The Concrete Plateau

In The Concrete Plateau, Andrew Grant examines the ways that urbanization has extended into the Tibetan Plateau. Many people still think of Tibetans as not being urban, or that if they do live in cities, this means that they have lost something. Much of this is relates to the expectation that urbanization can only erode essential aspects of Tibetan culture. Grant pushes back against this notion through his in-depth exploration of Tibetans' experiences with urban life in the growing city of Xining, the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau.

Grant shows how Tibetans' actions to sustain their community challenge China's civilizing machine: a product of state-led urbanization that seeks to marginalize ethnic and indigenous groups. In their homes, neighborhoods, and businesses, Tibetans' assertion of cultural identity and modification of the built environment has prevented their assimilation into China's national urban project. The Concrete Plateau presents insights into the politics of urban development not only in Tibet and China, but to contexts of urban diversity all around world. Its findings are important for studies of urban development in the Global South where in-migrating ethnic and indigenous groups are negotiating top-down urban projects. Grant's book offers a profound rethinking of urbanization, rurality, culture, and the politics of place.

Andrew Grant holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Los Angeles. Follow him on X @angrant_1.

This study adds a more than necessary perspective on the ways in which urban Tibetans in the early twenty-first century have lived their own culture in a seemingly Han-dominated environment.

James Sidaway, National University of Singapore, author of Imagined Regional Communities:

The Concrete Plateau offers an agenda-setting ethnography on intersections of migration, infrastructure, sovereignty and the urban. The critical interpretation of these patterns and processes as a civilizing machine places Tibet's cities center-stage for wider comparative understandings of development, power, territory, and urbanization.

Emily T. Yeh, University of Colorado Boulder, author of Taming Tibet:

Vividly exploring Tibetan politics of place, The Concrete Plateau is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand contemporary Tibetan lives in the PRC. It offers a superb spatial analysis of urban assemblages.

Gillian Tan, author of In the Circle of White Stones:

The Concrete Plateau touches on an important contemporary topic: the increased numbers of Tibetans moving from areas of agricultural and pastoral livelihoods, erasing lines drawn between 'rural' and 'urban.'

Tina Harris, University of Amsterdam, author of Geographical Diversions:

The Concrete Plateau is a vital new book on urbanization in China. Andrew Grant shows us how urbanization actually works, and how these processes paint a very different picture from what economic growth statistics indicate.