Nawaraj Upadhaya and Ria Reis The experience and impact of distress (notion of suffering) depends on the geography(ies) where the distress occurs. For adolescents attending school in Nepal, their home, community and school are the three major locations (physical geographies) where distress is experienced due to situations that oppose their expectations in three emotional geographies (individual body geography, inter-personal geography and broader group geography). This paper presents the findings of an ethnographic study conducted among high school students in a rural part of Lalitpur district, Nepal. Out of a total population of 111 adolescents, 35 directly participated in the study by agreeing to be individually interviewed, taking part in focus group discussions or being observed by the researcher in school, home and community.    Considering adolescents to be social actors,…

Jefferson Fox Since the 1980s, Nepal has gained worldwide recognition for path breaking achievements in community forest management. Community forests currently occupy nearly 23% of Nepal’s total forest area, the management of which involves over 18,000 community forest user groups comprising 1.6 million households and nearly 40% of Nepal’s population (DoF 2012). The spatially-explicit impacts of this 30-year transition in forest management, however, have not been documented in part due to the lack of surveys studying the same forest patches through time. The author has studied forest and agricultural practices in a village near Gorkha since 1980 and conducted forest surveys in 1980, 1990, and 2010. This paper describes changes in the village between 1980 and 2010, with a focus on forest status, use, and management. In 1980, the vast…

Rachel Amtzis Nepal, one of poorest nations in Asia, a hub of development institutions and activities, and a testing ground of development-branded projects and lifestyles since the last third of the 20th Century, has also become one of its most socially progressive and least restrictive in online communication, and, arguably, on the ground activism. However, its rapid urbanization , brought about by lack of economic opportunities, land capture, warfare, and destruction in rural areas, has caused a strain on the limited resources of its capital, Kathmandu, population 1,740,977 (National Population Census, 2011), resulting in its listing as one of the planet’s least livable cities (127th out of 140, Businessweek, 2012). Responses to the negative environmental effects of urbanization in Kathmandu engage social media platforms using a combination of textual, photographic,…

Mahendra Lawoti Despite being the oldest state in South Asia and having gone through eight constitutions (two proto-constitutions and six formal constitutions), Nepal is still grappling with constitutional instability as the first Constituent Assembly (2008-2012) could not craft a constitution and it is not certain whether the Second Constituent Assembly elected in November 2013 can craft a new Constitution that would stabilize constitutionalism in the country. This calls for understanding the reasons behind the constitutional instability, which could be useful both for practical and academic purposes.   The paper will examine why constitutional stability still eludes Nepal today by juxtaposing two sets of literature to analyze the contestations over the constitutions that have led to the instability in Nepal and elsewhere.  Democratization literature, especially those focusing on transition to democracy in…

Rishikesh Pandey Climate change studies emerged since 1980s are dominated by natural sciences and studies of its impacts are imperialized by economics. Both of these schools are using positivist methodology so the findings are not translated to citizen science that laymen can understand. Social scientists have to believe that climate change is what the scientists tell, and its impacts are what the economists tell. Social scientists are yet to study social dimensions of climate change at wider context; though climate change is typically a social problem. The climate is constructed through the interaction of social and ecological systems and the change in the climate system is associated with the societies’ actions and behaviours. Hence, whatever the lenses: environmental, economic or political is used; climate change studies should not exclude the…

Pitambar Bhandari After 1950's, Nepal experienced tripartite agendas in the history of state-building-- democracy as a political regime, economic liberalization and diplomatic interdependence in the post-colonial world. Industrialization and the associated labour issues emerged as political instruments and social movement agenda. The trade union activities which were prohibited during the panchayat regime, however, resumed after the reinstatement of parliamentary democracy in 1990. In the context of low scale industrial economy compared to agro- based activities, unionism has grown as a new trend of movement including wider range of labor forces from industrial sector, civil service, teachers and other business entrepreneurs. The functioning of trade unions is not merely limited to the wage and welfare relationship between the employer and employee. It is also extended to Union formation which includes political…

Christie Lai Ming Lam Existing literature on the effect conservation-led displacement has on those evicted is at best a mixed bag. Studies show that such eviction generally harms local communities, particularly those who are socio-economically marginalised (Agrawal & Redford, 2009; Cernea, 1997; Cernea, & Schhimit-Soltau, 2006; Heming & Rees, 2000; Lam & Paul, 2013). However, some scholars also advocate that the growing population near the protected areas indicates that conservation does indeed have benefits (Wittemyer et al., 2008). One source of this ambiguity in assessing the impact of displacement could stem from the unavailability of reliable data. A further quandary is the short-term focus in many of the empirical studies. This limits our understanding of how such displacement affects households in the long-term. When forced displacement remains the common conservation…

Liana Chase and Madhu Neupane The Bhutanese refugees represent an ethnically and linguistically Nepali minority group that was forced to flee Bhutan in the early 1990s (Evans, 2010; Hutt, 2003). Throughout their protracted displacement, the Bhutanese refugee camp population has been subject to considerable psychiatric study and intervention. Moreover, in the five years since the onset of resettlement, Bhutanese refugee mental health has become a public health concern among governments and communities welcoming refugees as well as multilateral organizations facilitating the resettlement process. The bulk of previous scholarship on Bhutanese refugee mental health has focused on issues of vulnerability, morbidity, and manifestations of distress, including suicide. To date, exploration of family- and community-level processes that aim to promote healing in Bhutanese refugee communities, hereafter encompassed under the heading of 'care',…

Shankar Ghimire This research examines whether aid that is specifically targeted for trade (referred to in the  literature  as  “Aid‐for‐Trade”  or  AfT)  has  helped  Nepal  in  its  trade  performance. Effectiveness  of  AfT  is  examined  by  analyzing  the  relationship  between  infrastructure development and exports. There are two main approaches used in the paper to analyze the effectiveness of AfT: first, whether AfT helps export levels across different sectors and, second, if it favors certain sectors over others. One potential channel explaining uneven gains in exports possibly involves the development of more favorable infrastructure system, enabled by aid, in the relatively more successful sectors.  The analysis of export performance from developing countries has drawn an increased attention in the recent years as the aid donating countries have increased the aid amount targeted…

Pauline Limbu I am interested in looking at the relationship that human beings have with nature, particularly material - land/territory/space - in relation to their idea of themselves and their social production and reproduction. In looking at this relationship, I will use historical and gendered lenses. In my paper I will explore the question of territory and space in its material form, and explore the meanings of land for different genders by focusing on the indigenous Limbu group of Nepal. I will situate the position of Limbu women, in terms of their relationship to land, alongside the forces of globalization, capitalism, resistance inside Nepal and the current indigenous rights movements. I will juxtapose ideas of pure forms of Limbu culture (i.e. before the Gorkha kingdom annexation of ‘Limbuwan’) with current…