Young Tibetans in Switzerland - Patterns of Enculturation and Persistence

Abstract

The biggest community of Tibetan refugees outside South Asia is in Switzerland where more than a thousand Tibetans have been settled since 1961. Tibetanchildren, who for various reasons reached Switzerland without their parents, were distributed among Swiss foster families or to the Pestalozzi Kinderdorf (Trogen). Thus the aid campaign led to a social differentiation amongst the young Tibetans due to the vastly differing conditions in their respective milieus of socialisation. Accordingly, we observe typicaL pattems of enculturation and persistence, depending upon whether a Tibetan child was brought up in its own family, in a Swiss foster family or in one of the Tibet houses in the Kinderdorf. To generalize, the socialisation in a Tibetan family produces mainly persons who think, feel and behave to a great extent in a (stereotyped) Tibetan way, but who do not necessarily acquire the full range of abilities, or even the ambition, to compete with the Swiss for social status. The Swiss foster family is more likely to develop a person who performs more successfully in the Swiss environment but experiences a pronounced distance from the ethnic majority and the given limits of assimilation; these are often caused by obvious differences in physical appearance. At the same time, the foster family can hardly provide education in Tibetan language, history and religion. This lack of knowledge sets up certain barriers in communication between Tibetans from foster families and those with different educational backgrounds. Contrary to those two types of socialisation, the Kinderdorf provides its protdgds with training in social and technical skills suited to the Swiss exile as well as profound schooling in Tibetan cultural traditions. Therefore, Tibetans who grew up in the Kinderdorf usually feel rather at ease in both "worlds", the Swiss and Tibetan, apparently without being caught in the deculturation trap.