(Drumo) D Zhoumaoji, MA

Biography

Due to the influence of China’s different economic reforms, Tibetan areas have been experiencing dramatic changes in various aspects in relation to economy including school education, labor division, money-making activities, livelihood strategies and so forth. Especially from the beginning of 21st century, farming and animal husbandry, the two major economic productive forms of the Tibetans in the past, are no longer the fundamental means of income earning in many Tibetan areas. Instead of merely engaging in farming and grazing, many Tibetans, both from nomadic and farming areas, leave for earnings. Such incomes supplement or even replace those obtained merely from farming and animal husbandry. Tibetan women, from both rural farming and nomadic areas in the western part of China, whose key roles in traditional productivity lied inside of the houses where direct profit in relating money-making is almost impossible, start to participate in the money-making activities outside their houses. Even though the participation of the Tibetan women in money-making activities outside is not paralleled with that of Tibetan men from the same areas, the average number of women’s participation and the income they make is undoubtedly growing, Within such a background, my research interests are the economic involvement of rural Tibetan women in comtemporary Amdo and the transitions in their lives.