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“...Aftershock: Reflections on the Politics of Reconstruction
in Northern Gorkha
Rune Bennike
Many commentators have described
the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake in
Nepal either (1) through the notion that
'nothing is going on' in regards to post-
quake reconstruction; or (2) through a
celebration of grassroots resilience and urban
entrepreneurship in the face of disaster
and state neglect. In this article, I draw on
observations from Kutang and Nubri in the
mountains of northern Gorkha District to
argue that neither of these descriptions is fully
accurate. Even in this remote and inaccessible
area, much was being done in the aftermath
of disaster, and a great deal of this activity
diverges, in multiple ways, from the notions
of spontaneous egalitarianism that are often
associated with 'resilience'
I describe the fraught politics involved in
distributing relief aid in a village where the local
government has been non-existent for years;
the active positioning of new political players on
the...”
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“...Introduction
On April 25th 2015, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the
Richter Scale shook the Himalaya. Over the following
months, the initial quake was followed by a range of
aftershocks that seemed never-ending, and which kept
many inhabitants of the region in a drawn-out state of
terror. Soon after the initial quake, international donors
pledged over $4 billion to be used for post-earthquake
reconstruction to the Nepalese government. Nonetheless,
‘reconstruction’ in the aftermath of this disaster has
extensively been characterized by notions of slowness and
inactivity. It took the government almost a year to begin
disbursing reconstruction funds in earnest; in fact, the dis-
tribution is still ongoing at the time of writing this article
(June 2017)—two years after the funds were pledged. In
the absence of swift action on the side of the government,
many commentators—journalists and academics alike—
describe the aftermath of the earthquake as either a state
of inactivity or a stage for...”
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“...began to stream into Nepal after the quake seemed to
be selected for the job specifically because of their past
experience in Haiti.
As in other post-disaster situations (Simpson and Serafini
2015:17), the Nepal PDNA was an extremely rough and
hasty product. For instance, a friend and I were suddenly
invited into the World Bank office to comment on their
estimates for damage to the tourism sector based on our
severely limited experience working in Gorkha after the
earthquake. There were only a few days to the deadline
and the Bank needed to come up with some figures. The
ministries and international agencies involved in the PDNA
obviously did whatever they could to get the most accurate
estimates, but given the chaos of the aftermath and the
haste of the exercise (the PDNA needed to be incorporated
into an overdue financial bill to be passed by parliament),
the results seemed close to guesswork. Nevertheless, as
soon as the PDNA was released, it assumed the appearance
of a total analysis. In...”
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“...up to speed, almost a month after the first earthquake, we
handed over as much information as we possibly could.
What we are dealing with here is participant-observation
with a clear emphasis on participation. My academic reflec-
tions have mostly come later, after I returned from Nepal.
Since I left the country in early July 2015,1 have been back
twice: for a two-week visit in January 2016 and a six-week
stay in November-December 2016. These visits have been
enlightening for the glimpses they have given me of the
aftershock as a continuously unfolding reality. In January
2015, Nepal’s new contentious constitution was passed, and
the country was still in the grip of the fuel blockade that
followed its promulgation. In November and December of
2015 public debate was filled with discussions about 'tin
lakh1—the Nepal Reconstruction Authority’s promise to
provide Nrs. 300,000 to each household whose house was
fully damaged during the earthquake.
Each visit gave me a new perspective on what...”
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“...head had, it was persistently rumored, made Bihi into
his own little fiefdom, ‘eating’ development funding chan-
neled through the state administration and controlling
local politics with a heavy hand. However, at the time of
the earthquake, he was hospitalized in Kathmandu and
thus out of touch with what was going on in Bihi. With no
formal structures of authority in place and the old leader
out of the village, the distribution of external resources for
relief called for local institutional innovation.
When we arrived, an ad hoc group of Bihi locals had
emerged to take charge. Formed partly by people opposed
to the old rule in the village, this group was something
new. For them, it seemed, the aftershock of the earthquake
provided an opportunity to show themselves as people
committed to the common good of the village. They threw
themselves with great energy at the complicated task of
fairly distributing meager rations of rice, lentils, biscuits,
noodles and tarps. The questions facing them...”
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“...pouring resources into the
area across an incredibly challenging physical terrain;
all reflections about the complicated social, political and
economic landscapes into which these resources were
inserted seemed wiped away.
Apart from this disregard for the local complexities of
patronage politics, the operation held the potential for
unintended economic consequences. As part of the WFP
operations, the main trail through the Manaslu area was
surveyed by a Swiss/Nepali team some weeks after the
earthquake. The geologist’s conclusion was clear: the
main trail was situated on a fault line in the landscape
and highly prone to landslides. Subsequently, plans were
made for an alternative trail into the area that included
high paths on the other (eastern) side of the Budhi Gandaki
River. This trail would be much safer, and WFP set to work
developing the trail to a standard they could use for food
distribution to the area. However, the choice of shifting
the trail—which was made with reference to logistics...”
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“...that are often emphasized in
Nepali public discourse: the hydro-power supply that had
been damaged in the earthquake had been re-established,
providing a steady supply of power to the village; new
water taps had been installed in every ward and a toilet
built for every household; a new, big health post had been
established; and a school building, as well as a private
hotel, was under construction; last, but not least, a mobile
tower had been erected just after the earthquake so that
this part of the river valley was also, now, connected to
the outside world via cheap and accessible mobile phones.
Many of these development projects had been planned
well before the earthquake, but had suddenly been
accomplished in the rush of reconstruction work after the
earthquake. Furthermore, villagers themselves had pri-
vately chosen to utilize some of the cash distributed after
the earthquake to fly CGI sheets for roofing and toilets
in by helicopter and some were planning to spend the
expected government...”
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“...hall from his trekking agency in Boudha for the NGO, and
overhead funds from the various projects have allowed
him to employ several friends as well as a few volunteer
interns. Throughout his work, Sonam has been struggling
against a persistent bias on the side of the government
to think of reconstruction solely in terms of reinforced
concrete buildings, (much like in post-earthquake Gujarat,
see Simpson and Serafini 2015). His design for the school in
Bihi is now presented as a model for earthquake resistant
reconstruction with local materials, but there were many
bureaucratic hassles to get there.
Reverberations
The small fragments of post-disaster experience described
in this article provide a glimpse into ‘aftershock’ as a
continuously evolving scenario. Far from the clear-cut
notions of cause and effect so fundamental to post-disaster
response, the aftershock is rife with opportunity, bias and
unintended consequences. As the aftershock continues to
reverberate in the political, economic...”
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