Prista Ratanapruck


Prista Ratanapruck Assistant Professor PhD Harvard 2008 prista[at]virginia.edu
As a cultural anthropologist with a background in economics, I am interested in the relationships between economy and society - the various ways in which humans organize social institutions to meet their material, social, and spiritual needs, both individually and collectively. My doctoral research examined the continuity of long-distance trade by the Manangis, Nepalis of Tibetan ethnic origin, who used to trade between Tibet and India since centuries. It investigated the social arrangements and ideas that have enabled the Manangis to generate sufficient surplus to pursue grand social and religious projects, supporting a substantial fraction of their population in monasteries, while continuing to expand their economy until now. The continuity and success of the Manangi diasporic community complicates the established historiography of trans-regional trade and commerce in Asia-in which Asian merchants are perceived to have been eclipsed by the expansion of East India Companies-as well as the common narrative of the rise of the West. Through the phenomenon of a trade diaspora, this historical and ethnographic research also examined the transregional connections between the South Asia subcontinent, the Himalaya, and Southeast Asia. I see trade diasporas as entry points for understanding issues of cross-cultural exchanges that also provide a historical counterpoint to the study of twentieth-century "globalization". Transregional trade relations can open up a whole range of issues including translocal political sovereignty and empire, trade and state formation, trade and war, economic monopoly, cross-cultural marriages and kinship. My interests in South Asia thus revolve around the dynamics between interregional connections and intraregional changes. I am interested in the historical processes that created bureaucratic coherence of the region, and how we have come to inherit our analytical categories from particular historical processes, as well as movements of people and ideas that explode the category of a bounded region. Exploring the two processes in parallel has been my approach to regional and transregional studies. Beyond my first book manuscript based on my doctoral research, I have several research projects in mind. These range from a comparative and historical analysis of different South Asian trading communities and the diverse trajectories along which their communities and trade histories have changed, to a historical and ethnographic study of the institution of labrang (the "household" of an incarnate monk) in Tibetan Buddhist religious tradition, to a historical and ethnographic study of Tibetan Muslim community (descendants of Kashmiri Muslim merchants) in Tibet and India. Specializations Trade diasporas, Empire, Economic History, History of Economic Thought, Tibetan Buddhism, Tibet-India-Indian Ocean-South East Asia Connections Courses: Trade Diasporas across Asia; Mobility and Connections across the British Empire in South Asia; Anthropology and History; Anthropological Approaches to Political Economy; History of Theory in Anthropology; Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in Fieldwork Practices; Hindu Myths and Symbols Selected Publications: In preparation. Market and Monastery: Manangi Trade Diasporas in South and Southeast Asia. Forthcoming 2009. Trade, Religion, and Civic Relations in Manangi Long-Distance Trade Community. In Essays in Honor of Stanley Tambiah. Mitzi Goheen et al, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2007. Kinship and Religious Practices as Institutionalization of Trade Networks: Manangi Trade Communities in South and Southeast Asia. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 50 (2-3), 325-346.

Assistant Professor
PhD Harvard 2008

prista[at]virginia.edu

As a cultural anthropologist with a background in economics, I am interested in the relationships between economy and society - the various ways in which humans organize social institutions to meet their material, social, and spiritual needs, both individually and collectively. My doctoral research examined the continuity of long-distance trade by the Manangis, Nepalis of Tibetan ethnic origin, who used to trade between Tibet and India since centuries. It investigated the social arrangements and ideas that have enabled the Manangis to generate sufficient surplus to pursue grand social and religious projects, supporting a substantial fraction of their population in monasteries, while continuing to expand their economy until now. The continuity and success of the Manangi diasporic community complicates the established historiography of trans-regional trade and commerce in Asia-in which Asian merchants are perceived to have been eclipsed by the expansion of East India Companies-as well as the common narrative of the rise of the West.

Through the phenomenon of a trade diaspora, this historical and ethnographic research also examined the transregional connections between the South Asia subcontinent, the Himalaya, and Southeast Asia. I see trade diasporas as entry points for understanding issues of cross-cultural exchanges that also provide a historical counterpoint to the study of twentieth-century "globalization". Transregional trade relations can open up a whole range of issues including translocal political sovereignty and empire, trade and state formation, trade and war, economic monopoly, cross-cultural marriages and kinship.

My interests in South Asia thus revolve around the dynamics between interregional connections and intraregional changes. I am interested in the historical processes that created bureaucratic coherence of the region, and how we have come to inherit our analytical categories from particular historical processes, as well as movements of people and ideas that explode the category of a bounded region. Exploring the two processes in parallel has been my approach to regional and transregional studies.

Beyond my first book manuscript based on my doctoral research, I have several research projects in mind. These range from a comparative and historical analysis of different South Asian trading communities and the diverse trajectories along which their communities and trade histories have changed, to a historical and ethnographic study of the institution of labrang (the "household" of an incarnate monk) in Tibetan Buddhist religious tradition, to a historical and ethnographic study of Tibetan Muslim community (descendants of Kashmiri Muslim merchants) in Tibet and India.

Specializations

Trade diasporas, Empire, Economic History, History of Economic Thought, Tibetan Buddhism, Tibet-India-Indian Ocean-South East Asia Connections

Courses:

Trade Diasporas across Asia; Mobility and Connections across the British Empire in South Asia; Anthropology and History; Anthropological Approaches to Political Economy; History of Theory in Anthropology; Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in Fieldwork Practices; Hindu Myths and Symbols

Selected Publications:

In preparation. Market and Monastery: Manangi Trade Diasporas in South and Southeast Asia.
Forthcoming 2009. Trade, Religion, and Civic Relations in Manangi Long-Distance Trade Community. In Essays in Honor of Stanley Tambiah. Mitzi Goheen et al, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2007. Kinship and Religious Practices as Institutionalization of Trade Networks: Manangi Trade Communities in South and Southeast Asia. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 50 (2-3), 325-346.