SURVIVAL OF A REFUGEE CULTURE: THE LONGTERM GIFT EXCHANGE BETWEEN TIBETAN REFUGEES AND DONORS IN INDI

This dissertation analyses the relationship between aid givers and one longterm refugee group, the Tibetans in India. A major assertion of the study is that the key to understanding refugee recipients of aid lies not only in cultural information about the group or theories about refugees in general, but rather in an analysis of their association with donors over the gift of aid.;Field work for this study was conducted in various Tibetan refugee settlements and communities in India, between December 1980 and December 1981. The author used several anthropological methods of conducting research in the field, including participant observation, key informants, formal and informal interviewing of various western donors and Tibetan recipients of aid.;In this study, the author suggests that there is an unusual fit between a small group of western donors and Tibetan recipients who have developed a social bond through the gift of aid. Importantly, the Tibetan refugees engage in gift exchange with western donors on the same principles and understanding of exchange that they exercised in old Tibet. Furthermore, an intermediary group, the Tibetan middle level, has arisen within the exiled community that acts on behalf of Tibetans while simultaneously satisfying donor's expectations of returns for their help. Stressing the crucialness of reciprocity in refugee aid, the author concludes that the twenty-three year aid relationship between Tibetan refugees and western donors is unusually successful because the Tibetan middle level has devised endearing ways to return gifts.