The persistence of hierarchy: paradoxes of dominance in Nepal and beyond (M.N. Srinivas Memorial Lecture, 8th Dec 2021)
March 2024
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Journal article
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Sociological Bulletin
MN Srinivas’ concept of ‘the dominant caste’ has rightly been highly influential. The forms that
dominance takes have changed a good deal since his day, but inequality and hierarchy have
persisted. Modern ideological justifications of dominance are frequently at variance with those of
former times, leading to plenty of paradoxes. These paradoxes are illustrated with examples from
Nepal, but their application is much wider. Thanks to Nepal’s different political history, the Nepali
case can very usefully be contrasted with India and other parts of South Asia to highlight how, and in
which contexts, hierarchy as a value persists even when equality is written into numerous
constitutional provisions and laws.
FFR
The Far West of Nepal as a remote area
January 2024
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Journal article
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Far Western Review
Remoteness, as a subject for multi-disciplinary analysis, remains largely under-studied and under-theorised. Though the idea of remote areas is familiar in Nepal, thanks to the government’s long-running ‘Remote Area Development Programme (1966-2017), there has hardly been any conceptual work on the subject in the Nepalese context. We ask who defines ideas of remoteness and for whom it is an issue. Data were collected through two Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), organized in Bajhang and Kanchanpur in 2022, as well as through interviews, informal discussion, and observations during fieldwork in the region between 2020 and 2022.
<br>
The paper suggests that remoteness: (a) is both a fact of geography and a state of mind and culture; (b) thus, is an idea imposed from outside, but also a condition of lived reality; (c) is a relative concept, defined in relation to multi-layered hierarchical power centres located elsewhere; and (d) is a development category. Therefore, we argue, the very notions of ‘sudūr’ and ‘remote’ (durgam) are imposed political constructs, symbolizing (more than spatial position) the loci of power elsewhere, and can have detrimental consequences: persistent neglect, the reproduction of marginalization, and increasing dependency.
Sudur, Nepal, Far West, remote areas, FFR, remoteness
Marshall Sahlins, with the assistance of Frederick B. Henry Jr., The New Science of the Enchanted Universe: An Anthropology of Most of Humanity
January 2024
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Journal article
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Society
Book review of Marshall Sahlins, <i>The New Science of the Enchanted Universe: An Anthropology of Most of Humanity</i> (Princeton University Press, 2022, 196 pp., ISBN: 9780691215921).
Sacrifice as pervasive metaphor and creative principle: on Marie Lecomte-Tilouine’s Sacrifice et Violence
January 2024
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Journal article
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European Bulletin of Himalayan Research
FFR
The 2022 State Elections in Uttar Pradesh and the RSS-isation of the BJP
November 2023
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Journal article
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South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
Caste, Ethnicity, and the State in Nepal
October 2023
|
Chapter
|
The Oxford Handbook of Caste
4404 Development Studies, 4303 Historical Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 44 Human Society
The spaces of religion: a view from South Asia
May 2023
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Journal article
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Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Anthropologists have spilt much ink deconstructing concepts inherited from the
Enlightenment. Religion, possibly the most misleading such concept, has proved highly
resistant to the acid of cross-cultural comparison. Debates about the nature of religion
go back to sociocultural anthropology’s beginnings as a discipline and beyond.
Proposed definitions have been numerous, but none has come close to universal
acceptance, mainly because conventional definitions derive from secularized versions
of Abrahamic, and especially Protestant, essentialism and intellectualism. I argue that
by looking closely at the way religious phenomena are conceptualized in South Asia,
and especially at how distinct types of religion are practised in characteristically
different spaces, a fresh take on the subject is possible. Religion as practised is not
one thing but (at least) three distinct activities and should be conceptualized as such.
But, if that is so, how and why is the totalizing conventional view still so pervasive and
so powerful? Seeking the answer to that question takes us back to the constitution of
modernity and the relationship of religion to the nation-state. The way forward is to
contest the way in which religion has become the last bastion of pure essentialism.
FFR
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Dalit Experiences of Primary and Secondary Education in West-Central Nepal
February 2023
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Chapter
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Educational Transformation and Avenues of Learning: Anthropological Perspectives on Education in Nepal
As ‘untouchables’, Nepali Dalits were effectively banned from engaging in reading and writing and thereby almost entirely excluded from senior positions in both public and private sectors, until the system of reservations was introduced a decade ago. Today Dalits still face multiple forms of everyday exclusion, ‘hidden’ or ‘unseen’ discrimination, even though overt discrimination is now legally sanctioned. While there exists an increasing body of research on school education and exclusion, very limited work has been done to explore and account for the responses and experiences of Dalits themselves, and how these are changing longitudinally. These experiences encompass, on the one hand, much greater Dalit involvement in schooling than ever before, and a much greater sharing of experiences between Dalits and non-Dalits. On the other hand, traditional skills and knowledge systems are very much on the decline. Combining ethnography and qualitative interviews with a range of people, including parents, teachers, students, and activists, with a quantitative survey, this chapter explores Dalit responses to modern education and show how their experiences of school have changed over time. Our study shows that while both the response (in terms of enrolment and commitment) and experiences of exclusion and discrimination in schools are changing for the better, more needs to be done to translate these changes into improved educational and occupational achievements. At the same time, there is a tension between improving Dalit participation in modern educational institutions and preserving traditional skills and knowledge.
Language, Caste, Religion, and Territory: Newar Identity Ancient and Modern [Re-issue]
January 2023
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Book
Comments on Ian Jarvie’s “The Persistence of the Individualism Debate Today”
October 2022
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Chapter
|
Ernest Gellner’s Legacy and Social Theory Today
Foreword
September 2022
|
Chapter
|
Belonging in Motion: Contested Social Boundaries in South Asia
Afterword: Northeast India as a Complex and Compressed Modernity
May 2022
|
Chapter
|
Vernacular Politics in Northeast India: Democracy, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity
The Last Hindu King: How Nepal Desanctified its Monarchy
May 2022
|
Chapter
|
Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Immanence and Transcendence
Can Akhilesh Respond to the BJP’s Poll Strategy of Mandal, Mandir, Market?
March 2022
|
Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
Ernest Gellner and Populism
January 2022
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Chapter
|
Ernest Gellner’s Legacy and Social Theory Today
44 Human Society, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields
Introduction: Social Anthropology as Scepticism, Empathy, and Holism
January 2022
|
Chapter
|
Re-Creating Anthropology: Sociality, Matter, and the Imagination
The introduction to the volume argues that three key impulses – sometimes working together, at other times in tension – underlie sociocultural anthropology: scepticism, empathy, and methodological holism. It reviews the contributions to the volume under three headings: time (especially imaginations of the past), imagination and the social, and futures. It concludes by arguing for a strategic mobilization of critical holism to enable anthropology’s participation in the necessary interdisciplinary work involved in facing up to the urgent problems that humankind faces.
Re-Creating Anthropology: Sociality, Matter, and the Imagination
January 2022
|
Edited book
This book makes a notable contribution to discussions of what anthropology is and should be in the twenty-first century through a reconsideration, from diverse sub-disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, of the interactions between sociality, matter, and the imagination. It explores the imagination in its social contexts, how it is put to work, and how, in its embodied and material forms, it works in practice. The chapters provide detailed case studies, including film-making in Egypt; spirit-possession/exorcism in Italy; Theosophy and the production of knowledge about UFOs; the role of mistakes or glitches in public performances; humans’ varying relationships to the environment; post-coloniality, time, and crisis in anthropology; and artistic creativity.
Collaborative, Multisited Anthropology is the Way Forward
July 2021
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Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
Dalits and the Market: Liberation or Oppression?
July 2021
|
Chapter
|
Explorations in Economic Anthropology: Key Issues and Critical Reflections
Religion and secularism in contemporary Nepal
November 2020
|
Chapter
|
Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions
5004 Religious Studies, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies
Guarding the guards: education, corruption, and Nepal’s commission for the investigation of abuse of authority (CIAA)
October 2020
|
Journal article
|
Public Anthropologist
With development, democratization, and market reforms, corruption has become pervasive in Nepal, especially in areas where government licencing is required. Medical education is a site of considerable political and public contention, because of the nexus that links politicians, educational entrepreneurs, and the licencing of medical colleges. The case of Lokman Singh Karki, the notorious chief of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (ciaa) from 2013 to 2016 is explored, as is that of his nemesis, the campaigner for the reform of medical education, Dr Govinda KC. The ciaa was for a time converted into a prime instrument of corruption instead of being a defence against it. Different scales of reciprocity and differing moral valuations of reciprocity lie at the heart of the fierce moral debates over the rightness or wrongness of Dr KC’s hunger strikes.
FFR
Dalits in Search of Inclusion: Comparing Nepal with India
September 2020
|
Chapter
|
B.R. Ambedkar: The Quest for Social Justice, Vol. 2: Social Justice
‘N.J. Allen (1939–2020)’
September 2020
|
Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
N.J. ALLEN (1939–2020), INDO‐EUROPEAN COMPARATIVIST
August 2020
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Journal article
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Anthropology Today
Changing questions? Reflections on social anthropology in and out of Oxford since the 1980s
July 2020
|
Chapter
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After Society: Anthropological Trajectories out of Oxford
Morality is fundamentally an evolved solution to problems of social co‐operation
May 2020
|
Journal article
|
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
The nation‐state, class, digital divides and social anthropology
May 2020
|
Journal article
|
Social Anthropology
International labour migration from Nepal and changes in inter-caste relations
December 2019
|
Journal article
|
Contributions to Nepalese Studies
<p>Over the past decade international labour migration from Nepal to the Middle East and to Malaysia
has increased exponentially. The number of Dalit migrants is also rising rapidly. There is a growing
body of research on international labour migration from Nepal. So far, however, research has not
looked in sufficient depth at inter-caste relations, and in particular at old institutions of patron-client
(balighare) relations, or at how economic and socio-cultural relations may be changing as a result of
labour migration. Based on household and individual surveys, combined with ethnography,
conducted in a cluster of six villages located to the west of Pokhara in Kaski and their migration
destinations, particularly Pokhara and Chitwan, this paper seeks to explore some of these issues,
particularly the following question: does mobility from one place to another, particularly
international migration, help change people’s behaviour in terms of everyday caste relations?</p>
<p>The preliminary results from the study show that most patron-client balighare relationships (what in
India are usually referred to as jajmani relationships) have either been abandoned or substantially
transformed. Some old caste-based taboos have been broken and roles redefined. While some
traditional non-cash-based occupations have been completely abandoned or are practised on a
much-reduced scale, others have largely adapted to the new cash- and market-based economy. Due
to insufficient labour, farming is in decline. With respect to commensality, 70 per cent of
international labour migrant respondents have had Dalit (or non-Dalit, in the case of Dalits
themselves) work- or house-mates in the country where they have gone for work. With rare
exceptions, caste was no barrier to commensality. However, up to 60 per cent of these same
respondents say that they would not be able to continue the same level of relations with Dalits in
the private domain once they are back in Nepal. This illustrates the shifting and contextual nature of
caste relations; it also highlights the importance of distinguishing public and private domains. </p>
Dalits, jajmani system, caste relations, international migration, FFR, returnee migrants
Introduction: Nepal's Dalits in transition
December 2019
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Journal article
|
Contributions to Nepalese Studies
FFR
The New Modi Wave as Seen from Eastern UP
July 2019
|
Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
Hinduism in the Secular Republic of Nepal
June 2019
|
Chapter
|
The Oxford History of Hinduism: Modern Hinduism
47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4303 Historical Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology
Guthis Should be Regarded as Important Intangible Cultural Heritage, interview in South Asia Time
June 2019
|
Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
Vernacular Religion: Cultural Politics, Community Belonging, and Personal Practice in the UK’s Nepali Diaspora
June 2019
|
Edited book
The transformation of evil in Nepal
May 2019
|
Chapter
|
Methodology and History in Anthropology
British Gurkha Pension Policies and Ex-Gurkha Campaign: A review
April 2019
|
Book
Masters of hybridity: How activists reconstructed Nepali society
March 2019
|
Journal article
|
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
This paper discusses the changes that activists have brought to Nepali society in relation to two key elements of Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT): (1) its account of modernity and (2) its radical downplaying of human agency. ANT, contrary to the way it tends to be understood, deserves to be seen, at least in Latour’s treatment, as a major theory of modernity. As such, ANT is important and enlightening, even though its attack on human agency—at least when discussing activism—is unhelpful. On this point Ian Hacking’s notion of ‘making up people’ provides a better guide. The main example explored is the new kinds of ethnic identity that have achieved state recognition and become politically influential in Nepal over the last thirty years. The case of one ethnic and religious activist, Dr Keshabman Shakya, is used to illustrate the argument. Based on notions of human rights, rather similar processes of ‘making up people’ have also occurred with other minority groups, most strikingly in the case of the ‘third gender’, a context in which Nepal is famously ‘progressive’ compared to other nation-states in the region.
Politics in Gorakhpur since the 1920s: the making of a safe ‘Hindu’ constituency
January 2019
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Journal article
|
Contemporary South Asia
The city of Gorakhpur presents what may be a unique, and is certainly an unusual, configuration of religion and politics. The sitting MP from 1998 to 2017, Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk, had one of the safest seats in India and won five parliamentary elections in a row, a career that culminated in his appointment as the BJP Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Adityanath was both an effective constituency MP and the head of a thriving Math (Hindu monastic temple). Gorakhpur used to be famous for its lawless image and gang warfare. We seek to explain how politics in Gorakhpur have evolved through three distinct periods: (1) Congress hegemony and Hindu-Muslim harmony at the local level; (2) intensified caste competition and the rise of muscular politics; (3) the impact of new caste politics (with the rise of caste-based parties such as the SP and BSP), with the Math as the focus of Gorakhpur’s ever-stronger Hindu-based political identity. The BJP’s loss of the Gorakhpur seat in 2018, in a by-election consequent on Adityanath’s elevation to Chief Minister of UP, may be interpreted as a (probably temporary) rejection of the BJP, but it does not represent a loss of influence by the Math
Special issue of 'Contributions to Nepalese Studies'
January 2019
|
Edited book
KP Oli's Early Life and Influences
August 2018
|
Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
SBTMR
Ancestor Worship and Sacrifice: Debates over Bahun-Chhetri Clan Rituals (kul puja) in Nepal
August 2018
|
Chapter
|
Religion, Secularism, and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal
Introduction: The Nepali/Gorkhali Diaspora Since the Nineteenth Century
July 2018
|
Chapter
|
Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora
Civilization as a Key Guiding Idea in South Asia
May 2018
|
Chapter
|
Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis: Eurasian Explorations
Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora
January 2018
|
Edited book
Introduction: The Nepali/Gorkhali Diaspora since the Nineteenth Century
January 2018
|
Chapter
|
Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora
Invention and Tradition: Limbu Adaptations of Religion in the Diaspora
January 2018
|
Chapter
|
Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora
The NRN (Non-Resident Nepali) Movement
January 2018
|
Chapter
|
Global Nepalis: Religion, Culture, and Community in a New and Old Diaspora
Introduction to the Vishwakarma Community of Annapurna Rural Municipality Wards 1, 2 and 3 (formerly Dhikurpokhari VDC), Kaski, with Genealogical Charts
November 2017
|
Book
Dalits, Migration, Nepal, South Asia, Bishwakarma, Black smiths, Social anthropology, Cultural anthropology, Kaski, Nepal, Annapurna Rural Municipality, Dalit migration, Dalit culture, Genealogy of Bishwakarma
Afterword: So what is the anthropology of Buddhism about?
Sheldon Pollock and Max Weber: Why Pollock is more Weberian than he thinks
July 2017
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Journal article
|
Max Weber Studies
The politics of Buddhism in Nepal
May 2017
|
Journal article
|
Economic and Political Weekly
Nepal, as Nepalis never tire of reminding the world and each other, was where the Buddha was born. But did Nepal exist 2500 years ago? Does the fact that the Buddha was born in what is today Nepal mean that the modern nation-state Nepal can claim special ownership of his memory, when the other three significant events in the Buddha’s life—attainment of enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, first sermon at Sarnath, and entry into full nirvana at Kushinagar—all took place in what is now India? Even the very act of asking these questions will irritate some of my Nepali friends, for whom the two most fundamental facts about their country are that it is home to the world’s highest mountain and that it claims the birthplace of the Buddha.
Source Force
April 2017
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Journal article
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South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
How BJP Won Hearts and Minds in UP
March 2017
|
Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
Understanding Modi’s Magic: Impressions from Eastern UP
March 2017
|
Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
Introduction to the Mijar Community of Annapurna Rural Municipality Wards 1, 2 and 3 (formerly Dhikurpokhari VDC), Kaski, with Genealogical Charts
January 2017
|
Book
Dalits, Migration, Nepal, South Asia, Dalits in South Asia, Mijar, Sarki, Social anthropology, Cultural anthropology, Annapurna Rural Municipality,, Dalit migration, Dalit culture, Genealogy of Bishwakarma
Introduction to the Pariyar Community of Annapurna Rural Municipality Wards 1, 2 and 3 (formerly Dhikurpokhari VDC), Kaski, with Genealogical Charts
January 2017
|
Book
Dalits, Migration, Nepal migration, Nepal, South Asia, Pariyar, Damai, Dholi, Tailors, Social anthropology, Cultural anthropology, Kaski, Annapurna Rural Municipality, Dalit culture, Dalit migration, Genealogy of Pariyars, Pariyar culture
National Identity and Belonging
December 2016
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Internet publication
<a href=""></a>
The idea of Nepal
December 2016
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Other
This lecture traces some of the ways in which Nepal has been imagined, starting over 1500 years ago when the name referred to the Kathmandu Valley ruled by the Licchavi dynasty. That spatialised hierarchical conception (‘Nepal mandala’) is contrasted with later ideas of Nepal as interface, empire, nation-state, and multicultural federal republic. At each stage, Nepal has been imagined as made up of different kinds of people. In the modern period formal and official categorisations have become increasingly egalitarian and, recently, even explicitly antihierarchical. Since 1990, ethnic identities have been massively transformed and politicised. Entirely new ‘macro categories’ have come into existence. However, the old order has not simply disappeared, but remains ‘back stage’, reworked; it can be discerned in informal but still powerful hierarchies of language and national belonging.
ethnicity, belonging, national identity, Nepal
Religion, Secularism, and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal
November 2016
|
Book
Is religion still a valid means of coping with the world? How do citizens of the former Hindu kingdom understand secularism? How do changing public festivals reflect and/or create new group identities? Is religion becoming more privatized?
Shrines and Identities in Britain’s Nepali Diaspora
September 2016
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Journal article
|
Diaspora: a journal of transnational studies
This article examines the tension between publicly affirmed religious identification and private religious practice among Britain’s Nepali diaspora population. It compares census and survey figures for religious
affiliation with religious shrines in people’s homes. In some cases there is complete congruence between religious affiliation and home worship (most strikingly in the cases of Sherpas, whose affiliation and shrines are unequivocally Buddhist). Among many other groups, however, there is plenty of evidence of multiple belonging. The most common case is singular identification for census purposes and multiple practice, but there are also many instances of multiple identification when offered the opportunity. For example, when asked for their religion, Gurungs frequently affirm a Buddhist identity, but when given the option to be both Hindu and Buddhist, they frequently embrace it as it more closely describing their actual practice. Many Kirats keep no shrine at home because they believe that their tribal tradition is properly aniconic. Our material clearly shows that the distribution of ecumenical attitudes is not random, but reflects particular ethnic, regional, and caste histories within Nepal. The ethnic/caste makeup of Britain’s Nepali diaspora is not identical to that of Nepal, mainly because of the history of Gurkha recruitment, and this demographic shift is reflected in the higher proportion of Buddhists in Britain. Nonetheless, we suspect that the findings of this study would be replicated in an urban context in Nepal.
multiple belonging, religious shrines, Hinduism, Buddhism, Kiranti religion, personal religion, Nepali diaspora
New identity politics and the 2012 collapse of Nepal's Constituent Assembly: when the dominant becomes 'other'
February 2016
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Journal article
|
Modern Asian Studies
This article explores the politicization of ethnicity in Nepal since 1990. In particular it looks at how ideas of indigeneity have become increasingly powerful, leading to Nepal becoming the first and—to date—only Asian country to have signed International Labour Organization Convention number 169 (hereafter ILO 169). The rise of ethnic politics, and in particular the reactive rise of a new kind of ethnicity on the part of the ‘dominant’ groups—Bahuns (Brahmans) and Chhetris (Kshatriyas)—is the key to understanding why the first Constituent Assembly in Nepal ran out of time and collapsed at the end of May 2012. This collapse occurred after four years and four extensions of time, despite historic and unprecedentedly inclusive elections in April 2008 and a successful peace process that put an end to a ten-year civil war.
Introduction: Religion and Identities in Post-Panchayat Nepal
January 2016
|
Chapter
|
Religion, Secularism, and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal
Buddhism
January 2015
|
Chapter
|
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
5004 Religious Studies, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies
THE 2013 ELECTIONS IN NEPAL
May 2014
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Journal article
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Asian Affairs
4408 Political Science, 44 Human Society, 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
From Kathmandu to Kent: Nepalis in the UK
April 2014
|
Journal article
|
Himal Southasian
Warriors, workers, traders and peasants: The Nepali/Gorkhali diaspora since the nineteenth century
January 2014
|
Chapter
|
Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora
Buddhist, Hindu, Kiranti, or Something Else?
January 2014
|
Chapter
|
E. Gallo (ed.) Migration and Religion in Europe: Comparative Perspectives in South Asian Experiences, Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate, 2014, pp. 131-153.
Borderland Lives in Northern South Asia Non-State Perspectives
December 2013
|
Book
This volumes presents assays on the peoples living along India's borders with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma/Myanmar, China, and Nepal reveal Northern South Asia as a region encompassing radically different ways of life and relationships to the ...
Social Science
Multiple versus unitary belonging: How Nepalis in Britain deal with 'religion'
December 2013
|
Chapter
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Social Identities Between the Sacred and the Secular
The Politics of Collective Advocacy in India: Tools and Traps
March 2013
|
Journal article
|
Asian Studies Review
Caste, communalism, and communism: Newars and the Nepalese State
December 2012
|
Chapter
|
Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics and Culture of Contemporary Nepal
Ethnicity and Nationalism in the world's Only Hindu State
December 2012
|
Chapter
|
Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics and Culture of Contemporary Nepal
Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom, The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal
December 2012
|
Book
4404 Development Studies, 44 Human Society
Beyond Methodological Nationalism
December 2012
|
Chapter
Category and Practice as Two Aspects of Religion: The Case of Nepalis in Britain
December 2012
|
Journal article
|
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
The Uses of Max Weber
February 2011
|
Chapter
Belonging, Indigeneity, Rites, and Rights: The Newar Case
January 2011
|
Chapter
|
The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas: Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics
Nepal: Trajectories of democracy and restructuring of the state
April 2010
|
Chapter
|
Routledge Handbook of South Asian Politics: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal
Introduction: Making Civil Society in South Asia
January 2010
|
Chapter
|
Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia
Surveying Activists in Nepal
January 2010
|
Chapter
|
Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia
Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia
January 2010
|
Book
Rebuilding Buddhism The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal
June 2009
|
Book
(5) it tended to be fundamentalist in its attitude toward Buddhism, believing —
against traditionalists — that nirvana was possible now for all Buddhists, just as
in the Buddha's time; (6) it saw Buddhism as a philosophy (and therefore as ...
Religion
Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia
January 2009
|
Book
Introduction: How Civil are ‘Communal’ and Ethno-Nationalist Movements?
January 2009
|
Chapter
|
Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia
Local Democracy in South Asia Microprocesses of Democratization in Nepal and its Neighbours
February 2008
|
Book
Series. Note. GOVERNANCE,. CONFLICT,. AND. CIVIC. ACTION. SERIES.
Volume 1: Local Democracy in South Asia: Microprocesses of Democratization in
Nepal and its Neighbours, eds David N. Gellner and Krishna Hachhethu.
VOLUMES.
Political Science
Living Goddess
January 2008
|
Journal article
|
Himalaya
Caste, ethnicity and inequality in Nepal
May 2007
|
Journal article
|
Economic and Political Weekly
Nepal faces the danger of an all-out ethnic war breaking out in the Tarai between madhesis and parbatiyas. But, in most of the country there are so many complex and crosscutting ethnic allegiances which make a Sri Lankan-type polarisation unlikely. In the eastern Tarai, however, with its 30 per cent population of parbatiyas, there is a very real possibility that "two majorities with minority complexes" could confront each other in bloody vendettas.
Resistance and the State Nepalese Experiences
April 2007
|
Book
This book explores the complex relationship between a modernizing, developmentalist state and the people it professes to represent.
Social Dynamics in Northern South Asia: Political and social transformations in north India and Nepal
January 2007
|
Book
Krishna HACHHETHU is Reader in Political Science and associated with the
Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS) ... Hiroshi Ismi is Professor Emeritus
at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA),
...
Ethnic attitudes
The emergence of conversion in a Hindu-Buddhist polytropy: The Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, c. 1600-1995
Introduction The Kathmandu Valley is a roughly circular bowl about twenty-five kilometres in diameter set high in the Himalayan foothills. The rich black soil of the valley, and its strategic position on ancient trade routes between Tibet and India, meant that it became an outpost of South Asian civilisation from the fourth century c e onwards. The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hsiian Tsang (Xuan Zang), passing through the plains of India in the early seventh century, heard that the Valley possessed both Hindu temples and Buddhist monas teries close together, and that there were ‘about 2,000 [Buddhist] monks who study both the Great and the Little Vehicle’. Numerous inscriptions in elegant Sanskrit and many beautiful sculptures, still today sited in temple compounds or in wayside shrines, attest to the high level of culture attained in the Licchavi period (fifth to ninth centuries c e).
Communications to the editor
May 2004
|
Journal article
|
The Journal of Asian Studies
Hinduism. None, one or many?
January 2004
|
Journal article
|
Social Anthropology
4404 Development Studies, 4401 Anthropology, 44 Human Society
Inside Organizations Anthropologists at Work
April 2001
|
Book
This book highlights the practical, political and ethical dimensions of research in organizations. Among issues vividly described are the relations between gender and politics in organizational hierarchies.
4404 Development Studies, 4401 Anthropology, 44 Human Society
The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism Weberian Themes
January 2001
|
Book
With reference to Nepal.
Political Science
Religion, politics, and ritual. Remarks on Geertz and Bloch*
January 1999
|
Journal article
|
Social Anthropology
4404 Development Studies, 4401 Anthropology, 44 Human Society
Les tambours de Katmandou.
December 1997
|
Journal article
|
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
4301 Archaeology, 4401 Anthropology, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 44 Human Society
For syncretism. The position of Buddhism in Nepal and Japan compared
January 1997
|
Journal article
|
Social Anthropology
4404 Development Studies, 4401 Anthropology, 44 Human Society
Death in Banaras
March 1996
|
Journal article
|
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
4301 Archaeology, 4401 Anthropology, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 44 Human Society
Contested Hierarchies A Collaborative Ethnography of Caste Among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
January 1995
|
Book
In this book, six anthropologists pool their knowledge of the three ancient Newar cities of Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur, and of other settlements nearby.
Social Science
Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest
January 1992
|
Book
Ritualized devotion, altruism, and meditation: The offering of the guru maala in Newar Buddhism
July 1991
|
Journal article
|
Indo-Iranian Journal
5004 Religious Studies, 47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4703 Language Studies, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies
Hinduism, Tribalism and the Position of Women: The Problem of Newar Identity
March 1991
|
Journal article
|
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
4301 Archaeology, 4401 Anthropology, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 44 Human Society
Order in Paradox: Myth, Ritual and Exchange Among Nepal's Tamang.
September 1990
|
Journal article
|
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
4301 Archaeology, 4401 Anthropology, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 44 Human Society
Language, caste, religion and territory: Newar identity ancient and modern
May 1986
|
Journal article
|
European Journal of Sociology
4410 Sociology, 44 Human Society
Review Article: Negara: the Theatre State in Nineteenth- Century Bali1
