1st Edition
The Routledge International Handbook of Himalayan Environments, Development and Wellbeing
With contributions by over 70 leading scholars from across the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences, The Routledge International Handbook of Himalayan Environments, Development and Wellbeing explores the interrelationships that have emerged from environmental changes, development endeavors, and individual and community wellbeing. This handbook covers the entire Himalayas, from the Indian Himalayan region in the east to Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet (TAR), India, and the Gilgit-Baltistan region in the west.
The shifting grounds of relationships between peoples, livelihoods, and territories affected by global warming require new ways of thinking, and new kinds of politics than the sovereignties of idealised European nation states. Divided into three distinctive sections (Environments, Developments and Wellbeings), this handbook brings together engaging accounts of the socio-cultural diversity and cross-fertilization so characteristic of the Himalayan region that have emerged from field research conducted in close interaction with communities and people experiencing and responding to climatic and socio-economic transformation. Across over 50 chapters, the handbook’s contributors explore people’s creative ways for understanding, adapting, and seeking wellbeing in environmental relations and development possibilities.
This handbook will inform interested scholars, students, stakeholders and the public about the shifting grounds of relationships between Himalayan peoples, livelihoods, and territories affected by global warming and development politics and processes. Lessons about learning from Indigenous and local peoples, about governance of forests and water, and of grassroots conservation practices from the Himalayan region can help inform global networks of researchers and practitioners.
Dedication
List of figures
List of tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
Acronyms and abbreviations
Handbook Introduction
Ben Campbell, Tanka Subba, and Mary Cameron
Part One: Environments
Introduction: Storytelling Social Ecologies of Change
Ben Campbell
1. Forest Change and Human-Forest Interactions in the Himalaya
Dietrich Schmidt-Vogt and Akash Verma
2. The Role of Historical Ecology to Assess Risks to Livelihood in the Himalayas from Climate Warming
Mark Aldenderfer
3. A Historical Case Study in Women-led Socio-Ecological Innovation: How Gender and Environment Came to Matter in 15th Century Tibet (and Now)
Hildegard Diemberger
4. High-Mountain Farming and Interacting Processes of Change in Ladakh Over the Last 30–40 Years: the Case of Hemis-Shukpa-Chan
Pascale Dollfus
5. Digital Infrastructures, Practices and Social Agency on the Trail to Everest
Jolynna Sinanan
6. The Translocal Sherpa from Iconic Everest to Symbolic New York: Senses of Belonging and Connecting in Migration
Ornella Puschiasis
7. Territories for Protecting a “Pristine Nature”: National Parks in the Himalayas, New Places of Power and Tension
Joëlle Smadja
8. Community Conserved Areas in Northeast India and their Role in Addressing Human-Wildlife Conflict
Sayan Banerjee & Ambika Aiyadurai
9. An Environment of One’s Choice: Community, Ecology, and Tourism in Arunachal Pradesh
Swargajyoti Gohain
10. Living with Landslides in Sindhupalchok: Mapping Local Knowledge and Strategies in the Context of the Federal Decentralising Era in Nepal
Ramesh Shrestha
11. Commoning, Conservation and Mapping in Garo Hills, Northeast India
Erik de Maaker
12. Marrying Glaciers: Viewing Human-Nature Relationship Through the Lens of Political Ecology in the Western Himalayas
Zainab Khalid
13. Mi Mayin (Other-Than-Humans) in the Bhutan Lowlands and Highlands: Agency, Affect, and Annexation
Choeying Seldon & Jelle J.P. Wouters
14. Tracing the Agrarian History of the Sub-Himalayan Forest Frontiers
Fraser Sugden, Suresh Dhakal & Janak Rai
15. Farming Systems, Food Security, and Contemporary Climate Issues in Nepal
Sushil Thapa & Keshav Bhattarai
16. Resilience in Shangri-La
Andrea J. Nightingale
17. Himalayan Connections in Lunana and Limi: Baselines for Climate Change Perception in Two ‘Remote’ Communities in Bhutan and Nepal
Riamsara Kuyakanon Knapp
18. Climate Change Adaptation in Nepal: Livelihood, Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge & Practices, and Climate Science
Nani Maiya Sujakhu, Ripu Mardhan Kunwar, Sabita Nepal, Naba Raj Dahal, & Gyanendra Karki
19. JaDibuti, Plants, Genetic Resources: Conversations among Ayurveda Practitioners, Conservationists, and Plant Scientists on Traditional Medical Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation in Nepal
Mary Cameron
Part Two: Developments
The Many Faces of Development: An Introduction
Tanka Subba
20. Development, Displacement, Rehabilitation and Environment in Northeast India
Walter Fernandes
21. Silent Dis-possession of Water in Communal Irrigation at the Foothills of the Himalayas
Olivia Aubriot
22. Thulo Maanche: Implications for Development, Equality, and Democracy in Nepal
Sascha Fuller
23. In-between Mobilities: Risks and Uncertainty in Labor Migration from Nepal
Tristan Bruslé
24. Biogas in Nepal: A Socio-Technical Perspective of Energy Innovation
Ben Campbell and Manoj Suji
25. Kisan Dharma: A Worldview for Conservation of Natural Resources and Livelihood Security in Nepal
Jagannath Adhikari
26. Black Cardamom and Crisis in Hypercolonial Kalimpong
Lewis Beardmore
27. The Assam-Bengal Railways and Socio-Spatial Changes in the Indian Himalayan Region Madhumita Sengupta
28. “What road? I built it myself on my way here.” Roads, Wars, and the Infrastructure of Citizenship in the Indian Himalayas
Karine Gagné
29. Building Capacity, Not Infrastructure: Lessons from Hydropower Development in Nepal
Mark Liechty
30. From Yam to Sponge: Recent Controversies around Nepal’s Sovereignty, Territory and Hydropower
Matthäus Rest
31. Dam(n)ed If You Do, Dam(n)ed If You Don’t: Dams, Development and Contestations in Kinnaur, Western Himalayas
Prashant Negi
32. Rapid Urbanization and its Consequences: A Case Study of Bharatpur, Nepal
Hanna Ruszczyk
33. Rethinking the Himalayan Megaproject: Rainwater Harvesting and the Decentralized Alternative to Kathmandu’s Urban Resource Crunch
Georgina Drew, Rajani Maharjan, and Alexia Jane Adhikari
34. Modernity, Development, and Waste Management in Northeast India
G. Kanato Chophy
35. Anthropology of State: Images and Practices of Inclusive Governance in Nepal
Binod Pokhrel
36. Geopolitics over Development in Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains
Hasan H. Karrar
37. Gender and Sustainable Development in the Himalayas: People, Power, and Possibilities
Debarati Sen
38. Women as Neoliberal Development Subjects: A Feminist Political Ecology Perspective on Development in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
Humera Dinar
Part Three: Wellbeings
Introduction: Culture, Place, and Wellbeings
Mary Cameron
39. Revisiting Mental Health Help-Seeking in the Himalaya: Shifting Ecologies of Care in Post-Earthquake Nepal
Liana Chase and Parbati Shrestha
40. Sowa Rigpa and the State in India’s Himalayan Borderlands
Calum Blaikie
41. Precarity and Wellbeing: Pandemic, Food Systems, and Health Ecologies in Dolpo
Phurwa Dondrub, Logan Emlet, and Nyima Gurung
42. Heterogeneity of Institutionalizing Sowa Rigpa Education in Nepal Himalaya
Arjun Chapagain and June Wang
43. Ayurveda and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nepal
Bhupendra Nirajan Khaniya
44. Putting People at the Center of Solutions: Embracing Human-centered Design Thinking and Approaches for Developing Menstrual Health Interventions in Nepal
Sara Baumann, Bhimsen Devkota, Mary Hawk, and Jessica Burke
45. Living Homes among the Raji and Raute of Nepal
Jana Fortier
46. The Truths of Dispossession in the Western Himalaya
Kriti Kapila
47. Global Population Politics in Nepal: From a “Small, Happy Family” to a “Smart Life”
Jan Brunson
48. Addressing Dalit Wellbeing through Counter Ritual
Steve Folmar
49. Of Ploughmen and Drummers: Dalit Consciousness in Nepali-Language Literature
Michael Hutt
50. Food Intake, Activity Patterns, and Nutritional Status Among Nepali Hindu and Buddhist Sherpa Women: A Biocultural Perspective
Chery Smith
51. Nettle Stew and Danger Momos: Himalayan Culinary Innovation from the Diaspora
Premila Tamang
52. Toward Holistic Well-being: Gross National Happiness and Alternative Futures in Bhutan Elizabeth Allison
53. Rethinking Museums in Places of Lived Heritage
Swosti Kayastha and Stefanie Lotter
54. Seeking Wellbeing through Song: Dohori Singers’ Everyday World-making
Anna Stirr
Index
Biography
Mary Cameron was Professor of Anthropology and Director of Gender Studies at Florida Atlantic University and Auburn University, USA, from 1992-2021. She received three Fulbright grants; alumni, leadership and teaching awards; and numerous other grants. Her research explores Ayurvedic medicine, human-nature relations, and gender and caste. She authored Three Fruits: Nepali Ayurvedic Doctors on Health, Nature, and Social Change (2019) and the award-winning On the Edge of the Auspicious: Gender and Caste in Nepal (1998).
Tanka B. Subba, former Professor of Anthropology at North-Eastern Hill University, served as the second Vice-Chancellor of Sikkim University. He received awards like the Homi Bhabha Fellowship (Mumbai), R.P. Chanda Centenary Medal (Asiatic Society, Kolkata), DAAD Guest professorship at the Free University of Berlin, and Baden-Wuerttemberg Fellowship at Heidelberg University. He has authored/edited 18 books and over 80 articles on the Eastern Himalayas. He is currently Visiting Professor at IIT Gandhinagar.
Ben Campbell is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Durham University, UK. He traveled from 1976 into Himalayan spaces between Kashmir, Nepal and Darjeeling, starting his research career learning Tamang in Nepal in 1988. He directs an MA program on Sustainability, Energy and Development, and his book about the impact of nature conservation on indigenous environmental knowledge and practice in a Tamang-speaking community is Living Between Juniper and Palm: Nature, Culture and Power in the Himalayas (2013).
