2012 Dor Bahadur Bista Prize Winner

Mr. Christopher Butler’s paper titled “Since the Fighting Stopped: Changing Attitudes about Development in Rural Nepal” won the 2012 Dor Bahadur Prize. This work addresses the issue of bikas in Rukum District. It analyzes field-based data and dovetails empirical findings with deeply researched social and cultural factors. Mr. Butler has made a compelling theoretical contribution regarding a much discussed and debated topic in scholarship about Nepal – namely, bikas and what it signifies, why, how, and to whom. This paper contributed to our understanding of the transformations in social and political agency in post-Maoist Nepal.