Shelter or status? Housing and the shifting markers of family status in Tibetan communities in China

Abstract

This paper explores the ways new houses in Tibetan villages of Qinghai have become a marker of family status. After the advent of state-led housing subsidy projects in China’s Qinghai province in 2009, Tibetan villagers have actively and increasingly engaged in building new houses to maintain their family status and prestige. According to local standards, owning a new, high-quality house is now an important measure of the household’s living standard and signals the family’s social and economic status. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, and engaging with cultural geographies of home and house, this study examines the shifting markers of family status and explores how state-led development projects inscribe social, cultural, and political meanings in housing. In doing so, it argues that Tibetan villagers’ desire to construct new housing in Qinghai province is to create markers of family status, not actual shelters.