From 1860 onward, frequent wars and disasters claimed millions of lives in Northwest China. More than one million Chinese and Muslims sought refuge on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. This talk explores the diverse experiences of these refugees as they crossed multiple ethnocultural and administrative boundaries, lived
alongside Tibetans, and forged new homelands during China’s transition from empire to nation-state.

Gyatso Marnyi is a historian of empires and frontiers in Asia. Combining textual sources with ethnographic fieldwork, his research examines interactions and exchanges between China and surrounding Asian regions from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. He is currently completing a monograph that explores the uneven
experiences of Tibetan, Mongol, Chinese, and Muslim communities during China’s transition from empire to nation-state on the Inner Asian frontier.