Tibet Himalaya Initiative, , and the are co-hosting Socio-cultural Anthropologist,听, on Friday, October 7 at 4pm in HALE 230. The title of her talk is:听Restructuring Life: Citizenship, Territory and Religiosity in Nepal鈥檚 State of Transformation.听Professor听Shneiderman's听research explores the relationships between political discourse, ritual action, and cross-border mobility in producing ethnic identities and shaping social transformation. She is the author of the book听 (2015), which is a听transnational study of the relationships between mobility, ethnicity, and ritual action.
Abstract of the talk:
How do we imagine the ideal state that we aspire to live in? In the wake of a decade-long civil conflict between Maoist and state forces, citizens of Nepal had the rare opportunity to do just this through a process of 鈥減ost-conflict鈥� state restructuring between 2006-2015.听I argue that a听widespread sense of positive social transformation experienced during this period of political liminality directly affected responses to the crises of 2015: earthquakes and a new, imperfect constitution. Through an ethnographic exploration of the administrative and affective domains of citizenship, territory, and religiosity during Nepal鈥檚 ongoing transformation, I revisit anthropological questions听about the relationships between imaginaries of structure and order on the one hand, and political aspiration, mobilization, and revolution on the other.听This ethnography of restructuring suggests that the emergent state of Nepal is at once a deeply sovereign, and globally produced, form that offers insights into broader debates over the nature of 鈥渢he political鈥� today.
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