Inscribing chölkha : Census, election, and the making of modern Tibetan diaspora identity

Abstract This article examines the historical formation of modern chölkha identity, a cornerstone of contemporary Tibetan nationalist thought. Rather than a direct continuation of medieval Tibetan identity categories, this article argues that modern chölkha identity is a contingent product of the Tibetan encounter with colonial modernity, especially in exile. By analysing the introduction of the modern census and electoral representation in exile, this article demonstrates how institutional logics of governmentality reconstituted once-fluid, elite-defined spatial categories into standardized, mutually exclusive popular identities. This is not to suggest that chölkha identity was invented ex nihilo by exiled Tibetan nationalist elites. On the contrary, and well known among scholars, the chölkha , as a spatial category among the literate class, has existed since the thirteenth century. Yet, as this article argues, its form, scope, and semantic load were different from those of its modern counterpart. Drawing on this history, the article proposes a ‘sequential thesis’ as a way of reframing Benedict Anderson’s concept of seriality. This article argues that ‘unbound’ and ‘bound’ serialities are best understood not as opposing types but as historical sequences, a process wherein fluid imaginaries are contingently captured by the state’s institutional grid, generating the rigid collective subjectivities that define the modern world.