Facing Globalization in the Himalayas: Belonging and the Politics of the Self(Governance, Conflict and Civic Action)

This book explores the complex relationships between belonging and globalization in the contemporary Himalayan world and beyond. Over the last decades, the interrelations at local, national, and global scales have intensified in historically unprecedented forms and intensity. At the same time, homogenizing global processes have generated parochial and vernacular reactions. This book aims at developing an appropriate analysis of these interactions and, thus, at supplementing the previous collection on the Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas.  This book is the first major study on this topic and a crucial contribution to the study of the current change within the Himalayan societies and their cultures. It is based on several case studies carried out by outstanding anthropologists, geographers, linguists, political scientists working in the Indian and Nepalese Himalayas.  

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: Globalization and Belonging in the Himalayas and in Trans-Himalayan Social Spaces - Gérard Toffin and Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka I: SHIFTING HORIZONS OF BELONGING Improbable Globalization: Individualization and Christianization among the Tamangs - Blandine Ripert Circular Lives: Histories and Economies of Belonging in the Transnational Thangmi Village - Sara Shneiderman Being a Ladakhi, Playing the Nomad - Pascale Dollfus II: MIGRANT EXPERIENCES IN SOUTH ASIA AND BEYOND Migration, Marginality, and Modernity: Hill Men’s Journey to Mumbai - Jeevan R Sharma Rights and a Sense of Belonging: Two Contrasting Nepali Diaspora Communities - Mitra Pariyar, Bal Gopal Shrestha and David N Gellner Geographical, Cultural, and Professional Belonging of Nepalese Migrants in India and Qatar - Tristan Bruslé III: CREATING TRANSNATIONAL BELONGING Belonging and Solitude among Nepali Nurses in Great Britain - Sondra L Hausner Culture on Display: Metropolitan Multiculturalism and the Manchester Nepal Festival - Ben Campbell Being and Belonging: Mapping the Experiences of Nepali Immigrants in the United States - Bandita Sijapati Global Gurungs: Ethnic Organizing Abroad - Susan Hangen IV: GLOBALITY AND ACTIVIST EXPERIENCE Buddhist Activism, New Sanghas, and the Politics of Belonging among Some Tharu and Magar Communities of Southern Nepal - Chiara Letizia Power Projects, Protests, and Problematics of Belonging in Dzongu, Sikkim - Tanka Subba Weepingsikkim.blogspot.com: Reconfiguring Lepcha Belonging with Cyber-belonging - Vibha Arora V: NATIONAL RECONFIGURATIONS Mother Tongues and Language Competence: The Shifting Politics of Linguistic Belonging in the Himalayas - Mark Turin Who Belongs to Tibet? Governmental Narratives of State in the Ganden Podrang - Martin A Mills The Last Himalayan Monarchies - Michael Hutt Glossary

About the Author :
Gérard Toffin is Director of Research at National Center for Scientific Research in France. In 1985, he created the CNRS team ‘Centre for Himalayan Studies’, where he was director until 1995. He has been carrying out research in Nepal since 1970 when he first came to Nepal to work as Cultural Attaché at the French Embassy. In addition to his own research on the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, the Paharis, the Tamangs of western Nepal, the Parbatiya culture of the districts of Gulmi and Argha Khanchi in mid-western Nepal, and the Pranami sect in India and Nepal, he has directed, edited, and taken part in various anthropological research and publishing projects. He was the chief editor of the series ‘Chemins de l’ethnologie’ published by CNRS-Editions and Foundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, from 1993 till 2005. In May 2013, he received the Nai Derukh International Award in Kathmandu for his contribution to the study of Nepali culture and society. Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. She was coordinator of the EU-Asia-Link Project ‘The (Micro) Politics of Democratisation: European–South-Asian Exchanges on Governance, Conflict and Civil Action’ with Tribhuban University Kathmandu (CNAS), University of Colombo (IMPAP), and Oxford University (ISCA), as project partners. Her major book publications include Ethnic Futures: State and Identity in Four Asian Countries (with A. Nandy, D. Rajasingham-Senanayke, and T. Gomez) (1999); Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal (co-editors: D. Gellner/J.Whelpton) (2008); The Ethnicisation of the Political: Identity Politics in Latin America, Asia and in USA (with C. Büschges) (2007).