This event is sponsored by the RHNHFF BCS Program and the UBC Himalaya Program, with generous support of Department of Asian Studies UBC.
We are delighted to host this hybrid event entitled:
Khata – A movie by Dr. Huatse Gyal
About this Event
This 45-minute film juxtaposes the sense of “purity” and good intentions behind the Tibetan tradition of offering long white scarves to religious teachers with the “pollution” of the environmental impacts of its mass proliferation. The film follows the proliferation of the custom in contemporary society and how scarves are now offered or otherwise employed in a variety of contexts, and colors.
About the Speakers
Huatse Gyal (དཔའ་རྩེ་རྒྱལ།) is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Anthropology Department at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He received his Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Huatse Gyal has contributed peer-reviewed articles to international journals such as Critical Asian Studies, Nomadic Peoples, and Ateliers d’anthropologie. He is the co-editor of a volume, entitled, Resettlement among Tibetan Nomads in China (2015). He recently co-edited a special issue, entitled, Translating Across the Bardo: Centering the Richness of Tibetan Language in Tibetan Studies (2024). His research explores the interdependent and intimate relationships between land, language, and community, with concerns about state environmentalism and climate change, and an interdisciplinary approach to land-based indigenous revitalization movements in a global context. Read his Trycicle interview here.
Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is a Sharwa (Sherpa) anthropologist from Pharak in northeastern Nepal. She is an Assistant Professor of Lifeways in Indigenous Asia in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and the Department of Asian Studies. Her research areas include human dimensions of climate change and Indigeneity with a focus on the Himalayas and the diaspora. Check her page here.
