Thupten Kelsang

This dissertation focuses on creating a sustainable and equitable relationship between the transnational Tibetan diaspora and museums with Tibetan collections. It would enable displaced Tibetans to access and re-engage with their displaced material heritage in museums (which are entangled in British and Chinese colonialism) and work towards countering the historic and acute absence of Tibetan voices in museums. Through online workshops and focus group discussions, this project will create a space for Tibetans to explore how they perceive historic Tibetan objects and their current lives as museum objects. Grounded in community-based participatory research (CBPR), this praxis-based research explores the potential future(s) of Tibetan collections in museums in the UK and their latent affordances for the wider Tibetan community. Through collaborative enquiry and co-production of knowledge, this project asks how Tibetan collections could be reimagined and reactivated.