Transforming inequality: Eastern Tibetan pastoralists from 1955 to the present

This paper traces the recent history and major political and economic transformations that eastern Tibetan pastoralists have experienced from traditional times to the present and examines how changing rights over land and domestic animals have affected patterns of economic and social inequality in this population. Ethnographic data and responses to household surveys conducted in Sichuan and Gansu Provinces in China support the finding that the division of the grasslands to individual households through long-term contracts to state-owned land and government policies supporting sedentarisation are contributing to asset inequality and creating the foundation for class-based social differentiation in this population.