High in a remote mountainous desert of the western Himalaya, Ladakh is geopolitically part of India. It shares unstable, ambiguous, and contested borders with Pakistan and China, as shown in Figure 3.1. Popularly referred to as the “Snowland,” “Wonderland,” “Moonland,” “Little Tibet,” or “the last Shangri-la,” its remote location and barren landscape yet colorful and “exotic” culture and the quiet joie de vivre of Ladakhis have intrigued researchers and adventure travelers alike. Descriptions of Ladakh tend to emphasize its contrasts; it is a rare account that does not begin with a dual description of the area as both “otherworldly beautiful” and barren, harsh, and unforgiving.

The landscape provides more than a mere backdrop, as the unusual ecology of the trans-Himalayan plateau plays center stage in many analyses of Ladakhi society and culture. While this is appropriate in many ways, we risk concluding that Ladakhi life is entirely determined by the natural environment. Appadurai articulated this problem more generally within anthropology by noting that