Spatiality of Livelihood Strategies : the Reciprocal Relationships between Space and Livelihoods in the Tibetan Exile Community in India

Sammanfattning: Research on livelihoods has been conducted across various fields but there has been less focus upon detection and analyzing of the interconnected relationships between space and livelihoods. This study investigates these relationships from a place-specific point of view utilizing the Tibetan exile community in India as a case study. The qualitative method of semi-structured, in-depth interviews has been employed in order to gather primary data. Theoretically, this thesis draws it framework mainly from the human geography perspective on space and place combined with the conceptual Sustainable Livelihood framework.  This thesis argues that it is possible to distinguish four examples of reciprocal relationships between space and livelihoods in the places studied. These are spatial congregation into an ethnic enclave, the altering of place specific time-space relations which in turn alters livelihood possibilities over time, migration and spatial dispersion of livelihoods. These results are case specific and not generalizable.