and dangerous, how they are intervened upon, and what the legacies of anthropology can teach us about these dynamics.
Dear Penny and Hannah,
We recently had the pleasure of reading your new book Roads: An Anthropol... more Dear Penny and Hannah,
We recently had the pleasure of reading your new book Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. The occasion was the first session of the Contemporary Anthropology Reading Group organized by the Highland Asia Research Group at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. The book generated a lively discussion around a number of important issues. Afterward, we felt that a conventional book review would not be enough to capture the breadth of the discussion, nor would it be a suitable option to discuss some of the questions that the book raised. What follows then, is what we are calling a review letter: our attempt to further engage with some of the most challenging arguments that your book makes.
Over the past decades, living in proximity to an increasingly powerful China has gained new meani... more Over the past decades, living in proximity to an increasingly powerful China has gained new meanings. ‘Rising China’ – the nation, the notion, and the buzzword – sparks dreams and triggers fears. The experiences and realities of relation-making across China’s borders shape life in profound and lasting ways.This book takes the experiences and politics of relation-making across China’s borders as a starting point of an anthropological inquiry into neighbouring. Neighbouring is thereby understood as both agency and experience. It involves, at once, mental and material processes; it entails techniques of negotiating proximity and makes use of asymmetries in power and wealth; it informs desire and stimulates distrust; and it denotes collective and individual efforts to manage evolving relations that we will call agonistic intimacies.
Within a mere decade, hospital pharmacies throughout the Tibetan areas of the People’s Republic o... more Within a mere decade, hospital pharmacies throughout the Tibetan areas of the People’s Republic of China have been converted into pharmaceutical companies. Confronted with the logic of capital and profit, these companies now produce commodities for a nationwide market. While these developments are depicted as a big success in China, they have also been met with harsh criticism in Tibet. At stake is a fundamental (re-)manufacturing of Tibetan medicine as a system of knowledge and practice. Being important both to the agenda of the Party State’s policies on Tibet and to Tibetan self-understanding, the Tibetan medicine industry has become an arena in which different visions of Tibet’s future clash.
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ABSTRACT: For a brief post-Cold War moment, it seemed as if marginal regions would be rewired into the world economy and global divisions would yield to connectivity. But instead we have seen new forms of 'remoteness' emerge in ways we have yet to fully understand. This panel focuses ethnographically on the global 'return of remoteness' by bringing to the foreground our discipline's legacy of studying marginal, out-of-the-way places (Ardener 1987). In recent years anthropologists have radically reframed remoteness, showing how seemingly 'distant' or marginal areas are fundamentally tied into national and global orders (Harms et al 2014; McDougall and Scheele 2012; Piot 1999; Tsing 2005). Building on this debate, the panel focuses on the intersection of remoteness and power. Insecurity has, in the post-9/11 years, come to be emblematic of many new 'danger zones', from the Sahara to the Hindu Kush, and world powers are actively drawing distance between themselves and these zones. Yet global 'centres' are at the same time actively forging connections with these areas, albeit often in shallow, brutal or counterproductive ways, as seen in the 'remote-controlled' drone attacks in the 'AfPak' borderlands, the long-distance interventions of Somalia or northern Mali, or the 'criminal' networks linking the Sahara or Highland Asia to national or global markets. In casting an ethnographic eye on these power dynamics, this panel will debate the politics of remoteness in today's world, while arguing for a 'return to remoteness' in anthropology itself as we critically reactivate our disciplinary heritage.
We recently had the pleasure of reading your new book Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. The occasion was the first session of the Contemporary Anthropology Reading Group organized by the Highland Asia Research Group at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. The book generated a lively discussion around a number of important issues. Afterward, we felt that a conventional book review would not be enough to capture the breadth of the discussion, nor would it be a suitable option to discuss some of the questions that the book raised. What follows then, is what we are calling a review letter: our attempt to further engage with some of the most challenging arguments that your book makes.
ABSTRACT: For a brief post-Cold War moment, it seemed as if marginal regions would be rewired into the world economy and global divisions would yield to connectivity. But instead we have seen new forms of 'remoteness' emerge in ways we have yet to fully understand. This panel focuses ethnographically on the global 'return of remoteness' by bringing to the foreground our discipline's legacy of studying marginal, out-of-the-way places (Ardener 1987). In recent years anthropologists have radically reframed remoteness, showing how seemingly 'distant' or marginal areas are fundamentally tied into national and global orders (Harms et al 2014; McDougall and Scheele 2012; Piot 1999; Tsing 2005). Building on this debate, the panel focuses on the intersection of remoteness and power. Insecurity has, in the post-9/11 years, come to be emblematic of many new 'danger zones', from the Sahara to the Hindu Kush, and world powers are actively drawing distance between themselves and these zones. Yet global 'centres' are at the same time actively forging connections with these areas, albeit often in shallow, brutal or counterproductive ways, as seen in the 'remote-controlled' drone attacks in the 'AfPak' borderlands, the long-distance interventions of Somalia or northern Mali, or the 'criminal' networks linking the Sahara or Highland Asia to national or global markets. In casting an ethnographic eye on these power dynamics, this panel will debate the politics of remoteness in today's world, while arguing for a 'return to remoteness' in anthropology itself as we critically reactivate our disciplinary heritage.
We recently had the pleasure of reading your new book Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. The occasion was the first session of the Contemporary Anthropology Reading Group organized by the Highland Asia Research Group at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. The book generated a lively discussion around a number of important issues. Afterward, we felt that a conventional book review would not be enough to capture the breadth of the discussion, nor would it be a suitable option to discuss some of the questions that the book raised. What follows then, is what we are calling a review letter: our attempt to further engage with some of the most challenging arguments that your book makes.