More-than-human landscape

Contrary to popular imagination the highlands of Bhutan do not constitute ‘pristine’ nature. Located at altitudes of 4000 meters and above, they have been inhabited for thousands of years. Herders, monks, and rulers have crisscrossed these highlands, resulting in an ever-evolving, deeply socialised and carefully managed cultural landscape. They have experienced the geo-ecological and biophysical features of the landscape as ‘texts’ and ‘scripts’ that tell stories, and provide instructions about ethics, morality, cosmology, and social organisation. The highlands have also always been a more-than-human landscape, with humans co-dwelling with yaks, sheep, vultures, leopards, as well as with various earth-spirits as their companion-species. These other-than-humans have interacted with humans, co-shaping highland culture. Bhutan’s highland landscape is replete with dwellings, objects, and ritual sites, constituting the tangible heritage of the highlands. As an intangible counterpart, everyday rituals, religion, myths, stories, lifestyles and performances associated with the sacred landscape constitute a deep cultural history of the material culture of nomadism, trade and political control. 

Understanding tangible and intangible heritage

The project emphasizes the importance of understanding tangible and intangible heritage as inextricably entwined, acknowledging that the conservation of tangible heritage is predicated on the perpetuation of intangible heritage in the Bhutan highlands and beyond. So far, little attention has been paid to highland and nomadic peoples as repositories of heritage and critical stakeholders for its perpetuation. Consequently, there is also only scant information available on the number of sites or the variety of cultural beliefs and practices that constitute highland vernacular heritage in Bhutan. 

Online digital repository

In the context of the project, an online digital repository will be created. In this repository, spatial and ethnographic data will combine. It will encompass vernacular mappings of spaces as expressed in for example oral histories, rituals and domestic practices that define the highlands as social, economic and cosmic resources.  

Project group

The project is led by the Himalayan Centre for Environmental Humanities, Royal Thimphu College (Royal University of Bhutan). The Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (Leiden University) is an academic partner, and host of the PhD student. The Department of Culture, Ministry of Home Affairs (Royal Government of Bhutan), is the main societal partner. The project is the first to enumerate, map and document highland landscapes that have been shaped by multi-species co-dwelling. 

The project encompasses a Bhutanese PhD student who will be based at CADS/Leiden University, and receive joint supervision from CADS (LU) as well as the HCEH (RUB).

The project also encompasses several social sciences and humanities faculty co-researchers, as well as four graduate students from Royal Thimphu College (Royal University of Bhutan).

• anthropology and sociology of south asia
• digital anthropology
• heritage
• visual ethnography