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Responses to Neoliberal Development and Maoist Conflict in Nepal's Northwest Himalayas

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Responses to Neoliberal Development and Maoist Conflict in Nepal's Northwest Himalayas University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2013 Pristine Places and Passive People? Responses to Neoliberal Development and Maoist Conflict in Nepal's Northwest Himalayas Catherine Lee Sanders The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Sanders, Catherine Lee, "Pristine Places and Passive People? Responses to Neoliberal Development and Maoist Conflict in Nepal's Northwest Himalayas" (2013). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 770. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/770 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PRISTINE PLACES AND PASSIVE PEOPLE? RESPONSES TO NEOLIBERAL DEVELOPMENT AND MAOIST CONFLICT IN NEPAL‟S NORTHWEST HIMALAYAS By CATHERINE LEE SANDERS M.A., University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, 2009 B.A., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 2001 Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology, Applied Medical The University of Montana Missoula, MT December 2012 Approved by: Sandy Ross, Associate Dean of The Graduate School Graduate School Kimber Haddix McKay, Chair Anthropology Gilbert Quintero Anthropology Anna Prentiss Anthropology Sarah Halvorson Geography Melvyn Goldstein Anthropology Sanders, Catherine, PhD, Autumn 2012 Anthropology Pristine Places and Passive People? Responses to Neoliberal Development and Maoist Conflict in Nepal‟s Northwestern Himalayas Chairperson: Kimber Haddix McKay In Humla District, Nepal, agro-pastoralists‟ confrontations with forces of change in the last generation have altered villagers‟ abilities to gain access to scarce resources. Development efforts and Nepal‟s recent armed conflict, in particular, introduced novel technologies and ideologies that affected Humli vulnerabilities. This dissertation is based on field research comparing two Hindu villages in northwest Nepal during 2009 and 2010. One village had more extensive ties to development than the other, and these villagers and other change agents co- created transitional contexts of vulnerability in the post-conflict setting of rural Nepal. An armed conflict dominated the political landscape in Nepal for nearly ten years, ostensibly to uplift downtrodden members of society. Humlis who joined the Maoists during the insurgency had higher average incomes and higher overall socioeconomic statuses than those who did not join. This research challenges conventional wisdom about how „people's wars' motivate individuals of different social positions. Indeed, villagers‟ responses to development workers and Maoist combatants were surprisingly similar. Certain development processes had de-stabilized parts of the region, and contributed both materially and ideologically to the vulnerabilities people experienced during and following the conflict. The rise of Nepali democracy and the development industry since the early 1990s has presented new social networking and resource options to Humlis as well as exposing them to new risks and vulnerabilities. The villagers who resisted some of these novelties had better food security and health outcomes and less divisive experiences of the conflict than villagers more engaged with development. Based on over a year of fieldwork (participant observation, surveys, interviews, and focus groups), statistical and ArcGIS analyses represent landscapes of health, health-seeking behavior, conflict, and kin networks in northwestern Nepal. These findings explore the integration of neoliberal development in this post-conflict setting in which cultural pluralism, caste, Hinduism and cultural conservatism all shape decision-making. They reveal the social and material resource conditions conducive to engagement in risky behavior in a politically and ecologically diverse and fragile context, with implications for Nepal's, and by extension other rapidly developing regions‟, ongoing development and contexts of vulnerability. ii Introduction: Socioeconomic Conditions and Measurement in Humla District, Nepal In my attempts to test models evaluating the supposed risk aversion of “peasants”, I was simultaneously forced to confront my own (non-peasant) risk aversion. In fact, it was Nepal‟s „peasants‟ who forced me to challenge my cowardice and take on more risk. While the Nepali citizens among whom I did my fieldwork did take part in strategies that were intended to minimize vulnerability, I spent most of my time in Humla District, Nepal in awe of the strength, flexibility, and vivacity with which many of the villagers confronted change. This was all the more striking because Humla District is widely considered the least progressive of all of Nepal‟s districts. The data articles in this dissertation speak to the revelation that conservatism and innovation are not mutually exclusive, and that the connotations we often attach to either one obscure the mechanisms by which people cope with vulnerability. To drive this point home, I first speak to one of the ways in which a commonly used risk mitigation strategy may imbue a great deal of risk on the actor. One day during my fieldwork in Nepal, I was walking down the path from my abode to the place in in the village where I could charge my computer, when I saw a young girl chasing after a calf that was confused and running down the wrong path toward me. I could have just stepped aside and let the girl corral her own cow, but I was so tired of feeling useless all the time, that I thought, “Hey, this is something I can do”, so I stepped in the way of the cow. But instead of going the way it was supposed to, it ran in the wrong direction up a steep slope. Now, feeling like I needed to see this through, I went after it, caught it, and tried pushing it toward the girl. Not much of a livestock wrangler at home either, my way of directing cow traffic did not sit well with the calf. It turned, took a running start, and rammed me. It only rammed me in the thigh because it was that young, but I nearly fell over. By this time a small crowd had gathered and we 1 were all laughing, but the vindictive calf backed up, took another run, rammed me again, and just kept on ramming me until I was almost over a cliff. Finally, the mother of the girl gained her composure enough to come rescue me. From a baby cow. In this dissertation, I write about vulnerability and risk taking from the standpoint of my debts to and admiration for the people of Humla District, Nepal. They had to feed me, teach me how to behave, and rescue me from baby cows for over a year. Some of those things I paid for with money, but money does not begin to touch most of them, and this is why: being indebted in Nepal (and, in my experience, many parts of the Global South where communal ties often provide vital risk mitigation; see Mauss 1967) means placing a social contract alongside the money. Resources are so scarce there, and conditions so harsh that villagers take on each others‟ debt in a loosely rotating system. They know that the one certitude is that their day will come, tomorrow most likely. Being in debt is saying, “when and if I can, I will be there for you, too”. This terrified me. I did not know how I could be there for them. This study investigates the impacts of western development projects, and my observations were that they often were nearly as costly as not offering anything at all, so heading up my own NGO (the most common suggestion of Humlis) did not seem right. But I also knew that participating in an intentional, if open-ended, social contract was the absolute biggest gift I had in me. My name is Catherine Sanders, and I am in debt to the people of Nepal. I will never be able to pay it back. And I will never give up trying. Debt is so complicated in the current American psyche because it is rife with social paradox (see also Graeber 2001). Our country is founded on notions of self-reliance that preclude fiscal dependence on others or the government. Nowhere was this clearer than at the recent Republican National Convention in Tampa, where the convention hall rang with mantras like “We built this” 2 and “We can change it”. And yet, we pride ourselves on building more, and bigger, and stronger than anyone else. Often, this requires us to borrow from moneylenders and dig a financial hole we are not positive we will be able to leap out of. It is American to spend, but it is also immoral not to succeed. I fear debt above anything else, because debt means owing someone something, or being dependent. It means that at some point in the future, I will be called upon to pay my debts. When we place our burdens on anonymous institutions instead of friends and family, debt becomes connected to shame and dependency. However, where blame is not the default, debt, it turns out, is just a promise. Further, it is evidence of our participation in the communities in which we live1. During my dissertation fieldwork, I observed the rotation and exchange of social and material debts as a way of managing risk in Nepal, and an implicit challenge to neoliberal concepts of risk and finances. Throughout the dissertation, this contrast between the “traditional” and the “neoliberal” remains active and shifting. In this introduction, I hope to provide a detailed context for the articles I wrote with co-author, Dr. McKay. First, I describe the conditions in the fieldsite that affected my research strategies, and also villager decision making.
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