Details

List of Figures viii <p>Series Editors' Preface ix</p> <p>Acknowledgements x</p> <p>Note on Transliteration xiii</p> <p>1 Introduction 1</p> <p>2 Rethinking the (Non)state: Time / Space / Performance 17</p> <p>3 Setting the Scene: Contested Narratives of Tibetan Statehood 40</p> <p>4 Rehearsal Spaces: Material and Symbolic Roles of Exile Tibetan Settlements 61</p> <p>5 Playwright and Cast: Crafting Legitimacy in Exile 92</p> <p>6 Scripting the State: Constructing a Population, Welfare State and Citizenship in Exile 116</p> <p>7 Audiences of Statecraft: Negotiating Hospitality and Performing Diplomacy 145</p> <p>8 Conclusion: Rehearsing Stateness 171</p> <p>References 190</p> <p>Index 216</p>

<b>Fiona McConnell</b> is Associate Professor in Human Geography at the University of Oxford. She is co-editor of <i>Geographies of Peace</i> (2014) and <i>Diplomatic Cultures and International Politics</i> forthcoming), and sits on the Board of Directors of the Tibet Justice Centre.

Controversy has surrounded the legal, territorial, and political status of Tibet for decades. How does the Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGiE)—in spite of a complete lack of legal recognition—continue to enact state-like functions from the hill town of Dharamsala, India? <i>Rehearsing the State: The Political Practices of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile</i> presents a comprehensive investigation of the institutions, performances, and actors through which the exiled Tibetan community—this active state-in-waiting—is experimenting, modifying, and rehearsing state practices. Based on ethnographic research on the TGiE and in Tibetan communities based in India, chapters bring critical theories of the state into dialogue with geographies of temporality to develop the idea of rehearsal through the exploration of spaces, roles, scripts, and audiences in the performance of exile statecraft. A wide range of issues are explored, including how state-like functions are enacted without legal jurisdiction over territory, ways in which futures are made present alongside prolonged waiting, and what happens to these anticipatory logics when the time frame is extended indefinitely. Illuminating and thought-provoking, <i>Rehearsing the State</i> offers timely insights into exile Tibetan politics while making a significant contribution to wider issues of critical state theory and the politics of displacement.

<p>‘This is much more than yet another account of controversy about Tibet's status. By looking in from the 'margins' of the state system <i>Rehearsing the State</i> offers a brilliant illumination of sovereignty everywhere.’<br /><br /><b>James D Sidaway, Professor of Political Geography, National University of Singapore</b></p> <p> </p> <p>‘This fascinating book provides both an in-depth account of the workings of the Tibetan government in exile and a new way of thinking about the state and stateness. Drawing on dramaturgical ideas of performance, rehearsal and play, Fiona McConnell unsettles established understandings of the relationships between state, sovereignty and territory. In the process she not only reveals much about the political geographies of the Tibetan diaspora, but also shows how an apparently marginal geopolitical phenomenon can shed new light on questions of government, citizenship and political authority.’</p> <p><b>Joe Painter, Professor of Geography, University of Durham, UK</b></p>

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