Alana Vehaba

My dissertation, entitled, The Problem of Solidarity in a Time of Martyrdom: Tibetan Refugees and their Self-Immolators analyzes the emotional, social, and political impact of an unfolding resistance movement. To date, 164 Tibetans have sacrificed their lives by setting themselves on fire.  Before they died, they called for freedom from China, for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet, and for a cultural and linguistic liberation in Tibet.  I completed 11 months of field research with the Tibetan refugee community in Dharamsala, India, and over 150 hours of interviews, trying to learn how the refugee community makes sense of these extraordinary acts. My research examines the hope and frustration that the acts of self-immolation elicit in the community, and sheds light on the tenuous nature of the relationship between Tibet and exile, as well as the precarious geopolitical position of the Tibetan people.


Broadly, my research interests are:
Critical trauma studies, community studies, social cohesion in diasporic communities; decolonizing and liberatory methodology; affect studies;  the cumulative and collective effects of trauma; indigenous justice; social resistance movements; critical pedagogy; memory and counter-memory; decolonized knowledges; international migration and transnationalism; US immigration and refugee policy analysis; conflict and mediation; genocide and social suffering; Buddhist philosophy and worldview

Ethnographic Sites: Tibetan Community in Exile, India, Nepal, China, Israel, United States; Taiwan