The focus of the study is the Tibetan and Tibetanized border populations in the little known Himalayan high-valley of Nyishang in West Central Nepal close to the Tibetan border. There, a group of traders have greatly extended their external relations over the past century in the form of long-distance trade ventures, thereby thoroughly changing the internal conditions of socio-economic organizations in their home district. The object of the study is to establish whether larger geohistorical processes of structural change may be conceptualized in such a way as to link structuration at the level of the localized social group to the dynamics of the wider regional setting.

The focus of the study is the Tibetan and Tibetanized border populations in the little known Himalayan high-valley of Nyishang in West Central Nepal close to the Tibetan border. There, a group of traders have greatly extended their external relations over the past century in the form of long-distance trade ventures, thereby thoroughly changing the internal conditions of socio-economic organizations in their home district. The object of the study is to establish whether larger geohistorical processes of structural change may be conceptualized in such a way as to link structuration at the level of the localized social group to the dynamics of the wider regional setting.