When the Borders Are Closed: René Nebesky-Wojkowitz's Fieldwork in the Sikkimese Borderland

Presenter:

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Abstract

The Czech-Austrian tibetologist and ethnologist René Nebesky-Wojkowitz undertook three research trips to the Sikkimese borderlands in the 1950s. His journeys served as the basis of more than 20 publications that he produced in his short but intense scientific career, before his unexpectedly early death in Vienna in 1959. His research interests covered a wide range of topics, such as early Tibetan beliefs, Buddhist demonolgy, religious dances, music, and traditional Himalayan medicine. Furthermore, he studied the Himalayan tribes in the surounding areas of Kalimpong and at the borders of Nepal and Bhutan, especially the Lepcha people, but he also conducted research on the Sherpas, Bhutanese, Tamangs and Tibetans. Out of their ethnographical context he collected hundreds of objects for the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna, and supplemented them with photos, audio recordings and film. The paper critically explores, through selected examples, the extent to which René Nebesky-Wojkowitz was able to conduct authentic research on ethnic groups, despite the fact that the borders to their original ethnic core countries of Sikkim, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet were initially impassable for him. Furthermore, I would like to address René Nebesky-Wojkowitz’s treatment of the concept of provenance and investigate his possible motivation behind his approach, in which he has deliberately or unconsciously omitted specific information, when contextualizing his museum objects.