Conference Year: 2018

This paper examines linkages between social repair and reconstruction following natural disasters. In my long-term ethnographic research with marginalized disaster survivors in the Himalayan region of Northern Pakistan and Kashmir, I have come to understand social repair as a heuristic device to capture those genres of life which are crucial for attaining liveable presents and …

Infrastructures of Social Repair: Insights from Northern Pakistan and Kashmir Read More »

This paper seeks to contribute to geopolitical economy debates through an examination of some of the ‘aftershocks’ of the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal. Using a critical geopolitical economy perspective, we mobilize concepts of disaster capitalism, geo-politics, and geopolitical assemblages attentive to materialities to examine the discursive and material dimensions of some of the regional and …

The Geopolitics of Post-Earthquake Reconstruction in Nepal Read More »

Migration has become an essential livelihood practice for individuals from both the poor and the relatively well-off households due, mainly to the processes of urbanization and globalization. This paper trace the impacts of migration on livelihood practices by drawing on the outcome of field studies in Garuda Municipality compromising multiethnic people of Eastern Nepal. The …

Livelihood Practices in Transnational Space (A Case Study of Family Left Behind in Nepal) Read More »

Migration may be seen as household strategy to maximize household welfare in which other members of the family are heavily involved. The migration of male members of family, however, may push female members of household into various forms of vulnerabilities as well as new form of opportunities. The “left-behind” wives of the migrants will have …

Migrant Husbands and Left-behind Wives: Effect of Spousal Separation on Subjective Well-being of Young Nepali Women Read More »

The widespread phenomenon of labor migration in Nepal has impacted every sector of the economy. There has been numerous study on evaluating the effect of migration on nation’s GDP, growth in the economy and in other macro-economic aspects. Also, the effect of remittance received from the migrants on Nepal’s economy has been cliché among many …

Migration and Agrarian Change in Nepal Plains Read More »

This paper considers how earthquake housing technologies emanating from engineering theories have met with the social realities of rural villages in the process of reconstructing houses hit by the 2015 Nepal earthquakes. The scale and urgency of the process where several hundred thousand of houses belonging to individuals in villages need to be constructed within …

Untangling the Technology-society Knot: An Engineer’s Social Scientific Observations of the Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Process in Rural Nepal Read More »

This paper investigates labor dynamics among workers in the construction industry in Kathmandu. Based on 6 months fieldwork in 2016, during a slump in the construction industry before the pick-up of earthquake reconstruction, I investigate the difficult situation construction workers faced without social security and only their networks to rely on. Being for the most …

Chains of Exploitation: Skills, Solidarity and Survival in Kathmandu’s Urban Construction Industry Read More »

This paper provides an introduction to the project’s overarching analytical framework by exploring the keywords of “expertise”, “labour” and “mobility” in Nepal’s ongoing reconstruction process. In Nepal, as elsewhere, seismic and political transformations are entangled with trajectories of mobility shaped by local and transnational labour markets. Families who once would have built their own homes …

Expertise, Labour and Mobility in Nepal’s Post-conflict, Post-disaster Reconstruction Read More »

The 2015 Earthquake in Nepal severely destroyed the tangible and intangible culture of the communities, including educational infrastructures. In its initial and official assessment, Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), government estimated that the total damages and losses were NPR 31.3 billion. The estimated damage of educational infrastructures and assets alone was NPR 28 billion. Its …

Reorganizing Resource for School Education: Reflecting on Earthquakes and Subsequent Crisis Read More »

In the last two decades, Nepal’s education system has undergone significant decentralization process conferring financial powers and responsibilities, among others, to the school actors. At the school level, head teacher, School Management Committee and accountant should cooperate and collaborate for tasks related to financial transactions. As the major bulk of school funds transferred from the …

The Dynamics of Financial Accountability in Nepal’s Community Schools Read More »