The many “lives” of Ama Adhe: life narrative as action and agency in the Tibetan diaspora by Julie Fletcher (Victoria University, Melbourne)
A BSA Auto/Biography Study Group Event
6 January 2027 (1700-1800 GMT)
Online
About the Event
Abstract
Across seven decades of exile, Tibetans in the diaspora have engaged in the gathering, translation, publication and circulation of first-person life narrative accounts. These include short-form testimonies in human rights reports, in-person oral accounts, museum displays, documentaries, memoirs, auto/biographies, and testimonial narratives. By the 1990s, these practices of gathering, translating and co-authoring Tibetan life stories were sufficiently established to support the production and publication of three internationally best-selling, full-length testimonial narratives.
Collective in purpose, and collaboratively produced, these accounts narrate the lives of exemplary figures of Tibetan resistance: ‘Ama’ Adhe Taponstang, Palden Gyatso, and ‘Ani’ Pachen, whose lives spanned a crucial period in modern Tibetan history, and who each spent decades as political prisoners before escaping for India.
This paper examines the multiple life narratives of ‘Ama’ Adhe, published in human rights reports, a long-form "as-told-to" account, and her collaboratively produced full-length testimonial narrative. In considering these “lives,” I trace the continuities between the gathering of short-form refugee statements and the collaborative production of longer testimonial narratives, and argue that the telling of these stories constitutes an important form of collective agency and action that enables this relatively small refugee community to challenge Chinese annexation and control of their homeland.
Registration
- Auto/biography Study Group Member/BSA Member: FREE
- Non-Member: £10
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