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Measuring the Tibetan nation: Anthropometry in 1950s Kalimpong
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2021
Abstract
This article explores the anthropometric survey of 5,000 Tibetans by the ethnographer HRH Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark in the northeast Indian Himalayan town of Kalimpong in the 1950s, as part of the Third Danish Expedition to Central Asia. In the context of the crisis created by the Chinese incursion into Tibet in 1950, which pushed thousands of Tibetans into India, stationary field anthropometry, rather than a mobile expedition, became Prince Peter's principal entry into Tibetan worlds. This article explores the scientific paradigms underpinning his anthropometric survey at a time when anthropology had seemingly moved on theoretically and ethically, the historical conditions and contingencies of Prince Peter's research, and the survey's representations of Tibetan peoples and places. We argue that, while Prince Peter's understanding was in essence primordialist, linking particular peoples to particular places, in practice he took a more modernist approach to ‘Tibetaness’ as contingent upon historical processes. The article concludes by reflecting on the potential significance of this vast and unique collection of historic anthropometric data for Tibetans today.
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