Han and Tibetan Residential Patterns in Lhasa

Ethnic conflict remains surprisingly persistent throughout the world. The persistence is particularly surprising in socialist countries, where one might have thought that the narrowing of income gaps between all ethnic groups, the favored investment projects in ethnic minority regions, the official emphasis on equal education and occupational opportunity (often in favor of minority groups), and affirmative-action programs to ensure that ethnic minorities were well-represented in national congress and official positions would have provided significant new contacts and created new relationships among ethnic groups. In the summer of 1988, a survey was carried out to study the social and economic changes and current situation of the Han-Tibetan relationship in the Tibet Autonomous Region . With survey data on ethnic contact in the city of Lhasa, this article examines to what extent our initial assumptions about new ethnic relationships have been realized, and, if there are still serious problems among ethnic groups, what are the reasons. This study indicates many unintended consequences of social policy, some of them unique to socialist societies and others universal, and the aspects of society which are difficult to change even with the most enlightened policies.