Objets très communs dans l’aire de culture tibétaine, les tsha tsha, fabriqués à l’aide de moules, sont des images en argile figurant des stūpa, des divinités bouddhiques, des personnages historiques, ainsi que des inscriptions. Leur fabrication est avant tout considérée comme une pratique religieuse visant à générer des mérites mais aussi à purifier les actions négatives. Réalisés en masse, ils constituent des témoignages fidèles et mésestimés des développements iconographiques et stylistiques qui ont marqués l’art bouddhique tibétain au fil des siècles. En l’absence d’études antérieures, un travail de recensement systématique des matériaux relatifs aux tsha tsha a fait apparaître une richesse documentaire insoupçonnée susceptible d’éclairer non seulement l’histoire de l’art tibétain, mais également certains aspects relevant de l’anthropologie religieuse, de la philologie, ou encore de la paléographie. Dans le cadre de notre thèse, nous avons privilégié une démarche globalisante prenant en considération l’ensemble des données disponibles en procédant conjointement à l’étude d’un très large corpus de pièces sélectionnées, à celle de la littérature afférente, et aux observations de terrain. Dans cette perspective, nous avons envisagé l’étude des tsha tsha sous divers angles: l’origine et l’histoire de la diffusion de cette pratique au Tibet, la terminologie relative à ces objets, les techniques de fabrication, les usages, l’iconographie, les styles et enfin les inscriptions présentes à leur surface ou introduites. Cette approche nous a permis de révéler finement l’ampleur et les développements que cette pratique bouddhique d’origine indienne a connu dans le monde tibétain. / Very commonplace in the Tibetan world, tsha tshas are clay impressions produced from a mould depicting, either in relief or moulded in the round, stūpas, Buddhist deities, historical figures and inscriptions. Making them is essentially considered to be a religious practice intended to generate and accumulate merit but also to purify negative deeds and obscurations. Produced in mass and generally preserved inside sealed edifices, tsha tshas are true yet underrated evidence of the iconographic and stylistic developments that have marked Tibetan Buddhist art over the centuries. In the absence of any previous studies, the task of establishing a systematic inventory of sources related to tsha tshas revealed an unsuspected wealth of material for elucidating not only the history of Tibetan art, but also some aspects of religious anthropology, philology, or paleography. In this doctoral research, we favored a globalizing approach that takes into account all the available data by studying a very large corpus of selected pieces, of the literature related to the tsha tshas, as well as field observations. In this context, we considered the study of tsha tshas from different angles: the origin and history of how this practice spread through Tibet, the terminology for these objects, the techniques for making them, their uses, iconography, styles and finally the inscriptions that are found on their surface or inside them. This approach has allowed us to explain more accurately the true extent of this Buddhist practice of Indian origin and the developments it has undergone in the Tibetan world since its introduction in about the 8th-9th centuries to the present day.

This study aims to examine the production of HIV/AIDS lessons on Tsha Tsha Entertainment-Education and their reception by HIV-positive men in Soweto, and to find out whether this response impacts on their perception of their roles and responsibilities in HIV/AIDS. The rationale behind this study is that gender and HIV/AIDS has been critical in interventions aimed at combating the disease. Studies in South Africa on gender have revealed that versions of masculinity can be implicated in the increasing infection rates of HIV/AIDS making efforts to combat the disease problematic. A qualitative methodology is used. This method included interviews and focus group discussions. Five interviews were done with programme producers and researchers of Tsha Tsha to find out the major considerations in production. An average of seven HIV-positive men were exposed to 12 episodes of Tsha Tsha to find out their responses in six focus group discussions, and whether these indicated a changed perceptions in their roles and responsibilities in HIV/AIDS. Their responses were then examined under Bandura’s (1971) social learning theory and Hall’s (1977) encoding-decoding theory .This theories explain the considerations in the production of lessons in Tsha Tsha and how audiences respond to those lessons respectively. The findings reveal that audiences (HIV-positive) men identify with lessons around HIV-testing, disclosure, support and those that challenge stigma and masculinity in HIV/AIDS. Disclosure emerges as a major theme and is compared with sub themes of testing, stigma, masculinity and social support to form categories that are presented as the findings. While HIV-disclosure is seen as challenging HIV/AIDS stigma and masculinity, where men accept their condition, and take responsibility to continue occupying their space as men, E-E production can reinforce lessons around disclosure and other coping strategies to combat HIV/AIDS.