Transcultural Encounters in the Himalayan Borderlands

This collaborative study investigates the hill station of Kalimpong and the

larger Eastern Himalayan borderlands as a paradigmatic case of a "contact zone." In

the colonial and early post-colonial era, this space enabled a variety of

encounters: between (British) India, Tibet, and China, but also Nepal and Bhutan;

between Christian mission and Himalayan religions; between global flows of money and

information and local markets and practices. Using a plethora of local and global

historical sources, the contributing essays follow the pathways of people from

diverse cultural backgrounds and investigate the new forms of knowledge and practice

that resulted from their encounters and their shifting power relations. The volume

provides not only a nuanced historiography of Kalimpong and its adjacent areas, but

also a conceptual model for studying transcultural processes in borderland spaces

and their colonial and post-colonial dynamics.