The Tibetan Sustainable Heritage Initiative

近几十年来，全球经济的快速重塑和数字技术的出现极大地改变了世界各地社区的生活，同时也威胁到被边缘化的语言、传统和生态系统的存在。为了应对这些变化，草根活动家、学者以及国家和国际组织都在寻找新的方法来“保护”和“保存”语言和传统。最近，“文化可持续性”--以公平、协作为基础，支持继续实践和传播传统习俗--显示出与社区合作的希望，以找到记录和振兴濒危表达习俗的方法。然而，尽管对民主西方的土著人口进行了大量研究，但威权背景下的边缘化社区在很大程度上被忽视了。在全球威权主义抬头之际，这种将边缘社区和土著社区的经验排除在外的倾向有可能歪曲土著社区的微妙关切。这也有可能误解这些社区，以及个别文化经纪人如何在经济和制度压力下积极努力保护濒危传统。根据我在中国藏区研究表现力文化和发展合作文化节目的既定记录，我将带领包括学者和草根文化纪录片在内的不同利益攸关方团队，通过研究如何利用日常数字技术不仅作为对传统的威胁，还可以保护传统知识，来推进文化可持续发展的学术研究。在开发和部署新的应用程序和内容管理系统时，我们将为藏族人创造记录自己传统的方式。然后与教育工作者和传统传承者合作，共同创造利用社交媒体和其他日常工具支持传统在西藏课堂上的传播和持续活力的方法。我将利用UKRI西藏可持续遗产倡议(Tashi，藏语中吉祥的意思)未来领导人联谊会，首次在威权背景下对文化可持续性进行如此大规模的调查。使用的案例既有得到良好支持的传统，如列入联合国教科文组织人类非物质文化遗产代表作名录的西藏格萨尔史诗，也有濒临灭绝的习俗，如罕见的即兴创作的讽刺诗体dakpa，这种比较方法将重塑我们对文化可持续性的理解，并扩大我们对西藏传统生态系统的理解。与此同时，认识到使某些形式成功的因素只是第一步。扎西还创建了新的文化文献数字工具，并与教师和社区成员合作，记录传统，共同制定战略，鼓励进一步传播和实践文化形式，从而更广泛地支持传统知识体系的持续活力。随着世界各地的传统和语言在社会、技术和政治压力面前沉默不语，越来越多的负担得起和无处不在的数字技术正在塑造社区参与其濒危传统的方式。扎西提供了一个前所未有的机会来开发和测试维持中国藏族社区传统的新方法。反过来，威权的中国的少数民族社区的研究结果将为共同为濒危传统创造更公平、更可持续的未来提供新的方式，并有助于发展文化可持续性的理论和实践视角，这些视角可以进一步应用于与中国内部和全球的土著和边缘化社区合作。

In recent decades, the rapid reshaping of the global economy and the emergence of digital technologies have drastically altered the lives of communities around the world, whilst simultaneously threatening the existence of marginalized languages, traditions, and ecosystems. In response to these changes, grassroots activists, scholars, and national and international organizations have sought new ways to "safeguard" and "preserve" languages and traditions. More recently, "cultural sustainability"-based in equity, collaboration, and supporting continued practice and transmission of traditional practices-has shown promise for working collaboratively with communities to find ways to document and revitalize endangered expressive practices. However, while much research has been done with indigenous populations in the democratic West, marginalized communities in authoritarian contexts have largely been overlooked. This tendency to exclude the experience of marginal and indigenous communities in authoritarian contexts risks misrepresenting the nuanced concerns of indigenous communities at a moment of rising authoritarianism around the globe. It also risks misunderstanding how these communities, and how individual cultural brokers are actively working to keep endangered traditions alive in the face of both economic and institutional pressures.Building on my established record researching expressive cultures and developing collaborative cultural programming in Tibetan areas of China, I will lead a diverse team of stakeholders including academics, and grassroots cultural documentarians, to advance scholarship on cultural sustainability through examining how everyday digital technologies can be deployed not merely as a threat to traditions, but also to sustain traditional knowledge. In developing and deploying new applications and content management systems we will create ways for Tibetans to document their own traditions. In then working alongside educators and tradition bearers to co-create methods that use social media and other everyday tools to support the transmission and continued vitality of traditions in Tibetan classrooms. I will use the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship for the Tibetan Sustainable Heritage Initiative (TaSHI, the Tibetan word for auspiciousness), to conduct the first such large-scale investigation of cultural sustainability in an authoritarian context.Using cases ranging from both well-supported traditions like the Tibetan Gesar epic-inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity-to endangered practices like a rare genre of extemporaneously composed satirical verse called dakpa, this comparative approach will reshape our understanding of cultural sustainability and broaden our understanding of the Tibetan traditional ecosystem. At the same time, recognizing the factors that make some forms successful is only the first step. TaSHI also creates new digital tools for cultural documentation and works with teachers and community members to document traditions and co-create strategies to encourage further transmission and practice of cultural forms, thereby supporting the continued vitality of the traditional knowledge system more generally. As traditions and languages around the world go silent in the face of social, technological, and political pressures, increasingly affordable and ubiquitous digital technologies are shaping how communities engage with their endangered traditions. TaSHI provides an unprecedented opportunity to develop and test new ways of sustaining traditions in China's Tibetan communities. Findings from minority communities in authoritarian China, in turn, will model new ways to co-create more equitable and sustainable futures for endangered traditions and help to develop theoretical and practical perspectives of cultural sustainability that can be further applied to work with indigenous and marginalized communities within China, and around the globe.