China Studies Research Centre, La Trobe University
2:00-3:30 Wednesday 6 March 2019
Room 318, Education 2 (ED2), La Trobe University
The transboundary Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) River flows across the Tibetan Plateau at an average altitude of more than 4000 meters, before entering northeast India through the world’s deepest gorge. The river feeds two biodiversity hotspots in the Himalaya and over 200 million people in South Asia. Recent clashes between China and India over its waters look set to intensify as both nations seek to develop its basin. China, in particular, is engaged in a profound transformation of the river through multiple large-scale development projects: a series of hydro-electrical dams, a high-speed rail line, a freeway, relocated housing, tourism infrastructure, and large agricultural projects. What is more, many of the resources to build this infrastructure, particularly sand and water, are being taken straight from the river and processed in pop-up concrete factories along the river’s edge. Using photographs and videos from a recent field trip, Ruth Gamble will discuss the diverse implications of this profound transformation.
About the Speaker
Ruth Gamble is a David Myers Fellow at La Trobe University in the China Studies Research Centre and the Centre for the Study of the Inland. She is an environmental and cultural historian of Tibet and the Himalaya, whose first book, Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism; the Third Karmapa and the Invention of a Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2018) traces the links between Tibet’s reincarnation lineages and its sacred geography. Ruth has also produced and co-authored an ETextbook Series, Introduction to the Tibetan Language (Australian National University Press, 2018), and several articles about Himalayan secular and sacred environments. She is currently writing a new book on the Yarlung Tsangpo River and researching the broader impact of high-altitude development on the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau.