For centuries, Central Tibet and its capital Lhasa were regarded as the center—as is obviously expressed in the very name of the region in Tibetan, dBus, “Center”—of political and religious life in the Tibetan world; the cultural center where all Tibetans aspire to go, at least once in their lifetime. But changes seem to be taking place, raising questions about a possible increase in the role of the borderlands in Tibetan cultural production. The margins that are A mdo and Khams experience a new visibility at the religious, cultural, and political levels. A mdo is now the scene of a significant cultural revival and the cradle for new expressive forms such as Tibetan film-making. At the same time, Khams and A mdo are experiencing a thriving religious revival, with famous lamas founding new religious places drawing in their vicinity huge settlements of Tibetans from all over Tibet, as well as Chinese devotees. Immolations, the new language of protest, was initiated in these areas. Tourism is flourishing in Khams where rGyal thang has been renamed Shangri la in 2002, attracting as many as 6 millions tourists in 2013, as well as many Tibetans from A mdo and even Lhasa looking for jobs. The main sacred mountains in these Tibetan backwaters, A myes rma chen and Kha ba dkar po, used to attract only local people worshipping their yul lha, are now becoming pilgrimage places for pilgrims from more distant areas of Tibetan plateau. This paper addresses the various factors contributing to this decentralization process and its consequences. International conference “Territories, Communities, and Exchanges in the Sino-Tibetan Kham Borderlands,” Februray 18-20, 2016. This conference is an outcome of a collaborative ERC-funded research project (Starting grant no. 283870). For more information, please visit the project's Website: http://kham.cnrs.fr 
Mot(s) clés libre(s) : UPS2259, Katia Buffetrille, CEH, Centre d'Etudes Himalayennes, The Increasing Visibility of the Borderlands, Territories, Communities, and Exchanges in the Kham Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, ERC (European Research Council), Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes