Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies News

HIMALAYA 44.2 Published

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 23:09:46 GMT

This issue of HIMALAYA brings together scholarship attentive to moments of rupture, endurance, and creative response across the Himalayan region. Spanning Nepal, Ladakh, Bhutan, and the western and eastern Himalaya of India, the contributions examine how political unrest, ecological transformation, migration, and ritual life are lived and interpreted on the ground. Articles in this volume explore ghost narratives and gendered anxieties in Nepal, the commodification of conservation in Ladakh, gossip as ritual critique among Newar Buddhists, food as a medium of transnational connection for Bhutanese migrants, and the transmission of sacred artistic traditions in Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh. Together with a conference report on plural medical worlds and a set of book and film reviews, the issue foregrounds ethnographic specificity while engaging broader debates about authority, care, heritage, and movement. Taken as a whole, Volume 44, Number 2 offers a portrait of Himalayan life shaped not by timelessness, but by ethical tension, historical depth, and the persistent effort to make meaning amid uncertainty.

Published: January 23, 2026

HIMALAYA Vol. 43, No.2 published

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 13:03:07 GMT

As HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, celebrates its 52nd year, we are thrilled to present Volume 43, Issue 2, Autumn 2024. This issue is especially notable because it features the unique collection ‘Himalayan Flashes: Regional Ethnography in Short Form’, co-edited by Sienna R. Craig and Carole McGranahan. The collection emerges from a new wave of ethnographic writing that values brevity without sacrificing depth or nuance. Curated from sessions at leading conferences, these flash ethnographies offer powerful glimpses into the social and cultural landscapes of the Himalayan region, spanning from Nepal’s highlands to urban environments in the United States. Despite their concise format, these essays resonate with rich insights, making this issue a landmark in the journal’s history and in the broader field of Himalayan studies. This issue also carries five research articles, one photo essay, one conference report, and one film and two book reviews.

Call for Applications | 2024 Dor Bahadur Bista Prize

Sun, 07 Jul 2024 21:42:21 GMT

⭐️ *Deadline of August 30 is Fast Approaching*
ANHS-Himalaya is accepting applications for the 2024 Dor Bahadur Bista Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper. For details: https://anhs-himalaya.org/awards/bista-prize

The Winners of the 2024 Himalayan Studies Fellowships

Sat, 25 May 2024 20:13:27 GMT

ANHS congratulates the winners of the 2024 ANHS Himalayan Studies Fellowships. In this cycle, we awarded one post-PhD Fellowship ($4500) and one pre-PhD Fellowship ($4500) in Himalayan Studies funded by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC). We're also proud to support one pre-PhD Fellowship ($4500) from our own operational budget.

Learn more at: https://anhs-himalaya.org/fellowship/past_winners

We will announce the next 2025 cycle in 2024 Fall session with the target deadline of February 2025. Stay tuned.

Through the Himalayan Studies Fellowships, ANHS support research or other scholarly projects that will advance knowledge of the Himalayan region and support the broad mission of this organization dedicated to Nepal and Himalayan Studies.

Announcement of the Winner of the James Fisher Prize 2023

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 10:18:40 GMT

Winner of the 2023 ANHS James Fisher Book Prize is:

Alison Melnick Dyer

Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Bates College

For her book:

The Tibetan Nun Mingyur Peldron: A Woman of Power and privilege. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022.

This book tells the remarkable story of Mingyur Peldron, nun and teacher at Mindrolling Monastery in Central Tibet during the 18th century flourishing of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. The primary source informing the account is the namtar, devotional life history, written by one of Mingyur Peldron’s disciples. Historian Alison Melnick Dyer interprets Mingyur Peldron’s namtar in relation to myriad supplementary archival materials to create an extraordinary account of how women exercise authority in the context of Tibetan Buddhist monastic life. The translations are beautifully rendered and the analysis of Peldron’s teaching and leadership offers novel insights on gender dynamics at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism.

ANHS is acknowledging as the 2023 honorary mention:

Kyle J. Gardner,

For his book:

The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846-1962. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

The Frontier Complex powerfully documents the making of Ladakh’s northern border by colonial British administrators, geographers, and frontier "experts". Repeated border-making attempts slowly transformed the space of Ladakh from a market crossroads to a security zone serving a crucial role in the formation of the British imperial frontier. In fact, however, the application of 19th-century imperial geographic science failed to yield clear demarcations of territory—a legacy bequeathed to the postcolonial Indian state. The failure by British colonialists to create a suitable border manifests today in India’s 21st-century border disputes with China and Nepal. Drawing on a vast range of archival materials in multiple languages, historian Kyle J. Gardner furnishes a conception of geopolitics rooted in the politics of space that can inform a critical understanding of contested postcolonial borderlands across the Himalayas and beyond.

Call for Applications | 2024 Himalayan Studies Fellowships

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 14:39:52 GMT

ANHS is pleased to announce its annual Himalayan Studies Fellowships. These awards support research or other scholarly projects that will advance knowledge of the Himalayan region and support the broad mission of ANHS:

To promote research, teaching, and outreach activities to increase the understanding of the Himalaya and adjacent mountain regions and to promote scholarly exchanges between the United States and citizens of countries in the region.

All ANHS Himalayan Studies Fellowship applicants must be active members of the ANHS or scholars affiliated with an ANHS institutional member.

Deadline: 01 March, 2024 (11:59 PM US Pacific Time) with an anticipated award date of 01 April, 2024.

Details available at: https://anhs-himalaya.org/awards/HSfellowship/2024

HIMALAYA Vol. 43, No.1 published

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 19:32:11 GMT

We are very pleased to introduce a second special issue of HIMALAYA in 2023, in this instance titled “Writing with Care: Ethnographies from the Margins of Tibet and the Himalayas”. Curated by guest editors Harmandeep Kaur Gill and Theresia Hofer, this issue is an important contribution to a relatively recent, more conscious, effort to diversify and deepen the discourse within area studies, emphasising the voices and perspectives of ordinary people, and especially of those living at the margins of mainstream society.

The guest editors have brought together a collection that challenges and rearticulates social categories like gender, class, and disability. They emphasize the need to look beyond fixed generalizations and to embrace the complexities and contradictions of individual lives. This approach, rooted in feminist and decolonial methodologies, not only enriches our academic understanding but also connects us more deeply with the human aspects of the subjects we study. Writing with care, as the guest editors put, is to ‘enable the reader to connect with people as individual personalities and not merely as members of social and third-person categories.’

HIMALAYA Vol. 42, No.2 published

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 22:00:16 GMT

We are delighted to present this special issue, Vol. 42.2.,guest edited by Stephen Christopher and Peter Phillimore, focusing on the Gaddi community of the Western Himalayas. This volume brings together anthropologists from various generations and a historian, presenting a myriad of perspectives on Gaddis that offer insights into changes in their identity, beliefs, marital customs, politics, and livelihoods. We are confident that researchers across the Himalayas will find this compilation beneficial, aiding in discussions on identity, politics, belonging, and livelihoods of other tribal and mountain groups. The editors of this Special Issue note a scarcity of research on Gaddis, especially conducted by Gaddis themselves. However, they anticipate Gaddi social scientists will produce scholarship from their own perspectives in the near future.

Special Issue Cover Image:

Reeta Purhaan, a Gaddi folk singer, participating in the 2020 #challengeaccepted social media campaign of women posting black-and-white selfies to show global solidarity. In 2023, Reeta began a PhD at The Central University of Punjab.

HIMALAYA Vol. 42, No.1 published

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 08:55:38 GMT

It is our pleasure to introduce the first issue of HIMALAYA’s 42nd volume! It features two short pieces by Jacki Betsworth and Terri Fishel reflecting in what we might call its ‘golden decade’ at Macalester College (2009-2019). In our research articles section, Arjun Guneratne navigates the "Fate of a Text" amidst change, while Aditya Kiran Kakati scrutinises the "Elephant in the Room". The joint piece by Zezhou Yang and Tianyi Chen provides intriguing insights into transcultural trajectories of Arniko. In "Buddhist Values as Legal Values in the Constitution of Bhutan" Michaela Windischgraetz explores the relationship between national legal order and Buddhism in Bhutan. Sofie Dalum Kjærgaard and Sarmila Chaudhary offers insights on how the Nepali government’s focus on the politics of controlling the Covid-19 pandemic in Nepal. Vineet Gairola and Shubha Ranganathan explore in their article and accompanying photo essay the history and transition of worshiping practices in the Garhwal Himalaya. The photo essay by Oinam Premchand Singh documents the extant craft of cord-marked pottery in the hills of northeastern India. Thank you for reading HIMALAYA!

Call for Applications | 2023 Himalayan Studies Fellowships

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 17:07:55 GMT

The Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS) is pleased to announce its annual Himalayan Studies Fellowships for the support of short-term research or other scholarly projects that will advance knowledge of the Himalaya-Karakoram-Hindukush regions. Projects may be from any scholarly discipline, addressing any aspect of Himalayan Studies.

The ANHS offers two $1500 fellowships, one for pre-PhD students and one for scholars who have earned their PhD. Applicants for the pre-PhD fellowship must provide documentation that they are an enrolled graduate or professional student in good standing with their institution. Applicants for the post-PhD fellowship must hold a PhD or equivalent terminal professional degree by the time of submission. The application deadline is 15 February, 2023 with an anticipated award date of 15 March, 2023.

All Himalayan Research Fellowship applicants must be active members of the ANHS or scholars affiliated with an ANHS institutional member. The fellowship is open to all individuals regardless of citizenship. The awarded fellows will be responsible for obtaining visa and research permission as necessary.

Applicants should provide the following:

A current CV
Research or project proposal that should include the following:
- Title
- A 250-word abstract of the research or project, suitable for use on the ANHS website
- A 1500-word statement describing the nature of the proposed research or project, including the discipline(s) to which it speaks, methodologies used, and contribution it will make to Himalayan studies
- Location(s) where the research or project will be conducted and timeline for conducting the research
- Budget with allowable expenses: economy class travel, food & lodging, visa expenses. Please also note any other grant applications submitted or received which will be used to support this work.
- Proof of student status (for pre-PhD awards) or postdoctoral / professional status (for post-PhD awards)

All application material should be sent electronically to Chair, Himalayan Research Fellowship Award: fellowships@anhs-himalaya.org

Research or projects funded by this Himalayan Studies Fellowship must be completed and a final summary report of 1000 words must be submitted by January 1, 2024. This final report should be suitable for online publication; it, together with the submission of a brief budgetary accounting, will be kept as part of ANHS’s institutional records. Any requests for no-cost extensions of a Himalayan Studies Fellowship will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

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More about the Himalayan Studies Fellowships

Call for Applications | 2023 Dor Bahadur Bista Prize

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 16:57:17 GMT

ANHS is now accepting applications for the 2023 Dor Bahadur Bista Pirze for the Best Graduate Student Paper. This prize recognizes outstanding scholarship by graduate student who research focuses on the Himalayan region. Deadline is July 30, 2023. Learn more at the Bista Prize section on our website.

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Learn more about the Dor Bahadur Bista Prize

HIMALAYA Vol. 41, N. 2 Published

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 22:34:51 GMT

As our 50th year of publishing research on Nepal and the Himalayas draws to a close, we are proud to bring issue 41.2 to our readers across the globe. In this issue we feature a special section edited by former HIMALAYA editor Arjun Guneratne featuring three articles on Tharu Identity. And we follow these with four omnibus articles touching on themes of caste, Tibetan pilgrimage, kinship, and identity. We have a perspective piece by long-term contributor Geoff Childs, a wonderful photo essay by Paola Tiné, and a rich selection of seven book reviews. Finally, we are also very excited to include a conference report summarizing the recent Himalaya Studies Conference, organized by the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS), and held at the University of Toronto from October 13-16. Thank you for reading HIMALAYA!

READ MORE

2022 James Fisher Book Prize Winner

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 17:17:52 GMT

ANHS is pleased to announce Intimate Geopolitics: Love, Territory, and the Future on India’s Northern Threshold by Sara Smith (University North Carolina, Chapel Hill) as the 2022 winner of the ANHS James Fisher Book Award. The James Fisher Prize honors the significant and substantive contributions of Dr. James Fisher to scholarship on the Himalayas, and it recognizes particularly outstanding first books on the region.

“This is a beautiful book. It starts with a love story between Muslim and Buddhist youth in Leh, in which “dire geopolitical potentials associated with their union” terminate a relationship and a pregnancy. Such marriages have become impossible in a region where religious and ethnic minorities experience existential vulnerability. The book develops a compelling, ethnographically rich argument about how geopolitical conflict rests in bodies, manifests in daily life, and how bodies in turn can become a terrain for forging territory, through intimacy, love and reproduction. The ethnographic detail furnishes a feminist theory of intimate geopolitics. We see how bodies can refuse to be “instrumentalized for territorial purposes;” or how they can become a “link between territory of today and territories of the future” (when marginalized groups experience existential uncertainty, they seek to manage the bodies of their youth as the occupants of future territory, in a dynamic that Smith calls “generational vertigo”). The book duly considers how a frame of intimate geopolitics might help understand other areas of the world, and Smith writes with a humility and reflexivity that builds the trust of readers.”

Honorable Mention

ANHS also congratulates Swargajyoti Gohain on receiving the 2022 Honorary Mention for the James Fisher Book Prize for Imagined Geographies in the Indo-Tibetan Borderlands: Culture, Politics Place.

About the James Fisher Book Prize

2022 Dor Bahadur Bista Prize

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 17:14:15 GMT

ANHS congratulates Daniel Loebell, who was selected as the winner of the 2022 Dor Bahadur. Bista Prize for his paper “Nepal: the BIT-less holdout among India's BRI Neighbours.”. The Dor Bahadur Bista Prize honors the life, career, and service of Dor Bahadur Bista, Nepal’s first anthropologist and former Honorary President of the ANHS predecessor organization, the Nepal Studies Association (NSA). This prize recognizes outstanding scholarship by graduate students in any discipline whose research focuses on the Himalayas.

Daniel Loebell’s paper explores why Nepal, unlike other India-contiguous neighbor states who are participating in the Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), does not have a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) with China. Nepal, also, is formally engaged with the BRI and actively seeks foreign direct investment, but will not sign a BIT with China. The author argues that the Nepali government’s reluctance stems neither from internal bureaucratic intrigues or its historic ties to India. Rather, Nepal has adopted a “Soft-Law” policy with all its neighbor-investors. Soft Law refers to guidelines, policy declarations, or codes of conduct which govern interactions between countries, but are not directly enforceable. Nepal seems to have adopted a Soft Law policy in order to have more flexibility in resolving disputes over investments with China or with other state investors.

About the Dor Bahadur Bista Prize

Accepting Nominations for the 2023 James Fisher Prize for First Book on the Himalayan Region

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 21:15:11 GMT

The Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS) is currently accepting nominations for the 2023 James Fisher Prize for First Books on the Himalayan Region. The prize honors the significant and substantive contributions of Dr. James Fisher to scholarship on the Himalayas, and it recognizes particularly outstanding first books on the region. Applicants in all disciplines are encouraged to apply.

LEARN MORE

PROGRAM UPDATE - Himalayan Studies Conference 6

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 20:38:26 GMT

The Conference Committee of the Himalayan Studies Conference 6 (HSC 6) has just posted a revised conference program with the panel and roundtable abstracts as well as the information about the conference venue and event locations. There are some significant updates to the schedule, so please check the program carefully.

HSC 6 Preliminary Program and Registration Deadlines

Sat, 27 Aug 2022 18:02:09 GMT

We are pleased to share the preliminary program for the Himalayan Studies Conference 6 in Toronto. You can also explore the different panels and roundtables on our website.

If you are participating in-person and want to take advantage of the pre-conference registration discount, visit our website to register before August 30, 2022. Afterwards, on-site registration at the conference registration desk will be available for in-person attendees at a higher rate.

Registration for remote participation will remain available until September 15, 2022.

Please note that if you are not already an ANHS member, you will need to become a member before registering for the conference. You can join ANHS by visiting the membership page.

If you have not yet registered for the conference because you are waiting to confirm travel plans (e.g. have applied for a visa but have not heard back yet), and you have not already been in touch with the conference organizers, please send an email to conference@anhs-himalaya.org.

Please feel free to share this in your network and social media.

The Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia edited volume book publication announcement

Sun, 14 Aug 2022 19:32:07 GMT

The Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia is the first comprehensive and critical overview of the ethnographic and anthropological work in Highland Asia over the past half a century. Opening up a grand new space for critical engagement, the handbook presents Highland Asia as a world-region that cuts across the traditional divides inherited from colonial and Cold War area divisions - the Indian Subcontinent/South Asia, Southeast Asia, China/East Asia, and Central Asia.

Thirty-two chapters assess the history of research, identify ethnographic trends, and evaluate a range of analytical themes that developed in particular settings of Highland Asia. They cover varied landscapes and communities, from Kyrgyzstan to India, from Bhutan to Vietnam and bring local voices and narratives relating trade and tribute, ritual and resistance, pilgrimage and prophecy, modernity and marginalization, capital and cosmos to the fore. The handbook shows that for millennia, Highland Asians have connected far-flung regions through movements of peoples, goods and ideas, and at all times have been the enactors, repositories, and mediators of world-historical processes. Taken together, the contributors and chapters subvert dominant lowland narratives by privileging primarily highland vantages that reveal Highland Asia as an ecumune and prism that refracts and generates global history, social theory, and human imagination. In the currently unfolding Asian Century, this compels us to reorient and re-envision Highland Asia, in ethnography, in theory, and in the connections between this world-region, made of hills, highlands and mountains, and a planetary context.

Edited by: Jelle J.P. Wouters and Michael T. Heneise

Learn More

CAORC Multi-Country Research Fellowship – Now Accepting Applications

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 20:44:33 GMT

The Multi-Country Research Fellowship is now accepting applications! This fellowship enables US scholars to carry out trans-regional and comparative research in countries across the network of Overseas Research Centers (ORCs), as well as other countries.

The Multi-Country Research Fellowship has been running since 1993 and supports advanced research in the humanities, social sciences, and allied natural sciences for US doctoral candidates, who are ABD (all but dissertation), and scholars who have earned their PhD. Scholars must carry out research in two or more countries outside the US, at least one of which must host a participating ORC. Applicants are eligible to apply as individuals or as teams and independent scholars are also welcome to apply. Approximately nine awards of $12,000 will be granted.

Each year the highest ranking Multi-Country Research Fellowship applicant will receive an additional $1,000 toward travel expenses through the Mary Ellen Lane Multi-Country Travel Award. The award is named after CAORC's founding director, Dr. Mary Ellen Lane.

Minority scholars and scholars from Minority-Serving Institutions are encouraged to apply.

Deadline: December 8, 2022

Application Guidelines:https://www.caorc.org/multi-fellowship-guidelines

Apply:https://orcfellowships.smapply.org/prog/caorc_multi-country_research_fellowship/

Questions: fellowships@caorc.org

FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES

2022 Dor Bahadur Bista Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper Contest

Tue, 24 May 2022 21:38:40 GMT

ANHS is now accepting submissions for the 2022 Dor Bahadur Bista Pirze for the Best Graduate Student Paper. This prize recognizes outstanding scholarship by graduate student who research focuses on the Himalayan region. Deadline is August 30. Learn more at the Bista Prize section in our ANHS-himalaya.org website.

Himalayan Studies Conference 6 (HSC6) - University of Toronto - October 13-16, 2022

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 17:25:00 GMT

The Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS) is pleased to announce that the Himalayan Studies Conference 6 (HSC6) will be held at the University of Toronto, on the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca and the Mississaugas of the Credit, from October 13–16, 2022.

The conference will be organized and hosted by the University of Toronto on behalf of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS).

Call for Papers: HSC 6_CFP_extended.pdf

Congratulations Kathryn March and David Holmberg!!

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 21:04:08 GMT

On December 11, 2021 Cornell anthropologists and long-term ANHS members David Holmberg and Kathryn March received the 2021 Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal. They received the Hillary Medal for their many decades of friendship and assistance to Nepal, and for their leadership in educational exchange programs. Professors Holmberg and March carried out field work among the Tamang of Nepal for more than forty years, documenting and preserving customs and beliefs. After the 2015 earthquakes, they raised thousands of dollars to help their Tamang friends rebuild their villages. Their achievements on behalf of highland communities of Nepal, and of the country itself, are truly exemplary.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION

HIMALAYA Vol. 40, N. 2 Published

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 17:21:58 GMT

We are pleased to bring to you Volume 40, Issue 2.

In this issue we include eight omnibus pieces, two beautiful photo essays, and eight book reviews, in addition to our regular conference report, president’s letter, and editorial. We also pay tribute to three remarkable scholars, Narpat Singh Jodha (1937–2020), Pradyumna Prasad Karan (1930–2018) and Theodore Riccardi, Jr. (1937–2020), who were larger-than-life figures in Himalayan studies, and who together leave us a remarkable body of scholarship that will continue to influence the field. Do also check us out on social media (@anhs_himalaya). Thank you for reading Himalaya.

Jeevan Sharma and Michael Heneise

Co-Editors, HIMALAYA

ANHS Awards

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 01:48:49 GMT

Calls for submissions are now open for two ANHS Awards. The due date for both awards is on Nov 15, 2021. Please see links below for more details:

1. The James Fisher Prize for First Books on the Himalayan Region

2. The Dor Bahadur Bista Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper

CAORC Multi-Country Research Fellowship - Now Accepting Applications

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 21:23:27 GMT

The CAORC Multi-Country Research Fellowship is now accepting applications! This fellowship enables US scholars to carry out trans-regional and comparative research in countries across the network of Overseas Research Centers (ORCs), as well as other countries. The Multi-Country Research fellowship program first launched in 1993 with fourteen ORCs participating. Now in its 28th year, the network has expanded to twenty-five ORCs who participate (with the exception of countries with travel restrictions).

The fellowship supports advanced research in the humanities, social sciences, and allied natural sciences for US doctoral candidates, who are 'all but dissertation', and scholars who have earned their PhD. Scholars must carry out research in two or more countries outside the US, at least one of which must host a participating ORC. Approximately nine awards of $11,500 will be granted.

Each year the highest ranking Multi-Country Fellowship applicant will receive an additional $1,000 toward travel expenses through the Mary Ellen Lane Multi-Country Travel Award. The award is named after CAORC's founding director, Dr. Mary Ellen Lane.

Minority scholars and scholars from Minority Serving Institutions are encouraged to apply.

Deadline: November 16, 2021

Fellowship Guidelines: Link

Questions: fellowships@caorc.org

Negotiating Invisibility at the Epicenter: Himalayan New Yorkers Confront Covid-19

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:51:31 GMT

Structural Inequality and Epidemiological Invisibility: Himalayan New Yorkers Respond to Covid-19

A project funded by the Social Science Research Council, with additional support from the Peter Wall Institute (UBC) and the SPARK Award from Dartmouth College

This project addresses the rapidly unfolding health, humanitarian, and socioeconomic crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic among communities of Himalayan New Yorkers who live and work at the epicenter of the current outbreak. Using daily auto-ethnographic video diaries, interviews, language mapping methodologies, and analysis of health messaging about Covid-19 from state, city, and community institutions as well as social media, this project responds to the SSRC call for research on how Covid-19 reflects social inequality and the uneven impacts across lines of race and ethnicity as well as the role of religious ideas, practices, and institutions in responding to the pandemic. So far, the most affected areas in New York are those that are most linguistically diverse. Drawing on anthropologies of global health and scholarship on migration, mobility, and diaspora with research on linguistic diversity and socioeconomic marginalization, our project asks how language and culture intersect with structural inequality to render a marginalized immigrant community, in a hyperdiverse urban context, “epidemiologically invisible” during a global pandemic. This project builds on long-term collaborations and relations of trust with members of the Himalayan New York community. Our research alliance has a proven track record of publications, funding, media impact, and visibility. This project leverages existing networks of community research associates and engaged scholarship; an ongoing language mapping project, itself emergent from a Languages of New York map and related research; ethnography conducted with Himalayan communities, both in New York City and in home countries; and the “Voices of the Himalaya” video storytelling project.

Link to SSRC Items article

Link to Asian Medicine Special Issue article, currently Open Access!

2020 Winner of the Dor Bahadur Bista Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 20:38:48 GMT

The Dor Bahadur Bista Prize honors the life, career, and service of Dor Bahadur Bista, Nepal’s first anthropologist and former Honorary President of the ANHS predecessor organization, the Nepal Studies Association (NSA). The purpose of the prize is to recognize outstanding scholarship by students whose research focuses on the areas of Himalayas. Submissions from all academic disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and arts will be accepted.

The winner of 2020 Dor Bahadur Bista Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper is Phurwa Dhondup Gurung. Phurwa is a PhD Student in the Department of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder. The title of his paper is: "Dispossessing while Decentralizing: Participatory Conservation as an Emergent Structure of Dispossession in the Himalayas".

Abstract:
Protected areas account for nearly a quarter of the total land area of Nepal and over a third of its entire Himalayan region. Despite the rhetoric of participatory conservation often used to justify fortress conservation, National Parks in Nepal remain firmly under the control of the central state and are governed by strict conservation policies implemented through a heavily militarized structures. Using a political ecology approach, this paper examines how and to what extent centralized conservation policies and the institutions of participatory conservation affect local socioecological lives in Dolpo, Nepal. I first provide a brief sketch of Shey Phoksundo National Park (SPNP) followed by an analysis of its role in monopolizing the governance of yartsa gunbu in Dho Tarap valley, Dolpo. Drawing from three-months of ethnographic field research at multiple field sites in the summer of 2019, as well as from my own engagements with Dolpo communities for over a decade, I argue that participatory conservation materializes on the ground as an emergent structure of dispossession— not only in terms of the extraction of resources like yartsa gunbu but also because of its role in displacing community-led resource governance. This paper contributes to the literature on conservation as government, the politics of decentralization in resource management, as well as the growing literature on the management of yartsa gunbu in the Himalayas.

2019 Winners of the James Fisher Prize for First Books

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 20:36:10 GMT

The James Fisher Prize for First Books on the Himalayan Region honors the scholarly contributions of Dr. James Fisher to scholarship on the region. The prize will recognize an outstanding first book on the Himalayan region, published within the past two years. Single or co-authored books will be accepted which have high quality of research, significant contribution to Himalayan Studies, notable innovation, and clarity of writing in the English language.

The ANHS Executive Council underwent a major turnover in 2020 and has been managing significant transitions for the Association over the last 18 months. Given also the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are announcing the 2019 award this year. We will soon solicit a call for books to be considered for both 2020 and 2021.

Congratulations to the 2019 James Fisher Prize winner Karine Gagné for her book Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals and Humanity in the Himalayas. This ethnography contributes to our understanding of human-environment relations in the Himalayan region, and employs novel theoretical interventions to do so. The book contributes to an understanding of ethics as informed by both practical activity in daily life, and beliefs about the nonhuman world. It engages the concept of an ethics of care by showing how the Ladakhi people sacrifice for the land, identify with a glacier, attend to domesticated animals, and cultivate knowledge about Ladakhi ecosystems. Based on year-round research in the Sham region of Ladakh, Gagne shows how caring for the land, glaciers, animals is a moral responsibility informed by religious ideas, but also by everyday life. In so doing she specifies a theory of the Anthropocene outside centres of global North knowledge production, where everyday human life engages nonhuman transitions at a key site manifesting contemporary geologic transformations. The book evokes a powerful moral and biophysical framework for the global call for care beyond humans, and points to critical questions about where the Indian state (and others) stands in relation to global discussions about the relationship between the human and the more-than-human.

In addition, the Prize Committee awards Honorable Mention to Stefan Fiol for his book Recasting Folk in the Himalayas: Indian Music, Media and Social Mobililty. Fiol illustrates through an ethnographic and historical study how folk music and the terminology of “folk” is conditioned by colonial, nationalist, and caste-based values and expectations. Spatially the book focuses on the Garhwal and Kumaon region in the Indian state of Uttarakhand In so doing it explores the everyday praxis of performers and performances in order to articulate the historical and contemporary “recasting” of folk in the Indian Himalayas. Specifically “folk” is recast via a politics of caste hierarchy—“lower-caste artisans from rural areas were celebrated as the source of the artistic heritage of the nation, but upper-caste artists were required to reform these raw materials and transform them into folklore.” Fiol thus reveals how the politics of folklorization itself is inherently interconnected with social status and mobility.

Statement on Nepal’s COVID-19 Crisis from the ANHS & an Open Letter to the White House: Prioritize Nepal for Immediate Vaccine Aid

Tue, 18 May 2021 22:08:00 GMT

Dear President Biden and Vice President Harris,

We are writing on behalf of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS), the oldest academic institution in the United States devoted to the study of Nepal and the Himalayan region. Nepal is a country that tends to make headlines when disaster strikes - massive earthquakes, a Maoist insurgency, avalanches on Mt. Everest; yet media sensationalism is not helping the country during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. And, as Nepal faces what is arguably the most desperate humanitarian catastrophe in the modern history of the country, the media has been all but silent. Both urban and rural communities are reeling from a second wave, and the expected economic devastation and loss of life is difficult to comprehend. The country is in a precarious and dire situation. Crucially, despite the shortage of vaccines, Nepal is uniquely well suited to effectively and rapidly mobilize COVID-19 vaccine aid, based on decades of experience mounting prior vaccine campaigns through grassroots public health infrastructure, including its renowned Female Community Health Volunteer network.

We welcome your recent pledge to share vaccines with the rest of the world. To this end, we write to implore your administration to prioritize Nepal as a recipient of immediate vaccine aid. Supplying millions of doses of the vaccine directly to Nepal will not only help to mitigate the exigent crisis in the country, but it will also help flatten the curve in South Asia as a whole. We also support direct contributions to India and other South Asian countries that are facing their own crises (and thus cannot be counted on to share resources within the region). Along with further aid in the form of oxygen supply chain assistance, and essential supplies for facility and community health workers, vaccine diplomacy is urgently needed.

Below are some facts about the current situation in Nepal that warrant highlighting:

Daily cases increased 2,900% between April 1 and April 30 [Source];
As of May 18th, Nepal’s Ministry of Health has reported 8,136 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total # of cases to 472,354 [Source];
Nepal currently has one of the highest COVID-19 viral reproduction rates in the world, with a national positivity ratio of 45% [Source], and reports consistently indicate a higher number of COVID cases statistically/per million population than that of India [Source];
Less than 2% of Nepal’s population is fully vaccinated [Source];
Nearly 2 million Nepalis have received their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine but have not had access to a second dose, increasing the possibility of virus mutation, with global epidemiological implications [Source];
There are less than 2,000 ICU beds and less than 500 ventilators in the entire country [Source], setting the stage for a completely unmanageable healthcare systems scenario if the spread of the virus and its variants are not halted.

In some regions of Nepal, as many as 90% of tests have been returning positive. In all likelihood, the situation is far worse, as data from the most highly affected areas on the Indian border with Nepal are not forthcoming. Nepal’s Health Ministry has predicted that by July 15, new case numbers could reach 800,000, and the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) predicts 40,000 deaths by then [Source], which would make Nepal the country with the highest fatality rate in South Asia by far.

Nepal has a proven track record of national vaccination initiatives and has a country-wide public health infrastructure to rapidly vaccinate its population. Nepal’s vaccination campaigns date back to fighting smallpox in 1816 [Source], and more recent successful campaigns include children under-5 in addition to high rates of BCG coverage, DPT, oral polio vaccine [Source], measles-rubella [Source; Source], and vitamin A supplementation [Source]. Despite being enveloped in a humanitarian crisis, Nepal has the capacity to handle the receipt and effective distribution of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses. Indeed, the country has already demonstrated the successful implementation of a multi-sectoral, phase-wise COVID-19 vaccination program, in even some of the most remote regions [Source]. Nepal’s renowned Female Community Health Volunteer (FCHVs) networks are 50,000+ strong, distributed throughout all of Nepal’s seven provinces, and can be deployed to help reach every household in cities and last mile settings alike.

As the U.S. sets its aim on the return to schools, family gatherings, and the daily social activities we hold so dear as a nation, let us not waiver in the face of the global ‘vaccine apartheid’ of which the WHO has rightfully warned [Source]. The uneven global distribution of and access to vaccines risks the very moral soul of the nation your administration has staked its reputation on. We urge you to take the necessary steps to ensure the U.S. leads the way toward global social justice, and to see that Nepal is not forgotten - its people are calling to us, and we must not turn away.

In solidarity, and with hope for your assistance,

Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

RESOURCES

Below is a list of resources, data, petitions, and steps that can help amplify the call to action needed in this current moment.

Sign & share the petitions:
- US Government Should Send Emergency COVID-19 Aid to Nepal: http://alturl.com/nq35g
- Get CoVID Vaccines to Nepal ASAP and prevent a humanitarian disaster: http://alturl.com/o2ppd
Call your representatives, particularly members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee & the Senators on the South Asia Subcommittee:
- Chris Murphy (Connecticut): DC Office: (202) 224-4041, Hartford Office: (860) 549-8463
- Todd Young (Indiana): DC Office: (202) 224-5623, Evansville: (317) 226-6700
- Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire): DC Office: (202) 224-2841, Manchester: (603) 647-7500
- Rand Paul (Kentucky): DC Office: (202) 224-4343, Bowling Green: (270) 782-8303
- Ed Markey (Massachusetts): DC Office: (202) 224-2742, Boston: (617) 565 8519
- Ted Cruz (Texas): DC Office: (202) 224-5922, Central Texas: (512) 916-5834
- Cory Booker (New Jersey): DC office: (202) 224-3224, Newark: (973) 639-8700
- Mitt Romney (Utah): DC Office: (202) 224-5251, Salt Lake City: (801) 524-4380
- Chris Van Hollen (Maryland): Constituent services: (301) 545-1500, General: (202) 224-4654
- Bill Hagerty (Tennessee): DC Office: (202) 224-4944, Chattanooga: (423) 752-5337
Consider writing an Op-Ed for your local/university newspaper, or other outlets. Some instructive examples below:

Nepal says its Covid response is under control – everyone can see it’s not true [Source]
If South Asia’s pandemic isn’t addressed as a whole, India’s COVID-19 crisis could be just the beginning [Source]
Facing a COVID Crisis, Nepal Cries Out for Help [Source]