This book chronicles individual perspectives and specific iterations of Muslim community, practice, and experience in the Himalayan region to bring into scholarly conversation the presence of varying Muslim cultures in the Himalaya. The Himalaya provide a site of both geographic and cultural crossroads, where Muslim community is simultaneously constituted at multiple social levels, and to that end the essays in this book document a wide range of local, national, and global interests while maintaining a focus on individual perspectives, moments in time, and localized experiences. It presents research that contributes to a broadly conceived notion of the Himalaya that enriches readers’ understandings of both the region and concepts of Muslim community and highlights the interconnections between multiple experiences of Muslim community at local levels. Drawing attention to the cultural, social, artistic, and political diversity of the Himalaya beyond the better understood and frequently documented religio-cultural expressions of the region, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Anthropology, Geography, History, Religious Atudies, Asian Studies, and Islamic Studies.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Islamic Shangri-La transports readers to the heart of the Himalayas as it traces the rise of the Tibetan Muslim community from the 17th century to the present. Radically altering popular interpretations that have portrayed Tibet as isolated and monolithically Buddhist, David Atwill's vibrant account demonstrates how truly cosmopolitan Tibetan society was by highlighting the hybrid influences and internal diversity of Tibet. In its exploration of the Tibetan Muslim experience, this book presents an unparalleled perspective of Tibet's standing during the rise of post–World War II Asia.

Sophie Day explores the houses that are imagined, built, repurposed, and dismantled among different communities in Ladakh, drawing attention to the ways in which houses are like and unlike people.A handful of in-depth ‘house portraits’ are selected for the insight they provide into major regional developments, based on the author’s extended engagement since 1981. Most of these houses are Buddhist and associated with the town of Leh. Drawing on both image and text, collaborative methods for assembling material show the intricate relationships between people and places over the life course. Innovative methods for recording and archiving such as ‘storyboards’ are developed to frame different views of the house. This approach raises analytical questions about the composition of life within and beyond storyboards, offering new ways to understand a region that intrigues specialists and non-specialists alike.

This timely volume brings together various issues in Muslim consumer cultures and provides a comprehensive account of Muslim tourism and tourist behaviour. Islam is a major international religion and Muslims are a majority of the population in many countries in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The growth of a substantial middle class, the development of Islamic consumer cultures, rising Muslim market consumption in non-Muslim majority destinations and the growing significance of intra-Muslim traffic and rising outbound tourism expenditure in emerging Muslim markets have all contributed to substantial interest in Muslim tourism. However, travel by Muslims is about far more than the Hajj and Umrah, as important as they are as acts of devotion. Instead, although often portrayed in the West as a monolithic religion, Muslim travel and leisure behaviour is very diverse, with different traditions and cultures leading to a range of expressions of tourism-related consumption culture and practices. Drawing on a range of empirical studies undertaken in different social and economic contexts and countries, this book provides a well-balanced portrayal of the Muslim tourism experience and practices. This book makes a substantial contribution to an improved understanding of Muslim travel culture and will be required reading for anyone interested in this fast-growing market.

The magnificent Himalayan Mountains, the highest in the world and home to the famed Mount Everest and K2, are also imbued with a rich diversity of ethnic fermented foods. Dr. Jyoti Prakash Tamang, one of the leading authorities on food microbiology, has studied Himalayan fermented foods and beverages for the last twenty-two years. His comprehensive

The central aim of this encyclopedia is to give the reader a comparative perspective on issues involving conceptions of gender, gender differences, gender roles, relationships between the genders, and sexuality. The encyclopedia is divided into two volumes: Topics and Cultures. The combination of topical overviews and varying cultural portraits is what makes this encyclopedia a unique reference work for students, researchers and teachers interested in gender studies and cross-cultural variation in sex and gender. It deserves a place in the library of every university and every social science and health department. Contents:- Glossary. Cultural Conceptions of Gender. Gender Roles, Status, and Institutions. Sexuality and Male-Female Interaction. Sex and Gender in the World's Cultures. Culture Name Index. Subject Index.

Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability showcases how the eco-geological creativity of the earth is integrally woven into the landforms, cultures, and cosmovisions of modern Himalayan communities. Unique in scope, this book features case studies from Bhutan, Assam, Sikkim, Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sino-Indian borderlands, many of which are documented by authors from indigenous Himalayan communities. It explores three environmental characteristics of modern Himalayas: the anthropogenic, the indigenous, and the animist. Focusing on the sentient relations of human-, animal-, and spirit-worlds with the earth in different parts of the Himalayas, the authors present the complex meanings of indigeneity, commoning and sustainability in the Anthropocene. In doing so, they show the vital role that indigenous stories and perspectives play in building new regional and planetary environmental ethics for a sustainable future. Drawing on a wide range of expert contributions from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanist disciplines, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental humanities, religion and ecology, indigenous knowledge and sustainable development more broadly.