The paradox of belonging : an ethnographic analysis of identity & development in Lower Mustang, Nepal

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Graduate School of Social Sciences

Research MSc International Development Studies 2015-2017 Title: The Paradox of Belonging:

An Ethnographic Analysis of Identity & Development in Lower Mustang, Nepal

Name: Emily Amburgey Email: emilyjamburgey@gmail.com

Date: May 30th, 2017 UVA ID: 11123710 Word Count: 33,859 Supervisor: Dennis Rodgers

Professor of International Development Studies Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences

University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Second Reader: Tina Harris Assistant Professor of Anthropology Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences

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The Paradox of Belonging:

An Ethnographic Analysis of Identity

& Development in Lower Mustang, Nepal

Lower Mustang, Nepal

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Abstract

The concept of ethnic identity, and the recognition of particular ethnic communities, is often studied from the perspective of national politics, when in fact, the realities populations on the so-called ‘periphery’ of the state create require a more holistic understanding of internal power asymmetries, local knowledge systems, and regional histories. Drawing upon theories about the nature of globalization, politics of recognition, and social navigation, this dissertation seeks to widen the perception of ethnic communities vis-à-vis ‘the state’ to explore local perceptions of development and social change that speak to the temporality and ambiguity of identity politics. Basing my findings on ethnographic research carried out in four village development committees of the Lower Mustang region in Nepal, a place that is often associated with an ancient and unchanged way of life, I explore the rapid social change, economic development, and global connections that have come to influence the region and its recognition. Studied from this perspective, findings reveal that development theory needs to rethink monolithic and static representations of ethnic identities to account for cultural knowledge and cases of misrepresentation. More specifically, my research highlights how the concept of ethnic identity must be understood from within specific histories of community development, as both a political tool and a structure of belonging, to show how communities creatively navigate their changing worlds. From this perspective, I argue that the concept of ethnic identity should be understood less as a space of state resistance, but as a negotiation between national and international development practices that intersect with local agency in a range of different ways.

Keywords: Identity, Development, Ethnicity, Globalization, Politics of Recognition, State Restructuring, Agency, Lower Mustang, Nepal

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank a few of the many people who made the completion of my dissertation possible. Firstly, my supervisor, Dennis Rodgers, for the time he dedicated to guiding me through the thesis writing process. His detailed feedback and encouragement were incredibly valuable to the development of this dissertation, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with him.

Secondly, I would like to thank my research partner, Tenzin, for his considered comments and support throughout the initial stages of fieldwork through to final stages of editing. This dissertation would not have been possible without his willingness to help, his commitment to support the development of Mustang, and most of all, his friendship.

Thirdly, I would like to thank the participants of the PhotoVoice project who patiently guided me through many of the central topics in this dissertation. Their countless hours of effort made this project a success and guided my work tremendously.

Fourthly, I would like to thank the communities of Lower Mustang for their assistance in carrying out interviews, introducing me to the region, sharing their personal stories, participating in focus group discussions, and their support of collaborative film and photography projects. Finally, there are many other people who graciously shared with me their knowledge, experience, and personal connections in Mustang. Their continued support forms a vital part of this research, and the foundation upon which this dissertation is built.

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

ACAP: Annapurna Conservation Area Project CAMC: Conservation Area Management Committee NEFIN: Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities

NFDIN: National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities TAR: Tibet Autonomous Region

UCP: Unified Communist Part of Nepal VDC: Village Development Committee

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Prologue

The Tibetan word for body is lü, “meaning something you leave behind, reminding us that we are only travelers, taking temporary refuge in this life and this body” (Rinpoche 1992). As the Buddha was said to have proclaimed, “this existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds” (ibid), yet expressions of identity and belonging remain important features of social life today. As this dissertation pertains to identity and development, the links between Buddhist teachings of impermanence and contemporary debates over the recognition of ethnic groups are interesting. Despite the ambiguity and fluidity of such concepts as culture and identity, they are crucial structures within which we experience and construct our realities and associations to the world. They are pervasive and significant modes of belonging that speak to the diversity and sustainability of our world. After all, “the death of a language is not simply about words, syntax, and grammar, nor will it affect only small, ‘traditional’ and largely oral cultures. Languages convey unique forms of cultural knowledge…Globalisation and rapid socio-economic change exert particularly complex pressure on smaller communities, often eroding expressive diversity and transforming culture through assimilation to more dominant ways of life” (Turin 2012:849-850).

How can communities best advocate for the recognition of their cultural values, religions, languages, and freedom? If identity is always in motion, then what processes contribute to its transformation? How can societies best account for the diversity and plurality of identity?

In early September of 2016, my research partner, Tenzin1, and I discussed these questions in a small village in Nepal’s Lower Mustang district. India’s Next Top Model quietly streamed through the television as we sipped our bod-jha (Tibetan butter tea). Outside the window, a Bön monastery sat overlooking the village, a silent reminder of how constructed ideas and markers of identity have become such powerful structures today. It is this paradox of belonging, to the universal and particular, the modern and traditional, the secular and religious (Kloos 2010), that exposes the intersections between ethnic identities and development, and from which the following analyses emerge.

1_Pseudonym

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1. Introduction

This dissertation focuses on ethnic communities in Nepal’s Himalaya and the ways in which they navigate state making development and social change, particularly in the period of political transformation since 2006. This recent period of restructuring was caused in part by the country’s history of monarchial regimes and class oppression that led to a decade of armed conflict. Beginning in 1996, The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) waged a deadly war against the state in an attempt to overthrow the oppressive regime in favor of a democratic government. Central to their goal of liberation, was “the need to overturn centuries of ethnic- and caste-based marginalization” (Shneiderman 2013:43). During this time, “young people from indigenous nationalities, down-trodden castes and unjustly marginalized ethnic groups” (Lawoti, 2008) struggled through a decade of violence to challenge nationalist policies that favored a unified, single-language, Nepalese identity. I am situating my research within this historical context and in the broader field of identity politics. I intend to build upon theoretical frameworks that developed, particularly in the field of Anthropology, surrounding ethnic identities, politics of recognition, and state making projects, all of which link to contemporary development debates. Historically speaking, the topic of identity -ethnic, religious, or otherwise- has evolved along with the acceptance of singular and powerful notions of identity that reproduce the assumption that the world can be neatly partitioned according to a singular and overarching system of social organization (Sen, 2007). Thus, the enactment and reproduction of harmful social divisions that dehumanize interactions within the limited and inconsistent scope of identity then become very real and tangible weapons of discrimination. With this in mind, I hope to address the contentious debates surrounding the representation of Nepal’s ethnic communities as a “process of action and imagination shaped by the continuous play of history, culture, and power” (Li, 2000:174). Exploring identity and development from within narratives of local agency, I uncover the multiple ways communities on the so-called periphery of the state navigate the complexities of social change and global engagement.

1.1 Background to Study

According to the National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) in 2003, the indigenous population consisted of 37.2% of the total population of Nepal, and only 43 nationalities were formally reported in the census of 2001 (NFDIN, 2003). Ethnic divisions, in Nepal and elsewhere, have played an important role throughout history as classificatory systems of state control, and political tools of representation. As Barth famously argued, however, ethnic groups are fluid, and “entail social process of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories” (Barth, 1969:10). More recently, ethnicity has been studied as a commoditized product of neoliberal reforms, becoming “more corporate, more commoditized, more implicated that ever before in the economics of everyday life…” (Comaroffs, 2009:23).

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Other studies have emphasized ethnic identities in relation to state building projects and reforms, that attempt to (re)classify communities and populations according to nationalist projections of culture and identity. Although the debates of neoliberalism and state restructuring are pertinent to studies of ethnicity today, other research projects are seeking to uncover new ways of thinking about the identities of communities, moving beyond discussions of state making and market forces (Shneiderman, 2013). Thus prompting an important question as to how social science research and development practices can better represent ethnic populations without further marginalizing them, and bring these varying debates into conversation with one another. In order to do so, I move away from the dichotomous arguments surrounding identity as a state making process or as a product of neo-liberal reforms. Taking into account other factors, such as marginalizing discourse, traditional health practices, and histories of misrepresentation, I hope to widen the lens of ethnic identities to incorporate other influences and factors as expressed by communities themselves.

1.2 Historical Context

Often looked upon as “a medieval kingdom thrust into the 20th century” (Des Chene 2007:9), it is important to note that Nepal as a non-postcolonial state did not enter history in 1951. Although I do not intend to negate the relevance of pre-1951 Nepal in this dissertation, for the purpose of this brief historical positioning, I will focus on contemporary concerns from the time when democracy in Nepal was restored. Rooted in the political upheaval of the Rana oligarchy, “the Nepali nation-state fully joined the international scene during the 1950’s, becoming a member of the United Nations, establishing diplomatic relations with many nations, and negotiating political and economic agreements with its neighbors” (Bauer 2004:96). It was during this time that the global phenomenon of development entered the political rhetoric of Nepal as “development programs were mechanisms to bring about economic and social progress and establish national independence, to launch nations on the path to ‘modernity’” (ibid; Gupta, 1998). The commencement of the Cold War ushered in millions of US dollars in aid to Nepal, and by the 1960’s, foreign aid became the dominant portion of Nepal’s gross domestic product. Investments from international actors, especially China and India, were concentrated on building new infrastructure such as schools, government offices, and roads along with forest conservation projects and irrigations systems. Following China’s takeover of Tibet in 1951, and the Tibetan Uprising in 1959, relations between Nepal and its neighbors became increasingly contentious and fixed border agreements were arranged. These and other development projects of this era began to significantly shift local economies in regards to taxation and administration, especially for rural areas existing largely outside of the central state’s reach. Prior to the state’s expansion, border areas such as Dolpo and Mustang, “remained relatively impenetrable, its population dispersed and migratory-hardly a promising site for state appropriation” (Bauer, 2004:106; Scott 1998). For these areas along Nepal’s borders, life changed dramatically alongside the violent conflict in Tibet and the closing of trans-border migration.

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Examining Nepal within the current regional politics, the country’s position between the two most populous countries in the world continues to have a great influence as the nation has “tried to skillfully engage in a dance with India and China seeking as it was a steady border, national identity, and aid packages from both countries” (Shakya 1999:362). Given the onset of rapid development during the second half of the twentieth century, shifts in geopolitical borders between Nepal, China, and India also had a significant impact on the restructuring of Nepal’s ethnic populations. Looking at the last decade of political shifts, the codification of identities began with the legal recognition of adivasi janajati, or “indigenous peoples”, with NFDIN’s (National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities) Act in 2002. Then again in 2004, a nongovernmental organization known as NEFIN (Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities) representing roughly fifty indigenous nationalities throughout the country, presented for the very first time in Nepal’s history a rubric of indigenous groups to assist in the process of affirmative action planning. However, despite state and nonstate attempts to formalize categorical distinctions between ethnic populations, “most states are younger than the societies they purport to administer: they confront patterns of settlement, social relations, and production that evolved largely independent of state plans” (Bauer 2004:92). This point correlates with claims that identity cannot only be discussed in terms of state-making projects or neoliberal commodification, but must be understood from within particular contexts. Identity is thus better understood as “not natural or inevitable, but neither is it simply invented, adopted, or imposed. It is, rather, a positioning which draws upon historically sedimented practice, landscapes, and repertoires of meaning, and emerges through particular patterns of engagement and struggle” (Li, 2000:151). For this reason, it is important to discuss issues relating to ethnic identities in the context of particular communities, not as disjointed peripheral components of a centralized state, but as centers themselves. In doing so, not only would research be increasingly grounded in local issues, but it would have the capacity to speak to much larger issues of social change. As Michael (2011) argues, “insights derived from the study of Nepali history can speak to wider issues, debates and theoretical concerns that animate scholarship in other parts of the world” (37).

1.3 Chapter Summary

The proceeding chapter 2 will outline my theoretical framework of which is rooted in aspects of globalization, identity politics, ethnicity, state building, and local agency, all of which correspond to the topics of development and identity that I have briefly outlined above. Building from this discussion, I will then present and operationalize my research question and sub-questions in chapter 3 and 4, which focus specifically on the politics of recognition and social navigation. The overarching research question, will then be answered in the following three empirical chapters (5-7), corresponding to each sub-question, where I show how global processes of change intersect within local community practices, and elaborate on the specific development

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projects that have contributed to the general social changes. Secondly, I will discuss the issue of misrepresentation within ethnic communities as it pertains to both state politics as well as histories of social injustice. Lastly, I will discuss a particular example of nonrecognition as it both strains the continuation of certain cultural practices, and is representative of the general friction between ethnic diversity and nationalist sentiments. Finally, I will present the answers to my research questions, theoretical reflections, and implications for policy and practice in chapter 8.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1 Introduction

This dissertation focuses on the links between identity, globalization, and development/state building projects in contemporary Nepal. I focus particularly on the period of political and ethnic restructuring that increased after the formal end of armed conflict between the central state and the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) in 2006. Concerned with how the practice of development has since played out in Nepal, this dissertation intends to understand community perceptions of social change and development, and how they intersect with state building practices of the central government. Given the ongoing political turmoil within the country, this study will explore how recent reform projects of the central government, seeking to (re)classify ethnic populations, are locally contextualized and how they exert considerable pressure on communities themselves. Thus, I will emphasize community agency as a key component of my theoretical framework and research methodology to explore how communities creatively react to and perceive development politics, and their own positioning within Nepal.

2.2 Myth of a Global Era

“Most theories of globalization, for example, package all cultural development into a single program: the emergence of a global era…In this imagined global era, motion would proceed entirely without friction. By getting rid of national barriers and autocratic or protective state policies, everyone would have the freedom to travel everywhere. Indeed, motion itself would be experienced as self-actualization, and self-actualization without constraint would oil the machinery of the economy, science, and society” (Tsing 2005: 3-5).

It is often assumed that globalization brings unimpeded growth, success, and accessibility to countries, especially to those in the so-called “global south”, with equal parts diplomacy and uniformity. Conceptually defined as “the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across time and space” (Steger 2009:15), the term globalization has now become an unavoidable topic within many disciplines, especially that of international development.

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Coined in the 1950’s, the term has become increasingly difficult to define, and the more one attempts to measure global connection, the less accessible it becomes. For the purpose of this dissertation, I focus on the tension between global and local processes of development, how they interact, and where they diverge. As the opening quote suggests, the imagining of “the global” has its limitations as soon as one looks to the periphery. In doing so, the notion that globalization has created uniformity is put to the test as individuals and communities experience varying levels of freedom. If the global era was to be true to its name, then why do communities and entire countries lack basic human rights? How is it that cultures on the so-called periphery of the state have access to cable television and high speed internet, but lack clean water? These are some of the questions that come into being through interactions with the particular, and prompt further exploration into how globalization is locally contextualized.

As Friedman (1990) argues, globalization and localization are two mutually dependent, interrelated processes. The local cannot be understood without its global counterparts. For example, the concept of cosmopolitan often comes up in studies of globalization and is defined as, “belonging to all parts of the world; not restricted to any one country or its inhabitants” (Oxford English Dictionary 2ed). The cosmopolitan person depends on the idea of the global in order to consider themselves as coming from or having experience from many different parts of the world (Hannerz, 1990). In contrast, the local is then assumed to be a study of specificity, of “isolated” culture as diverse and in a state of pre-contact. Powerful ideologies, like cosmopolitan people or places that are considered more “worldly”, deny that cultures are simultaneously global and local at the same time. Instead, I argue that the arrangements of culture, identity, and history are always in motion, and the notion of an individual as a bounded entity is deceptive. Thus, the idea challenged by Eric Wolf (1982) in his book, Europe and the People without History, that communities on the periphery of the state were always isolated and more “original” than our own societies relies on the misled assumption that cultures are bounded in both time and space. The moment the global is brought into conversation with the local creates a kind of classificatory moment, where cultures and identities are redefined and co-produced through unequal and creative encounters across difference. However, the difficulty in viewing global and local processes in this way is to “address both the spreading interconnections and the locatedness of culture” (Tsing 2005:122). The movement of people, knowledge, and material that has come to characterize the late twentieth century up to the present moment, has simultaneously prompted long-distance cultural engagements as it has the struggle to recognize divergent histories, preserve “traditional” identities, and subvert stereotypes in the face of globalization (Clifford 1997). This process of change has occurred throughout history as cultures experience exploitation, assimilation, expansion, and extinction. However, the concept that there is simply a push from above and a reach from below is rarely unproblematic. As Fisher observed in the Sherpa villages of Khumbu, in the Dolpa district of Nepal, people do not simply accept new arrangements of power but “instead, they react creatively and productively to move themselves and their cultures in novel, and hitherto-unexplored directions” (Fisher 2011:20). It is in this way

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that the weakness of “the global era” is uncovered. Freeing analytic and critical predictions based on neoliberal and universal models of progress, and paying closer attention to the new forms and articulations of culture and agency, can uncover the source of new identities and interests. 2.3 Nationalism and the Politics of Recognition

Nationalism is a global and modern phenomenon, which treats the nation as an imagined political community-both inherently limited and sovereign (Anderson 1991). The basic principal of nationalism “holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent” (Gellner 1983:1), and the violation of such congruency causes anger, disruption, and often violence. Although there is an assumption that due to modernization and globalization, people become better connected and more similar, the pressure to become more distinctive also increases. The moment an individual, community, or nation is perceived as threatened, boundaries of identity become increasingly important and dependent upon the pressure exerted on them (Eriksen 1993). One such expression of identity, that of ethnicity, is in fact a social construction, yet powerful enough that people are willing to fight for it, and die for it (Anderson 1991). The fundamental element that makes nationalism and ethnicity so powerful is the acknowledgment and acceptance of these distinctions by both members and non-members alike. Thus, the recognition of ethnicity can be regarded as both meaning and politics, as a reaction to external pressure or threats and a tool to gain political power, as well as a construct of belonging. Moreover, national identities and ethnic communities are constituted in relation to others and have remained contested phenomena due to their continuity and fluidity. Boundaries and definitions of identity are being constantly redefined by both internal and external changes, by development, technology, and capitalism. From this perspective, it would be impossible to consider ethnic identities without the understanding that the way they exist today is not the way they have always existed. In the specific case of Nepal, “then, being Nepali means different things to different Nepalis and we need to be constantly aware of the gap that may exist between official aspirations and the actual feelings of a population divided along ethnic, caste, and class lines” (Gellner 1997:39). Not only is it important to recognize the heterogeneity of such distinctions of identity, but that these divisions are important for both dominant and minority groups- to not only recognize the equal value of different groups and cultures, but to acknowledge their worth (Taylor 1994). So, what is it about identity and ethnicity that make them such powerful elements of our social world? Given the difficulties institutions face when seeking to foster multi-ethnic democracies, there are good reasons as to why distinctions of identity have become so influential today.

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2.4 Identity

“Identity is a powerful organizing presence in social life today—a social fact, or so it would, at least, seem. Whether measured by the amount of energy individuals expend claiming, cultivating, expressing, or bemoaning the lack of it or by the amount of attention devoted to it by institutions that profess to address or are said to reflect popular interests and issues, it is clear that being, in the sense of belonging—to ethnic, national, religious, racial, indigenous, sexual, or any of a range of otherwise affectively charged, socially recognizable corporate groups—is among the most compelling of contemporary concerns” (Leve, 2011: 513).

Notions of identity are powerful drivers of global connection, violence, and confusion in our contemporary world. Amidst the uncertainty tied to the social organization of human beings, there is a growing pattern of attaining recognition (Appadurai, 2004) for the purpose of substantiating ownership and control over our social and natural worlds. In this sense, establishing recognition often requires the assertion of a singular identity -religious, ethnic, or otherwise- that (re)produces the assumption that the world can be neatly partitioned according to a singular and overarching system of social classification (Sen, 2007). This idea of global categorization has been partly built upon the denial of plural identities and the failure to recognize the multitude of ways in which individuals create and navigate complex social, political, and economic structures. Particularly in the years following the Cold War and the proliferation of international bodies of ‘democratic’ governance, identity has become a tool of transformation and development. Intersecting divisions that cut across and connect difference and sameness, identity is inescapably linked to the management of individual and collective interactions that prioritize some groups over others. Thus, the enactment and reproduction of social divisions then have the potential to become very real and tangible weapons of discrimination. It is at this juncture of identity that I study the ways in which ethnic communities in Nepal have responded to and navigated state and international development processes. The country has seen rapid transformation and “for nearly forty year Nepal’s modern political identity has been linked to global institutions of international development. During this time, the population has been exposed to a barrage of political rhetoric equating the legitimacy of the government with national unity on the one hand and national progress on the other” (Pigg 1992; Bauer 2004:97). In this way, “development is not only about the economic position of a nation-state relative to others: it is a crucial form of identity, a vision of cultural norms and ‘civilization’ in the postcolonial world” (ibid).

As there is certainly no shortage of academic work around the concept of identity, I will discuss a particular understanding of identity conceptualized by anthropologist, Lauren Leve, as quoted in the beginning of this section. I believe Leve’s epistemological analysis of identity helps to

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problematize the notion of identity within the contemporary development paradigm, pointing out the need to address injustices faced by marginalized communities and critique structures of exclusion and corruption (Leve, 2011). As Leve argues, identity plays a crucial role in advocating for social justice “from testifying in court on behalf of native peoples, to the swelling disciplinary interest in human rights and activism, to the continuing critiques of state violence and/or capitalist exploitation, to new explorations of indigeneity” (ibid, 514). In this sense, identity has become a useful tool through which different social groups gain recognition on regional, national and international platforms. However, as Leve argues, “identities in Nepal and other parts of the world today is much more than a sign of increasing freedom in the world; it is the sign of a highly successful global governance strategy” (ibid, 520). Leve uses the concept of the identity machine to express how liberal and neoliberal forms of political-economic rationality creates “an identitarian grammar that reshapes preexisting forms of sociality and/or fabricates new ones…by offering incentives to organize one’s own and others’ ‘identities’ in particular ways-most powerfully, the promise of recognition and support form the state, transnational civil society, or both” (ibid, 519). Leve uses the example of Nancy Postero’s analysis of the Bolivian multicultural citizenship strategy of the 1990’s, which recognized indigenous people as corporate groups in order to grant land rights under the provision of the centralized state. Postero describes this instance as the site at which the “‘push from below’ meets ‘incorporation from above’” (Postero 2006:13). Both Leve and Postero frame the concepts of identity, state making, and development as inter-linking components of the neoliberal project, composed of a dichotomous tension between powerful democratic institutions and less-powerful subjects of state control. Although this theoretical framework is useful when thinking about how development projects can reaffirm dangerous social stigmas, it is limiting in the sense that it renders invisible areas of local agency, and implies a lack of choice in the making of identities.

In his book, Identity and Violence, Amartya Sen (2007) argues that “along with the recognition of the plurality of our identities and their diverse implications, there is a critically important need to see the role of choice in determining the cogency and relevance of particular identities which are inescapably diverse” (4). Sen asserts that individuals are constantly in situations where they must make important decisions, sometimes implicitly, about which identities to prioritize and the consequences of aligning with one over another. Although this argument implies that there is a freedom of choice, it is not to say there are not particular constraints that limit individual agency. As there remain limitations to every decision, it important not to lose sight of how individuals navigate structures of identity, how they are embodied, and where they contradict. When thinking about the element of choice in relation to identity, Sen’s analysis is a useful tool to acknowledge not only the plurality of identity, but the element of agency. This perspective is helpful to avoid falling victim to narrowly crafted interpretations of identity as a negotiation between top vs. bottom or powerful vs. powerless. It is important to note here that this notion of plurality within the identity debate is not new. Chantal Mouffe (1992) argues that, “the social agent is constructed by a diversity of discourses among which there is no necessary relation but a

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constant movement of overdetermination and displacement…the identity of such a multiple and contradictory subject is therefore always contingent and precarious…” (28). Along with the plurality of identity, is the need to explore choice and agency within this debate.

A good example of local agency within the identity paradigm is Megan Moodie’s (2015) analysis of the Dhaka Scheduled Tribe (ST) in India. In her book, We Were Adivasi, Moodie illuminates the unique identity of the Dhanka tribe living in the Indian state of Rajasthan. The Dhanka are categorized as a Scheduled Tribe, or ST, proudly diverging from the traditional Indian caste system to envelop a stronger sense of collective aspiration and class mobility through specific marriage practices. As a scheduled tribe, the Dhanka men are provided with government jobs through the state’s affirmative action policies and in an attempt to secure the Dhanka’s unique socio-political positioning with Indian society, the Dhanka organize collective weddings. Also known as samuhik vivaha, the weddings work to assert their unique ‘tribal’ identity in a rapidly modernizing India. As the formal recognition of the Dhanka as a Scheduled Tribe relies on the Dhanka’s ability to prove their distinct indigeneity, the collective marriage ceremony has become an integral part of Dhanka culture and is meant to protect the group identity while cultivating the communities’ hope of a better life (Moodie 2015). It is in this context where the Dhanka marriage practices are placed within the broader sphere of social life, and although the women are participating, albeit obligated, in the collective aspiration of the tribe, it also acknowledges their limited ability to arrange the ceremony or their marriage partners. Much like Lauren Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism, which refers the thing that holds out the promise for a better life, is exactly what limits their lives (2011), Dhanka women are forced to enter into a domesticated lifestyle for the sake of their community. Although the Dhanka’s collective aspiration for a better future and assertion of their ‘tribalness’ both prove their identity as adivasis and their willingness to change under bureaucratic pressure, the consequences are multi-layered. It is clear through this analysis that a clear focus on agency and choice within the broader concept of identity and state making help to uncover areas of marginalization and negotiation taking place at a local level.

Linking to Moodie’s analysis of the Dhanka, Alpa Shah discusses indigenous politics in Jharkhand, India in her book In the Shadow of the State (2010), where the “performance of state exploitation is a crucial means through which the sadans maintain their local control over the state” (89). Shah explains the power dynamics playing out at a community level where elites have captured the role of the state in a strategic attempt to perpetuate notions of “a dangerous state, an exploitative monolith…to reinforce and even exaggerate the narrative of state exploitation” (ibid). The enactment of the state at a local level thus means elites are able to continue securing rights, benefits, and power through the exclusion of non-elite villagers. The marginalization and exclusionary practices taking place at this level hinges upon the illusion of the dangerous state and the misinformation that is culminated by elites in partnership with state officials. Fantasies of state control thus play an important role in the restructuring of local

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identities and community relationships, and should be understood as spaces of transformation where global discourses of power and control are used as tools of exclusion. Seen in the analyses of both Moodie and Shah, the arrangements of power and agency are much more complex than the reinforcement of state control vis-à-vis local compliance, and the simple replication of social systems.

Thus, the question remains whether the notion of identity as a subject of analysis can be conceptualized in ways that move away from state control. It is then necessary to think not in terms of sameness, individuality, or objective reality and move away from broader categories (Appadurai, 2004), to a way of reasoning with identity that does not implicitly set boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. Looking at spaces of friction opens discussions that contradict the notions of singular identities. Alpa Shah’s ethnographic study of Indian indigenous politics points to this very fact, that “while there are a variety of activists, and conflicts between them emerge, difference often get ironed out through a politics of inclusion and exclusion determined by the need to represent one rhetorical idea of Jharkhand’s history and identity” (Shah 2010:30). As Sen (2007) argues, “the hope of harmony in the contemporary world lies to a great extent in a clearer understanding of the pluralities of human identity, and in the appreciation that they cut across each other and work against a sharp separation along one single hardened line of impenetrable division” (140). The sense of plurality within structures of identity relies on the premise that globalization is not a story of the homogenization of culture. This presumption misleading implies that culture, as a noun, is a physical substance that “privileges the sort of sharing, agreeing, and bounding that fly in the face of the facts of unequal knowledge and the differential prestige of lifestyles, and to discourage attention to the worldviews and agency of those who are marginalized or dominated” (Appadurai 1996:12). When in fact, the most valuable element of culture is the ability to discover situated differences, contrasting perspectives, and alternative realities. When “stressing the dimensionality of culture rather than its substantiality permits our thinking of culture less as a property of individuals and groups and more as a heuristic device that we can use to talk about difference” (ibid). Approaching the study of culture and identity in this way, then substantiates the idea that ethnicity -being the idea of a naturalized group identity- is not a primordial attribute of human populations, but “an imaginative construction and mobilization of differences as its core” (ibid). It is from these theoretical approaches surrounding globalization, recognition, and identity that I attempt to understand the concept of ethnicity and agency, which will be discussed in the following sections.

2.5 Ethnicity

“Acknowledging that ethnicity is inevitably constructed is not the end of the story but the beginning of understanding the ongoing, radically real life of such constructions today for the people who inhabit them” (Shneiderman 2014:280).

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In 1969, Fredrick Barth set the stage for a new wave of ethnic studies, which has influenced many theoretical debates today. In his essay, Barth makes two important distinctions based on ethnic boundaries. The first being that clear boundaries do not cease to exist when individuals move within and outside different ethnic groups, “but do entail social process of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories (Barth, 1969:10). Secondly, “ethnic distinctions do not depend on the absence of social interaction and acceptance...cultural differences can persist despite inter-ethnic contact and interdependence” (ibid). Theoretical debates over ethnicity have since transcended temporal and spatial boundaries to argue that ethnicity is “more corporate, more commodified, more implicated than ever before in the economics of everyday life…[and] cultural identity…represents itself ever more as two things at once: the object of choice and self-construction, typically through the act of consumption, and the manifest product of biology, genetics, human essence” (Comaroffs, 2009:23). Critiquing this study of ethnicity in relation to the state and market, Shneiderman (2014) urges researchers to broaden the ethnicity discussion to explore how recognition of the divine world and ritualized actions have contributed to new understandings of ethnicity in Nepal. With this in mind, I would like to bring this debate into my own work to re-open discussions regarding ethnic and class divisions.

In the decade that followed Barth’s study, Andras Hofer’s (1979) work on ethnicity and caste hierarchies helped to uncover the diversity and contextualize ethnic identity in the case of Nepal. Between Hindu versus Buddhist, tribe versus caste, lowland versus mountain populations, the ethnic relations we see in contemporary Nepal are said to be “the outcome of a historical process of accommodation between cultural systems and the policies of a centralizing state” (Levine 1987:71; Bauer, 2004). Ethnic and caste distinctions have persisted in Nepal since the late 18th century when the country was territorially unified in the year 1789 (Hofer, 1979). During this time, the government of Nepal implemented the caste system within a codified framework (Muluki Ain) to unify the country as politically independent, while establishing a social order among various culturally distinct populations. The caste system thus became an integral part of daily social life for Nepalese, dictating physical contact, criminal punishment, land use, and trading rights (Levine, 1987). Reinforcing policies that favored groups primarily conforming to Hindu beliefs, the state was able to control ethnic boundaries through the establishment of relationships and non-relationships between different caste and ethnic groups in relation to the central state. Despite the New National Code (Naya Muluki Ain), established in 1963, which attempted to abolish the classificatory system, ethnic distinctions continue to influence political engagements and economic ties between different groups, and perpetuate inequalities and violence throughout the country (Pherali, 2014).

An important historical shift took place in the 1990’s in relation to ethnic distinctions, identity, and caste hierarchies that had been largely uninterrupted throughout the former regimes of

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Nepal. Beginning with the Shah Kings (1768-1845), the Ranas (1846-1950), the Panchas (1960-1990) and the parliamentary party leaders (1951-1959 and 1990-2006)- regimes have “promoted a homogenous, monolithic and unitary state by sanctioning and promoting only one language (Nepali), one caste group (Hill Brahmin and Chhetri) and one religion (Hinduism)” (Hachhethu et al., 2008:4). Beginning in 1990, Nepal re-established a multiparty democracy, recognizing the country as ethnically diverse but failing to implement clear policy objectives to address inequality. Although minority groups continued to face discrimination from the central government, this shift in power became an important political opportunity to form alliances, and challenge the nationalist policies that favored a unified, single-language Nepalese identity. This new political freedom combined with a long history of oppression and discrimination, led to the violent uprisings during what was deemed the People’s War (1996-2006). The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) waged a war against the state in an attempt to overthrow the oppressive government and liberate the country. Central to their goal of liberation, was “the need to overturn centuries of ethnic- and caste-based marginalization” (Shneiderman 2013:43). In order to achieve such a goal, Maoists strategically consulted with ethnic minorities and lower-caste groups in solidarity against the central government, forging alliances across the country. Comprised of mostly “young people from indigenous nationalities, down-trodden castes and unjustly marginalized ethnic groups” (Lawoti, 2008), the People’s War continued until the official signing of a peace agreement in 2006 ceased active violence. Although the conflict formally ended, the aftermath of a decade-long civil war continues to reverberate throughout Nepal as political and civil unrest continue.

Despite recent development and humanitarian relief efforts to rebuild infrastructure and stimulate peace building within the country, Nepal continues to struggle against structural injustices within a heterogeneous social climate. In the face of growing uncertainty along social and cultural divisions, “ethnic violence, as a form of collective violence, is partly a product of propaganda, rumor, prejudice, and memory-all forms of knowledge and all usually associated with heightened conviction, conviction capable of producing inhumane degrees of violence” (Appadurai, 1998:225). Ethnic groups in Nepal have been largely under-represented in national policy. Caught between the chasm of limited visibility and socio-political structures that (re)produce class hierarchies, the positions of ethnic populations are of the most socially, politically, and economically marginalized groups. Recent attempts to remediate issues related to the instability of ethnic populations’ position within the country, referred to as “ethnic restructuring” or Nepal’s “classificatory moment” (Shneiderman 2013), have increasingly gained attention over the past decade. Beginning “with the recognition of adivasi janajati, or ‘indigenous peoples’, as a legal category with the 2002 passage of the National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) Act, the Nepali state, international actors, and ethnic subjects themselves have developed a range of strategies to codify identities for political purposes” (ibid, 43). In 2004, a nongovernmental organization known as NEFIN- the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities- created a new system of classification to officially recognize various ethnic

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populations on a continuum from highly marginalized to advantaged groups (ibid). As projects to solidify classification and recognition continue today, both by state representatives, non-state actors, and indigenous actors themselves, ethnic boundaries have only been hardened. As I discussed earlier, Nepal’s classificatory projects show similar signs of negotiation between cultural practices and state policy initiatives that were present in Moodie’s (2012) analysis of the Dhanka Scheduled Tribe in India, and brings into question the role of social scientists within this process. With this in mind, I would like to shift to a discussion on the underlying mechanisms and motivations that have made this condition of marginality possible.

2.6 Problematizing Marginality

From the previous discussions on the broader concepts of identity, ethnicity, and state making projects in Nepal, I would like to bring these components together to concentrate my research on the study of how particular ethnic populations navigate the (re)structuring of their communities by both global and local actors. My interest in this topic stems from the paradoxical nature of recognition that works to seek justice for the oppressive circumstances faced by minority groups, and simultaneously reinforce existing boundaries of identification and marginality. My question then deals with how social science research, and development projects in Nepal, can address issues of marginality without themselves contributing to the process. It is at this conjuncture that Tania Li’s analysis of indigenous populations in Indonesia is relevant. Li outlines Indonesian indigenous groups’ attempts to articulate notions of democracy, citizenship, and development in an attempt to expose the New Order post-Suharto state’s failure to deliver successful development programs. It is through this process that new moments of opportunity emerge through “the potential for the development of a broad social movement, which urban activists and rural people can begin to articulate shared interests” (Li, 2000:174). Accounting for the dangers of classificatory attempts, Li’s analysis helps to engage with how indigenous groups have been able to use certain articulations of marginalized identities to gain more political authority and control over the decisions that shape their futures. In Nepal, one such example of this is Susan Hangen’s (2002) analysis of the Mongol National Organization’s use of race as a political mobilizer in eastern Nepal in the 1990’s. This case, and others like it, links to the assertion that “such engagements can provide potential pathways for members of marginalized communities, variously defined, to develop strategies for negotiating the terms of their own recognition” (Shneiderman 2013:42; Appadurai 2004).

It is within this line of thought, that an awareness of nonscalability (Tsing, 2012) is helpful to avoid thinking of marginality as the only way to understand cultures on the periphery. As Tsing argues, “scalability is possible only if project elements do not form transformative relationships that might change the project as elements are added. But transformative relationships are the medium for the emergence of diversity. Scalability projects banish meaningful diversity, which is to say, diversity that might change things” (ibid, 507). In other words, recognizing

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nonscalability in relation to identity is helpful for reasons that are two-fold. Firstly, it problematizes ways of studying identity that seek to implicitly reason with narrowly-defined terms of recognition in application to heterogeneous worlds. Secondly, the concept draws attention to diversity, as hidden areas of friction are made visible. Friction, as an analytical lens, “reminds us that heterogeneous and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of culture and power” (Tsing, 2005:4). In this sense, friction is not defined as resistance but instead “makes global connection powerful and effective…causing everyday malfunctions as well as unexpected cataclysms (Tsing, 2005:6). The concepts of nonscalability and friction thus help to draw attention to sites of glocal engagement, where overarching systems of classification have been diversely contextualized and manipulated from within local contexts to forge new paths towards social justice. It is from this perspective that conflicts culminating from uneven globalization have blurred the spatial and scalar boundaries between the ‘state’ and the ‘local’, “drawing attention to crucial mechanisms of governmentality that take place outside of, and alongside, the nation-state” (Ferguson, Gupta 2002:995).

In response to the question I posed earlier, referring to how social science research pertaining to marginalized populations can overcome normative discourses, I found Donna Haraway’s theory of situated knowledges a relevant way to think about broadly defined concepts of identity, ethnicity, and indigineity within particular contexts. Haraway’s analysis seeks to hold scientific research accountable “for translations and solidarities linking cacophonous visions and visionary voices that characterize the knowledges of the subjugated…seek[ing] those ruled by partial sight and limited voice for the sake of the connections and unexpected openings situated knowledges make possible” (Haraway 1988:590). In conversation with the idea of situated knowledges, and rethinking development, Arturo Escobar similarly argues that, “instead of searching for grand alternative models or strategies, what is needed is the investigation of alternative representations and practices in concrete local settings, particularly as they exist in contexts of hybridisation, collective action, and political mobilisation” (Escobar 1995:19). Recognizing the permeability of identities, such as caste, ethnicity, and gender, may disrupt dominant discourses that oppose the transient yet situated nature of identity.

2.7 Social Navigation

Finally, I bring together the above theoretical discussions to a focus on agency, in order to conceptualize ethnic identities as a construct that does not rely entirely on state making processes. To do so, I use Henrik Vigh’s (2009) concept of social navigation to emphasize individual and community agency that can recreate, influence, and resist international and state development. Vigh’s concept of social navigation “entails simultaneously moving toward a distant future location or condition (that is, moment toward future positions and possibilities), and making one’s way across immediate and proximate oncoming changes and forces” (256). It is thus helpful to understand how “our environments and futures are…contingent upon our

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knowledge of the past, our experience of the here and now, as well as the emergent or potential possibilities and difficulties within it” (ibid). This type of social navigation is an important element of analysis when examining how individuals make decisions that will affect their futures, and address underlying political tensions and negotiations taking place at a community level.

As is often the case, local politics are at risk of being undervalued and misinterpreted by development agencies and governments who inadequately perceive rural or peripheral communities as homogenous and elusive. Observing how individuals move through their social environments will help to uncover more nuanced understandings of identity that point to the collective nature of navigation. Individuals who are presumed to move in isolation from a broader network of social relations, “is cultural fiction, and he or she who is presumed to be a member of ‘a culture’ and who lives his or her life as a continuous, directed person” is not entirely correct (Strathern 1992). Although individual agency is an important part of this dissertation, the narratives that I will present are embedded within an assemblage of actors both on a local and international level. Advocating for recognition, state support, or equal representation is often done collectively, and requires careful planning and mobilization. Therefore, it is particularly important to analyze inter-group conflict, motivations, and the general means through which community movements are constructed in order to avoid painting a picture of local resistance vis-à-vis the state.

Similar studies have been done on this topic that reject notions that out-of-the-way populations are simply transformed by the introduction of modernity and state control. For example, Hjorleifur Jonsson (2005) conducted ethnographic research among the Mien hill people in northern Thailand. Jonsson argues that the Mien’s willingness to embody certain practices of the modern state, such as tourism, sporting events, and political protests, implicates their struggle for autonomy and threatens their ‘Mien-ness’. However, Jonsson rejects the “notion of up-lander’s isolation from the dynamics of history and politics prior to the colonial period” (ibid, 19) and argues that the Mien have been affected by thousands of years of interaction in a multiethnic contact zone. Skillfully combining history and contemporary development politics, Jonsson engages with different ways of understanding the identities of minority populations. Thus, it is not so important to argue whether the concept of the state is growing weaker in our globalizing world, or whether it remains a relevant ways of organizing our social world, but as to how “states spatialize their authority and to stake their claims to superior generality and universality” (Ferguson & Gupta 2002:996). Recognizing this could lead to other understandings of governmentality that “operates by educating desires and configuring habits, aspirations and beliefs (Li, 2007:275) within different spheres of public and private life. In order to do so, it will be important to understand how individuals and communities react to, experience, and engage with the socio-political changes.

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Within the concept of social navigation, and the above discussion on the individual and collective nature of navigation, it is also important to acknowledge internal arrangements of power. As Alpa Shah observed in rural Jharkhand, India, “revolutionary claims for the development and liberation of the poor…appear through the class hierarchy of rural elites…reproducing the processes through which those at the bottom of the social hierarchy…remain marginalized” (2010: 3270). As Shah claims, development efforts, as well intentioned as they seem, are also sites where instances of marginalization and corruption occur both within and outside of state structures. Sherry Ortner explores internal groups conflict in more depth within her concept of resistance and ethnographic refusal. Ortner argues, “individual acts of resistance, as well as large-scale resistance movements, are often themselves conflicted, internally contradictory, and affectively ambivalent, in large part due to these internal political complexities” (1995:179). Stemming from this theory, my fieldwork took place at a community level in order to trace the nuances of political consciousness and identity and avoid simply equating agency to resistance, which can obscure the relationship between moments of resistance and everyday forms of agency. I believe taking this approach is justified as the “margins are not simply peripheral spaces…they determine what lies inside and out…they run through the political body of the state…[and] are pathologized through carious kinds of power/knowledge practices, they do not just submit to these conditions passively” (Das & Poole 2003:19).

It is thus important to consider the destructive side of development that “can effectively squash political challenges to the system…by casting political questions of land, resources, jobs or wages as technical ‘problems’ response to the technical ‘development’ intervention. If the effect of a ‘development project’ ends up forming any kind of strategically coherent or intelligible whole…it seems to suspend politics from even the most sensitive political operations at the flick of a switch” (Ferguson 1994:180). The recognition of development as having the ability to work as an “anti-politics machine” (ibid) exposes how the misappropriation of resources and exclusionary practices occur on multiple levels. As Druzca (2016) argues, donor agencies must understand that the concept of identity is highly political and therefore, priorities and relationships will remain in constant flux. The need to address this issue requires the recognition of the factors that affect their decisions and who are the ones being represented. In other words, “development partners have to understand that they are unable to determine whether a settlement is ‘inclusive enough’ or whether a regime is sufficiently developmental to bring about stability when a biased workforce advises them” (ibid, 21). Therefore, viewing a group’s identity from a singular or binding perspective obstructs the peace building process in so-called “post”-conflict societies such as, Nepal, and advocates for the continued marginalization of alternative ontologies within the development paradigm. In the context of my research, it will be crucial to analyze how the assemblages of state and non-state actors classify and re-classify perceptions of identity and development, and more importantly how individuals and communities navigate these engagements. Using social navigation as a vehicle through which to comprehend agency, I explore how individual decisions intersect with community level politics and external

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development actors and discourse, and how these factors affect notions of identity and belonging.

2.8 Conclusion to Theoretical Framework

To conclude this chapter, I have identified the need to explore the concepts of identity and ethnicity as fluid constructs that are at once a political tool as well as a structure of belonging. Furthermore, I explore the concept of ethnic identities from a community perspective to understand processes of social change that are not inherently tied to state politics. By deploying this analytical framework, I address the issue of recognition as far more complex than the normative notion of ethnic communities vis-à-vis ‘the state’. In doing so, I intend to outline local community perceptions of national politics, development, and social change to show how individuals on the so-called ‘periphery’ navigate challenges associated with their changing social, political, and economic livelihoods. The aim of this research is to challenge dominant perceptions of ethnic communities as isolated entities, and show how communities actively participate in national politics and global movements, while at the same time working to stabilize local economies and preserve their unique cultural knowledge.

3. Research Questions and Operationalization

3.1 Introduction

From the above theoretical chapter, my research questions are formed around the particular aspect of local agency as I try to understand processes related to globalization and state development from a community perspective. I attempt to draw from theories that do not present globalization as a new phenomenon, nor as inherently linked to the nationalist politics. Although my main research is formulated around state making development practice and discourse, I use this as a starting point from which to discuss more actor-centered and locally-grounded issues. For this reason, my sub-questions break down the concepts of social navigation and state making development to focus on perceptions of the state, instances of misrepresentation, and the recognition of cultural knowledge. This is important for reasons that are two-fold. Firstly, the misconception that Lower Mustang has remained unchanged obstructs development processes and scholarly analyses of social change. Secondly, issues pertaining to identity are best understood from the near view, within the structures of community politics and belonging, and embedded in a network of translocal actors. Lastly, my research questions are formulated with particular reference to the current political transformations occurring throughout Nepal, and the fact that national debates over ethnic federalism remain a central point of concern today.

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3.2 Research Question

How do communities navigate the politics of recognition associated with state making development practice and discourse?

3.3 Research Sub Questions

How do processes of globalization and development intersect with the practices of Lower Mustang communities, and how are these changes perceived at a local level?

How do histories of misrepresentation in Lower Mustang influence local development and the formal recognition of communities?

How do individuals navigate the lack of recognition, specifically within the practice of Sowa Rigpa, and what does this mean for the future of the practice and of the region?

3.4 Operationalization of Research Questions

Prior to the methodology chapter, it will be important to outline the operationalization of my aforementioned research questions. Initially, I designed sets of questions that connected directly to the theoretical dimensions and focused respectively on development politics, state building processes, and local perceptions of identity and representation. These questions proved too rigid, therefore, I created new questions to fit around the themes that emerged from initial conversations and observations in the field. I based these new questions on the operationalization scheme2 and created an interview guide3 that focused around community perceptions of development, state restructuring, local politics, ethnic identities, and stories of misrepresentation and nonrecognition. Using these new questions, I was able to gauge more generally the sentiments around state development in Nepal, and local implications of these changes. From there, interviewees naturally discussed their opinions and experiences with various state and nonstate development actors and projects that had occurred over the past decade. These questions then lead to the more individual stories of political representation, and the overall recognition of ethnic identities in the region. Finally, I explored the particular perceptions and tensions over identity and cultural knowledge in Lower Mustang, both linked to state development and the general social changes taking place, of which connects more specifically to the theme of social navigation and agency.

2_{See Appendix 10.1}