Introduction

Franck Billé is a cultural anthropologist and geographer based at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is program director for the Tang Center for Silk Road Studies. His core research focus is on borders, space, sovereignty, and materiality. He is the editor of Voluminous States (Duke 2020), and author of Somatic States (Duke, Forthcoming). More information about his current research is available at www.franckbille.com.

Charlene Makley is Professor of Anthropology at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Her work has explored the history and cultural politics of █████-building, █████-led development and Buddhist revival among Tibetans in China's ███████ ████████ ████ since 1992. Her second book, The Battle for Fortune: █████-Led Development, Personhood and █████ among Tibetans in China, published in 2018 by Cornell University Press and the Weatherhead East Asia Institute at Columbia University, is an ethnography of state-local relations in the historically ███████ region of ███████(██ ███████ ████████) in the wake of China's Great Open the West campaign and during the  ████████  █████████ on ███████ ██████.