Mao in Tibetan disguise: History, ethnography, and excess

Abstract

What does ethnographic theory look like in dialogue with historical anthropology? Or, what does that theory contribute to a discussion of Tibetan images of Mao Zedong? In this article, I present a renegade history told by a Tibetan in exile that disguises Mao in Tibetan dress as part of his journeys on the Long March in the 1930s. Beyond assessing its historical veracity, I consider the social truths, cultural logics, and political claims embedded in this history as examples of the productive excesses inherent in and generated by conceptual disjunctures.