Plateau Culture Initiative PCI

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Plateau Culture Initiative (PCI)?

• Sustainable
• futures
• for
• Plateau cultures

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Rationale

• The Tibetan Plateau and adjoining areas were home
  to an enormous linguistic and cultural diversity
  in the pre-modern era. These cultures are
  currently undergoing unprecedented change and
  loss, mostly due to processes associated with
  modernisation. Changes within economies, social
  organization, methods of subsistence, media, and
  transport, have all threatened the sustainability
  of Plateau cultures.
• If interventions are not made now, much of the
  Plateau's cultural and linguistic diversity will
  soon be lost.

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• Most projects undertaken until now have been
  large-scale projects implemented by people from
  outside Plateau communities such projects have
  had limited success in ensuring sustainable
  futures for Plateau cultures. A more
  participatory approach, focusing on interventions
  made by members of Plateau communities within
  local communities, is needed to ensure the
  sustainability of Plateau cultures.

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PCI helps Plateau communities by -

• 1.Providing equipment and training for the
  digital recording, archiving, and dissemination
  of local traditions in visual, audio, and
  audio-visual formats

2. Producing and disseminating scholarship on
Plateau cultures produced by members of Plateau
communities
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Structure

• Plateau Photographers
• Plateau Music Project
• Asian Highalnds Perspectives

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Plateau Photographers ...

• has trained 60 members since 2007 and produced
  11,637 images.

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Plateau Music Project ...

• has trained 46 members since 2005 and produced
  1,123 annotated digital audio recordings.

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AHP provides an international, peer-reviewed
forum for local authors to document and discuss
Plateau cultures.

• Volume 1 to appear in June
• Volume 2 to appear December
• Five monographs currently in preparation

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Perhaps the greatest challenge to cultural
sustainability is one of attitudes that
traditions have no place in the future. We
believe that by working with young people, and
combining cultural preservation with digital
technology training, new attitudes will emerge
that will assure the sustainability of the
diverse cultures of the Tibetan Plateau.
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For more information visitwww.plateauphotograp
hers.orgwww.plateaumusicproject.orgwww.lulu.com/
ahphttp//www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/in
dex.phphttp//namuyi.com/http//www.flickr.com/p
hotos/tsemdo/
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All images by members of Plateau Photographers.