University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2018 Children and Transitional Justice in Nepal: Entrenched Violence and Marginalized Perspectives Krista Elizabeth Billingsley University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Billingsley, Krista Elizabeth, "Children and Transitional Justice in Nepal: Entrenched Violence and Marginalized Perspectives. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2018. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4945 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Krista Elizabeth Billingsley entitled "Children and Transitional Justice in Nepal: Entrenched Violence and Marginalized Perspectives." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Anthropology. Tricia M. Redeker-Hepner, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Rebecca M. Klenk, Bertin M. Louis, Michael J. Palenchar, Raja H. Swamy Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Children and Transitional Justice in Nepal: Entrenched Violence and Marginalized Perspectives A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Krista Elizabeth Billingsley May 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Krista Elizabeth Billingsley. All rights reserved. ii Acknowledgements I am very grateful for the support I received during this process. Thank you especially to my interviewees. Your courage and tenacity are awe-inspiring. I am thankful for your kindness and willingness to support my research. My research assistants were amazing, resilient, and insightful. Without them, my research would not have been possible. Pooja, you are my sister forever. I miss you so. I am certain that you will continue to do amazing things. Thank you for supporting me on this journey. Ajit, thank you, brother, for inviting me into your home and helping me to conduct research in Bardiya. I am also very thankful to Pooja’s and Ajit’s families for inviting me into their homes and lives in addition to supporting my research. Abhishek, you are my big brother, and I am very appreciative for your guidance. Bandana and Asmita, thank you for your kindness and support. I am grateful for the relationships I developed with all of my research assistants. Thank you also especially to Sharad Simkhada for your time, friendship, encouragement, and guidance. I am thankful to numerous aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, friends, and colleagues in Nepal that shall remain unnamed for sharing your homes, food, tea, coffee, laughter, and tears with me. You brought me great comfort while I was away from home and helped me to feel as if I have a home in Nepal. Thank you for sharing your time and helping me feel as if I belong. I will always hold you in my heart. My dissertation committee has supported me relentlessly, and I am so grateful. Tricia Redeker Hepner, my adviser, provided enormous encouragement throughout my time at the University of Tennessee, answering my continuous questions, writing letters of support, and editing grant proposals, publications, and my dissertation. I am very thankful for you, your support, and your kindness. Thank you for believing in me and guiding me to achieve my dreams to become an anthropologist and scholar. I can’t imagine anything better. Thank you to all of my committee members: Raja Swamy, Bertin Louis, Jr., Michael Palenchar, and Rebecca Klenk. Raja, thank you for sharing your vast knowledge of communism in South Asia and insisting I consider broader frameworks. Bert, as I now call you, thank you for your support through this journey. It has made me feel as if I’m not alone. Michael, your kindness and availability to answer questions about research methodology, returning from fieldwork, and the job market have been such a relief. Thank you for your continual encouragement. Rebecca, you have continuously guided me in better directions, and I am so appreciative of your support. iii I am thankful to many people at the University of Tennessee. A special thank you to De Ann Pendry for advocating for graduate student teaching and especially for your kindness during my father’s illness and death as well as your continual support during my journey through graduate school. As my father was dying, Hugh Tuller took over two of the discussion sections that I was teaching. Thank you, Hugh, for your compassion and kindness. I will always be grateful for your willingness to give up your own time, so that I could witness my dad’s last days, and ultimately, his last breath. Thank you to Eliza Guyol-Meinrath Echeverry for listening to me and helping me work towards solutions. I am grateful to numerous graduate students in the anthropology department at the University of Tennessee. Your work to make our department better and graduate education more accessible, in addition to your kindness towards and support of me, are greatly appreciated. I am thankful for and enjoyed working with Kendy Altizer, Megan Kleeschulte, and Eric Schweickart through the Anthropology Graduate Student Association this academic year as well as Martin Walker and Christine Bailey organizing the 2018 Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights Conference. Thanks also to Alexandra Lopez, Frankie West, Jenna Watson, Kaitlyn Styles, Tiffany Saul, Jen Green, Kayla Davis, Meagan Dennison, and faculty member Amy Mundorff for your encouragement. Thank you to department chair Alex Bentley for your generosity with your time this academic year. Many thanks to everyone in United Campus Workers-Campus Workers of America for supporting the advancement of social and economic justice at the University of Tennessee. Thank you especially to my students. You kept me in graduate school the first few years during particularly difficult times and continue to inspire me to stay in academia. A special thank you to Sarah DePew, Sydney Franklin, Courtney Clough, and my entire ‘Youth and Conflict’ class for your kindness during the loss of my father. I am tremendously grateful for the generous financial support that made my graduate education and dissertation research possible. Thank you to Fulbright-Hays for your support through a Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. I am also very appreciative of the Fulbright office in Kathmandu as well as the other Fulbright students and faculty for their encouragement while I was in Nepal. Thank you especially to Laurie Vasily, Mily Pradhan, and Yamal Chandra Rajbhandary. Many thanks to Ben Linder for letting me vent and to Miranda Weinberg for your support. Thank you to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for awarding me a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant. Many thanks to the Department of Anthropology at the University iv of Tennessee for the teaching opportunities and financial support of my dissertation completion, conference travel, and research. Thank you also to Caela O’Connell for hiring me as your research assistant. I am grateful to the students, faculty, and staff at the Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict for their financial support of my research and conference travel in addition to their generosity during the loss of my father. Thank you especially to Brian K. Barber and Clea McNeely for helpful suggestions during the preliminary phase of my dissertation research. I am also thankful for the financial support of my preliminary research through the W.K. McClure Scholarship for the Study of World Affairs, funding from the Graduate School, and the GTA@OIT Grant I received to improve my online teaching methods through the Office of Information Technology. I am grateful for the financial support of my language training through a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship and scholarships from the Summer Nepali Language Program at Cornell. Many thanks also to Kathryn March, David Holmberg, Shambhu Oja, and Banu Oja. Thank you to Pitamber Bhandari for your guidance as I began my dissertation research. I am very thankful for the support of my family and friends. I have felt the weight of not being fully present in my relationships-always distracted by graduate school and all that comes with it. I am sorry for my absence during these past few years, and I am hopeful this marks the beginning of new adventures for us. My husband, Heath Kirby, was very supportive to me throughout this process. I love you. Thank you for editing my writing, living in Nepal, and making me laugh. I can’t imagine how I could have completed this journey without you. Till now, you have only known me as a PhD student. I look forward to our journeys beyond this period of our lives and am incredibly grateful for your love, kindness, generosity, support, and understanding. I have been loved and supported especially by the Pritchard (Mom, Dad, Clint, Caleb, Raelon) and Heaver (Leah, Ben, Riley, Tyler, Parker) Families, the Mann Family (Mickettric, Phil, Amy, P.J., Hayden), the Schneider Family (Scheree, Chris, Hailey, Collin), Desiree Denning and Family (Mamie, Papie, Tonya, Elysse, Bella, and Rietta), Mike and Dana Kirby, Deanna and Ben Bailey, Joanna Trease and Kristen Whidden, Barry and Deb Baker, Leighann Larson, Angelina Thompson, Keirsten Jameson, Janie Cobb, Nicole Eggleton, Amanda Mendenhall, and Elliot Smith. I am very grateful for and love all of you! Thank you to Jason Stone(ji) for your friendship and continual encouragement.