Liquid identities: Han sojourners in Tibet

Drifting Home: The Quests of Chinese Tourist-Migrants in Tibet

“…Since Zangpiaos have multiple identities as both hosts and guests, both business operators and consumers (J. Zhang & Xiao, 2021), this study offers managerial applications both for industrial operation and public administration in tourism industry. It also has implications for studies on mobile populations and on how travel away from home responds to the complexity and alienation associated with modern life (S. A.…”

“…Furthermore, short-term fieldwork and traditional interviews are difficult to conduct with Zangpiaos since they are sensitive about their identities and self-protective (J. Zhang & Xiao, 2021). In response to this situation and to capture the complicated building of home over time (Dovey, 1985;Kellett & Moore, 2003), I conducted a longitudinal ethnography over a 16-year period (2003-2018).…”

“…Most are in their twenties to forties (when sojourning in Tibet), and they represent China's socioeconomic and cultural elites (Li & Wang, 2017) with advanced educations and respectable middle-class occupations prior to their sojourns (J. Zhang & Xiao, 2021). They usually work, intensively travel, and occasionally go on pilgrimages in Tibet.…”

“…Zangpiaos resemble other marginal "dropouts" from the mainstream society such as vagrants (mangliu) (J. Zhang & Xiao, 2021) who represent an unsettled state of being in constant motion. Compared with the "common human emotion" of attachment to homeland that has a long tradition in China (Tuan, 1977, p. 158), Zangpiaos' rootless drifting far away from home in Tibet without social obligation is a kind of detachment or dislocation from home that far exceeds prevalent life patterns and conventional social values.…”

“…171–172). As such, rootedness can “be only dynamic” (Bauman, 2012, p. 209), while moorings configuring and enabling mobilities are fluid in ways that constitute a new form of travel (Hannam et al, 2006, p. 3; J. Zhang & Xiao, 2021).…”