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Thupten Kelsang

Grant Type

Engaged Research Grant

Institutional Affiliation

Oxford, U. of

Grant number

Gr. ERG-34

Approve Date

February 2, 2023

Project Title

Kelsang, Thupten (Oxford, U. of) "Reanimating Tibet in the Museum: contentions in collections and their contemporary ‘afterlives’"

My thesis focuses on how to create a sustainable and equitable relationship between the transnational Tibetan diaspora and museums with Tibetan collections. This would enable Tibetan refugees to access and re-engage with their material heritage (which is entangled in both British and Chinese colonialism), and work towards countering the historic and acute absence of Tibetan voices in museums. Grounded in community-based participatory research (CBPR), my research explores the potential future(s) of Tibetan collections in museums in the UK and their latent affordances for the wider Tibetan community.