1969-73 | PhD Research: London and Nepal

After completing her M. Phil in London, Barbara launched a 13 month PhD field expedition in Nepal. She traveled into the hills by foot and settled in Solu-Khumbu, moving between Thupten Choeling monastery and Chelsa, a settlement of Tibetan refugees from Dingri. While preparing her doctoral thesis in 1973, the anthropology department at SOAS hosted the first International Conference on Himalayan Studies,
Photo: — R to L, Nepal geographer Harka Gurung, conference chair Prof. Furer-Haimndorf, anthropologist Patricia Caplan, and Paris-based historian Sandy MacDonald.
Tibetan Frontier Families, 1978, was revised in 2011 with new material after her research visits to Tibet between 1985-1987.