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“...joined our team and made important
contributions, particularly Nathaniel and Amanda Needham, Jennifer Bradley, Rabi Thapa, Johanna Fricke,
and Prakriti Yonzon. Our work with Rasuwa Relief prompted many meaningful collaborations with a variety
of different individuals and institutions. While there are perhaps too many to name, we would like to thank
DROKPA, Mojgone Azemun and Avaaz.org, Bodhi Garrett and Craig Lovell of WeHelpNepal, Temba Lama
and all the members of the Langtang Management & Reconstruction Committee, NayanTara Kakshyapati
Gurung and the Himalayan Disaster Relief Volunteer Group, Amchi Tenjing Bista and the Lo Kunphen
School, Brigid McAuliffe and Patti Bonnet of PictureMeHere, Bob Chapman with Friends of Nepal, Jake
Norton, Tim Gocher of The Dolma Fund, Jonas and Elsa Haeberle at OM Nepal, Pasang Bhutti, Bob and Vera
Bonnet, Liesl Clark, Steve Marolt and Aspect Solar, Amuda Mishra at the Ujyaalo Foundation, the team at
Semantic Creations, Rajeev Goyal at Phulmaaya Foundation...”
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Page 6
“...what we hoped was right action. In the sec-
tions below, we provide some background on where each
of us was on the day of first major earthquake.
On April 25th, Austin Lord was in the Langtang Valley in
north Rasuwa District, a high-Himalayan valley, home to
a community of culturally-Tibetan pastoralists that is also
considered a popular trekking destination (Lim 2008). At
the exact moment of the earthquake, he was talking to a
local man, now a friend, about a proposed plan for hydro-
power development in the Valley. When the earthquake
struck, landslides and avalanches came down throughout
the valley, including a massive co-seismic avalanche that
began on the southern slopes of Langtang Lirung (7,234m).
This avalanche, which destroyed the entire village of
Langtang and released half the force of the Hiroshima
atomic bomb, caused the single most concentrated loss
of life anywhere in Nepal (Kargel et al. 2016). Austin and
his parents had stayed in Langtang village the previous
night and left...”
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Page 10
“...Choeling Monastery in Kathmandu
in June 2015, forty-nine days after
the earthquake. This Tibetan
Buddhist monastery also served as
their displaced persons camp.
(Lord, 2015)
Figure 5- In October 2015, Rasuwa
Relief team members and
collaborators walk through the
upper part of Langtang village,
which was leveled by the blast
from the avalanche (visible in
the background). During this
trip, we conducted a detailed
damage assessment that would
help facilitate the process of
resettlement and reconstruction.
(Lord, 2015)
teerism began to change following the second earthquake,
we made a multiple commitment to continue our work,
amid and despite the confusion.
Engagement and Praxis in the Post-Earthquake
Landscape
For two years after the earthquake, we worked as Rasuwa
Relief on a variety of different projects—ranging from
interventions focused on immediate humanitarian relief
to collaborative community-based projects committed to
long-term recovery. This kind of sustained engagement,
always...”
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Page 11
“...Figure 6. Dindu Jangba stands at
the edges of the avalanche zone in
Langtang village in October 2015,
near the spot where his mother's
house used to be.
(Lord, 2015)
Figure 7. Roofing materials being
delivered to Kyanjin Gompa in
November 2015, used to repair
damaged homes and build
temporary shelters in advanced
of the winter months. Rasuwa
Relief worked with the Langtang
Management & Reconstruction
Committee and other NGOs to
coordinate these logistical aspects
of resettlement.
(Lord, 2015)
delivering 37 metric tons of shelter materials and food
stuffs to over 1,600 households in Rasuwa and providing
infrastructural support to eight different IDP camps in
Rasuwa and Kathmandu. Through this work, we gained
both an appreciation for the art of logistics and a cynicism
of bureaucratic simplifications of‘the last mile’ required
for distribution. We also learned a great deal about the
micropolitics of‘distribution’ and the need to manage
both a variety of differently formed expectations and...”
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“...become a formal
advisor to the Langtang Management and Reconstruction
Committee (LMRC)—a group of Langtangpa leaders tasked
with organizing the resettlement of the Langtang Valley
and seeking self-determination within the official process
of reconstruction. While Austin was honored to serve in
this role, he also felt unqualified at times and had to deny
requests for advice or support regarding certain sensitive
matters, like post-avalanche relocation.9 This involvement,
however, provided insight into the Langtangpa planning
process, which then allowed Rasuwa Relief to be more
precise in providing logistical support that would facilitate
the reconstruction process (i.e. trail clearance, restoring
local infrastructures, building storage facilities) and to
coordinate more effectively with partner organizations. As
a result, when the winter months ended in early 2016, the
LMRC was in a somewhat unique position to initiate their
own reconstruction efforts.10
As time went by, we began several other...”
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Page 13
“...and agency of earthquake-affected Nepalis over
our own.
However, while this approach was inflected by the ethics
of social science, it was neither completely objective nor
apolitical. In fact, and especially with respect to Rasuwa,
we acted specifically and intentionally to make certain
people, places, practices, processes, and pasts more visible
than others—to draw attention to certain needs still
unmet, like pervasive struggles with mental health, and
to explicate the complex process of reconstruction (and
its politics) to a broader international audience. These
attempts to promote informed and critical awareness,
however incomplete, were only possible because of the
multiple nature of our engagement.
Finally, on April 25th, 2017, Rasuwa Relief—which was
formed to fill gaps and designed to be a temporary volun-
teer initiative rather than an official NGO—was formally
closed. And yet, while this phase of our work has finished,
we remain engaged and committed, multiply.
On the Practice of...”
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Page 15
“...joined our team and
made important contributions, particularly Nathaniel and Amanda
Needham, Jennifer Bradley, Rabi Thapa, Johanna Fricke, and
Prakriti Yonzon.
Our work with Rasuwa Relief prompted many meaningful
collaborations with a variety of different individuals and
institutions. While there are perhaps too many to name, we would
like to thank DROKPA, Mojgone Azemun and Avaaz.org, Bodhi
Garrett and Craig Lovell of WeHelpNepal, Temba Lama and all
the members of the Langtang Management & Reconstruction
Committee, NayanTara Kakshyapati Gurung and the Himalayan
Disaster Relief Volunteer Group, Amchi Tenjing Bista and
the Lo Kunphen School, Brigid McAuliffe and Patti Bonnet of
PictureMeHere, Bob Chapman with Friends of Nepal, Jake Norton,
Tim Gocher of The Dolma Fund, Jonas and Elsa Haeberle at OM
Nepal, Pasang Bhutti, Bob and Vera Bonnet, Liesl Clark, Steve
Marolt and Aspect Solar, Amuda Mishra at the Ujyaalo Foundation,
the team at Semantic Creations, Rajeev Goyal at Phulmaaya
Foundation...”
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“...4. At the time of the earthquake, both authors were U.S.
Fulbright Scholars in Nepal, conducting research on
infrastructure development, mobility and social change.
For more information on our scholarly contributions see
Lord (2014; 2016), Murton (2015; 2017), or Murton, Lord &
Beazley (2016).
5. More than 300 people lost their lives in the Langtang
Valley on April 25th, including 175 Langtangpa.
Unfortunately, more than two years after the earthquake,
some of the bodies have not yet been recovered from the
Langtang avalanche zone.
6. For example, Tamang communities make up only
5.8% of Nepal’s population yet an estimated 34% of total
earthquake casualties were Tamang (Magar 2015). See also
Thapa (2015).
7. At this point in the ‘Emergency Phase,’ most large NGOs
were still establishing logistical supply chains (with the
exception of a few with air assets) and mobilizations by
the Nepalese state (with the exception of the Nepal Army,
which focused on search and rescue and evacuation
operations)...”
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“...Grassroots Responses to Representations of Superstorm
Sandy, in Extreme Weather and Global Media, edited by Diane
Negra and Julia Leyda, 144-162. London: Routledge.
Lim, Francis Khek Gee. 2008. Imagining the Good Life:
Negotiating Culture and Development in the Nepal Himalaya.
Leiden: Brill.
Lord, Austin. 2014. Making a ‘Hydropower Nation’:
Subjectivity, Mobility, and Work in the Nepalese
Hydroscape. HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for
Nepal and Himalayan Studies 34 (2): 111-121.
------. 2015. Langtang. Hot Spots, Cultural
Anthropology website, October 14, 2015. (accessed on
November 30, 2016).
------. 2016. Citizens of a Hydropower Nation: Territory
and Agency at the Frontiers of Hydropower Development
in Nepal. Economic Anthropology 3 (1): 145-160.
Magar, Santa Gaha. 2015. The Tamang Epicenter. Nepali
Times, 10-16 July 2015.
Malkki, Liisa. 2015. The Need to Help: the Domestic
Arts of International Humanitarianism. Durham: Duke
University...”
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