In the Circle of White Stones

Tan's curiosity about pastoral culture and language is obvious in her reported observations and experiences. . . . The author's use of detail could not have been imagined, but only have come from lived experience. . . . I thoroughly enjoyed reading In the Circle of White Stones and its depiction of the reality of a Tibetan herding way of life.

This charming book chronicles daily life among nomadic pastoralists in eastern Tibet, in China’s Sichuan Province. . . . Tan describes pastoralist life from the perspective of the women who inhabit one of the Tibetans’ tents, with whom she built up close relations. . . . [and] provides valuable insight into a threatened way of life.

Gillian Tan’s beautifully written, collaborative ethnography offers us a succession of luminous insights into the lives and livelihoods of nomadic Tibetan pastoralists. Favoring intimate narrative accounts of quotidian existence over sweeping generalizations about the economic, religious, and political forces at play in Dora Karmo, Tan succeeds brilliantly in capturing the subtle interplay of continuity and discontinuity in a lifeworld that has always been, in one way or another, on the move.

Presents a glimpse into contemporary Tibetan nomad life that moves with a sense of pace and grace that is similar to how one must walk at altitude. The book captures lived experiences of Tibetans at a moment of momentous social, ecological, and economic change.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading In the Circle of White Stones. I especially appreciate the portrayals of both (Tan's) interactions with her interlocutors and the changing conditions of life in the pastoral Eastern Tibetan plateau.