 Subjects -> GEOGRAPHY (Total: 493 journals)
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- Recent development of Himalayan studies in China: works, perspectives and
orientations (2012–2022)
Authors: Yinong Zhang
Abstract: Himalayan studies and China This paper sets out to review the development of Himalayan studies in social science in China over the last decade. While Himalayan-related research is not new in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (1949 onwards), Himalayan studies as a specific field of research in social science, however, has not been commonly referred to in this way. In other words, Himalayan studies, as such, is a ‘weak’ concept in Chinese academia and is largely fragmented into a variety of different fields such as borderland studies, ethnic minorities studies, Tibetan studies and oversea ethnography. As a scholar of Tibetan studies and later social anthropology, my own interest in Tibetan borderlands has brought my attention to some particular lines of research related to Himalayan studies, which I review here as One Belt One Road, corridor studies, ecology, bilingual education, and minority literature and film. I also point out two opposing trends within this discursive field of Ch...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- Stories of circulations in the Himalayas
Authors: Olivia Aubriot, Tristan Bruslé, Stéphane Gros
Abstract: Introduction There are many ways to travel. People of the Himalayas often travel out of necessity rather than for leisure: on foot, as in the past, but now increasingly by motorised means. Their motivations can be diverse and the distances covered change according to the mode of travel. The Himalayan mountains still impose constraints that new infrastructure can only partially overcome. The Himalayan range – despite its high peaks, the tumultuous flow of its rivers, or its extreme climate – has never been an impenetrable barrier to the movement of people. The photographs and their captions collected here highlight the importance of mobility and circulatory regimes, of paths, roads or trails in the social life of communities, in various historical and political contexts. Movement is indeed constitutive of the Himalayan region, where the increasing delocalisation of social life (Escobar 2008) does not prevent cultures and identities from being deeply anchored in landscapes and culturall...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- Some preliminary questions regarding the mdos rituals
Authors: Anne-Marie Blondeau
Abstract: This article traces a widespread misunderstanding in Western Tibetological literature that mdos are synonymous with ‘thread-crosses’ (nam mkha’) used in various rituals. In fact, the term mdos has a much broader implication. The article explores the nature, function and origin of the mdos to show that mdos rituals have in general the function of removing spiritual and material obstacles
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- Matthew Martin, Tantra, Ritual Performance, and Politics in Nepal and
Kerala: Embodying the Goddess-Clan
Authors: Ophira Gamliel
Abstract: This book is a rich and multi-layered comparative study of two ritual complexes, Teyyāṭṭam in northern Kerala and Navadurga in Bhaktapur in Nepal. Martin defines these ritual complexes as ‘Folk Śākta’ arguing that they build on trans-local Tantric ritual knowledge transmitted via Nāth ascetic networks (46–47, 169–71) while integrating local practices and religiosities. This postulation is further developed into four interrelated hypotheses about the history and structure of these ritual complexes. The first hypothesis identifies them as macro-clans of fictive kinship alliances. The second outlines their evolution as ‘bricolage webs of ritual knowledge’ under the patronage of medieval kingdoms. The third hypothesis is based on the analysis of blood sacrifices as engendering communal self-reflexivity, and the fourth postulates the affinities between ‘Folk Śākta’ rituals and contemporary ‘territory-conscious Marxist ideology’ (261–63). Martin’s methodology is interdisciplinary, combini...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- Mikkel Vindegg, Power to the People: The energy anthropology of a Nepali
town
Authors: Mikkel Vindegg
Abstract: This dissertation is a holistic study of energy as it exists in the Nepali town of Lubhu and is interwoven with everyday life there. Based on an 18-month period of fieldwork, I follow the distribution and consumption of electricity, gas and petrol/diesel in Lubhu. Framing this as ‘energopolitics’ refers not just to formal energy policy and governance but also to differences in access to energy and the labour needed to manage energy shortages. The dissertation starts off with two propositions: that energy is fundamentally an enabler and that energy supply (distribution and consumption) is ‘a difference that makes a difference’. Energy, as an enabler, intersects with countless areas of life because people do not consume energy directly, but rather the things that energy makes possible. The task of anthropology is to understand what and how energy enables or disables. ‘Energy anthropology’ helps reveal the varied socio-cultural, socio-economic and political structures that both undergi...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- The Effects of Participatory Irrigation on the Reconfiguration of Power
Relations: Participatory management of Sitaganj canal in the
Sunsari-Morang Irrigation System
Authors: Romain Valadaud
Abstract: This dissertation contributes to the literature on power relations within irrigation management. Drawing on a corpus of critical studies showing how irrigation is linked to social relations of power, it shows how there is a lack of analytical precision in connecting macro- and micro-levels of analysis on this topic. From a hydro-social perspective on irrigation management, this work develops a Foucauldian analysis of participatory irrigation policies to breach the analytical gap with the more anthropological approach of Irrigation Studies. The theoretical objective is then to refine the understanding of the relational dimension of power in the intricate social, technical and hydrological reality of irrigated perimeters. The case study is situated in the eastern plains of Nepal, on the country’s biggest irrigation system. By seeking to understand the effects of these policies on a pre-existing hydro-social territory, this dissertation explores the encounter between the model of the w...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- Sanjay Sharma, Patriarchy on the Move: Transnational experiences of Gurkha
women
Authors: Sanjay Sharma
Abstract: This doctoral research examines women’s lived migration experiences under mobile patriarchy. Mobile patriarchy underscores the transnational mobility of patriarchy between the origin societies and the destinations mediating and governing women’s experiences and agency. More specifically, the dissertation offers a gender analysis of the transnational mobilities of Gurkha women – women of Nepali origin with historic and contemporary links to the exclusively male Gurkha soldiers who have been serving in the British Army for more than 200 years – both with and without their dependents. In addition to wives and family members, the definition of Gurkha women applies to the mobilities of nurses, midwives, teachers, radio presenters, clerical staff, soldiers and other professionals who have worked with British Gurkhas, either with or without their dependents. The inquiries made during this research are guided by two primary questions. How does patriarchy shape the transnational migration exp...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- Heritage Institutions and Digital Transformation: The case of the Nepali
Guthi
Authors: Shobhit Shakya
Abstract: The failure of globalist pushes towards ‘modernization’ through the transfer of Western practices in public administration (PA) and governance using aid-driven means has led to accepting that there is no one single best practice in PA for the world. Yet, the pressures from globalization and the all-pervasiveness of digital technologies continued to influence policies in the Global South. Nepal was from the late 1900s to the early 2000s transitioning to ‘modernity’ through policy reforms, political turmoil and regime changes, while also adapting to economic transformations and technological advances. Between all this, a major earthquake that devastated the country in 2015 also sparked some interesting questions as challenges to heritage governance and community ownership of heritage surfaced alongside the question of the native cooperative governance institution associated with heritage in the Kathmandu Valley. Against the backdrop of this case, using the framework of Non-Western Pub...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- Marie-Caroline Lyda Pons, The Chepang Language: Phonology, nominal and
verbal morphology – synchrony and diachrony of the varieties of the
Lothar and Manahari Rivers
Authors: Marie-Caroline Lyda Pons
Abstract: Chepang is a Trans-Himalayan (aka Tibeto-Burman or Sino-Tibetan) language mainly spoken in four districts of Nepal: Makawanpur, Chitwan, Dhading and Gorkha. Around 48,000 people declared themselves speakers of the language in 2011 (Nepal CBS). Chepang is an oral language, which means that the community has not yet developed a written tradition. This dissertation offers in-depth and comprehensive descriptions of many aspects of the language structures and valuable insight into their variations and historical developments. It includes an analysis of the phonetics and phonology, providing a new understanding of the positions and realisations of the laryngeal features at the source of the development of tonal distinctions. Chepang’s nominal morphology shows typologically well-attested word formation processes combining nouns, nouns and verbs, compounds and nouns, and nouns and derivational morphology. A detailed description of kinship terms is provided, specifying how people use them. Th...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
- The Wanla group of monuments: 14th-century Tibetan Buddhist murals in
Ladakh
Authors: Nils Martin
Abstract: This dissertation is the first attempt at a comprehensive study of a dozen 14th-century Tibetan Buddhist monuments in the western Himalayan region of Ladakh (India) that were decorated with murals. Ladakh, formerly a major trading centre at the crossroads between Tibet, the Tarim Basin, the Pamir region, Kashmir and North India, stands out from the rest of the Tibetan cultural sphere for the density of its surviving Tibetan Buddhist heritage. Its history, however, remained largely obscure until the 16th century. A key monument in the political, religious and art history of Ladakh is the three-storey temple in Wanla, founded around the early 14th century by a powerful local chief devoted to the ’Bri gung bKa’ brgyud Central Tibetan school of Buddhism. It contains a very informative foundation inscription as well as an abundance of original ensembles of sculptures and murals. Building such a monument must have required the hiring of numerous skilled craftsmen, possibly from foreign reg...
PubDate: 2023-03-07
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