Biography

Kelzang Tashi is a Research Associate in the Centre for South Asian Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.  He received his PhD in anthropology at the Australian National University in 2020. His research interests lie at the intersection of religion, kinship, and social organisation with a regional focus on South Asia, particularly the Himalayas and Tibet. His forthcoming book monograph based on his dissertation explores the persistence of Shamanistic Bon beliefs and practices in Buddhist Bhutan despite the systematised opposition to Bon from Buddhist priests. His new research project will investigate the tensions between the system of matrilineal property inheritance and the state’s support of patrilineal rights in Bhutan. More generally the project will ask whether this newly democratic state has been captured by patriarchal interests and how these conflicts play out at national and local level.