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“...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 local scene; and the economic inequalities
that can arise from unlucky positioning along
geological fault-lines, a recently booming
tourist economy, and the specificities of
the Nepali government's post-disaster
compensation schemes. This article sketches
out the anatomy of disaster 'aftershock' as a
political environment rife with opportunity,
bias, and unintended consequences. As scholars
and interested...”
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Page 4
“...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 grassroots resilience in the
face of disaster and state neglect. In this article, I draw on
observations from Kutang and Nubri, located in the moun-...”
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Page 5
“...and reconstruction outside the ambit of formal initiatives
led by government and international relief organizations.
Here, the reconstruction of houses was well underway
within weeks of the first quake.
The tendency to describe places like northern Gorkha in
terms of their inactivity—despite such reconstruction
initiatives—is telling. First, the diagnosis resonates eerily
with prevalent narratives that characterize the high
Himalaya in terms of its remoteness and developmental
backwardness (Hussain 2015; Pigg 1992). Second, it fits well
with mainstream approaches to post-disaster reconstruc-
tion that tend to operate on the basis of a simple cause
and effect relationship.2 This approach is clearly reflected
in the now globally standardized formats of the Post
Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) framework.3 Here, the
earthquake is the cause and its effects are summarized in
terms of‘damages’ and ‘economic losses’ (GoN 2015). With
this simple formula, the effects of the 2015 Himalayan
earthquake...”
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Page 8
“...saster relief—held the potential for massive unintended
consequences in relation to the local economy. As an
up-and-coming tourist area, the Budhi Gandaki river valley
has seen rapid investment in tourism infrastructure over
the past 6-7 years. The realignment of the trail would
mean that a great deal of people who had spent all their
savings and taken loans to build tourist lodges on the
western side of the river in anticipation of a future rise in
tourism would now be by-passed. And with a government
compensation scheme purely focused on damaged houses,
the economic loss of these people was not accounted for.
For a while, it looked like this would be the consequence,
but by November 2016, the old trail was back in use. To the
relief of local small-scale tourism businesses, trekkers and
locals alike seemed to have deemed the safe, high trail too
cumbersome to use.
Reconstruction: Opportunities for Good Work
The emotive language of suffering, aid, and rehabil-
itation is generally difficult...”
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Page 9
“...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 reconstruction funds to build small
‘home-stay’ houses for future tourist.
The aftershock also reverberated in local politics. One
villager, rumored to have been associated with the heavy-
handed rule of the past, had emerged as the de-facto
leader of development initiatives in the village. He told me
how Bihi used to be regarded as a bad, less developed place
compared to most other villages in the area. Now, it was
going to be different. Things were changing in Bihi, and he
wanted it to be...”
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Page 10
“...schools and health posts northern Gorkha—some with full
responsibility, others on a consultancy basis. By November
2016, several additional projects had been included in
the portfolio. Sonam is now renting the office across the
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...”
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Page 11
“...Werker. 2008. The Political
Economy of “Natural” Disasters. In Working Paper: Harvard
Business School.
Dixit, Kunda. 2015. Operation Mountain Express. Nepali
Times, 19-25 June.
Fujikura, Tatsuro. 2001. Discourses of Awareness: Notes
for a Criticism of Development in Nepal. Studies in Nepali
History and Society 6 (2): 271-313.
GoN. 2009. Tourism Vision 2020. Kathmandu: Government
of Nepal, Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation.
GoN. 2010. Nepal Trade Integration Strategy 2010.
Kathmandu: Ministry of Commerce and Supplies,
Government of Nepal.
GoN. 2015. Nepal Earthquake 2015: Post Disaster Needs
Assesment. Kathmandu: Government of Nepal, National
Planning Commission.
Guha-Sapir, Debarati, Indhira Santos, and Alexandre Borde.
2013. The economic impacts of natural disasters. Oxford; New
York: Oxford University Press.
Hallegatte, Stephane, and Valentin Przyluski. 2010. The
Economics of Natural Disasters: Concepts and Methods. In
Policy Research Working Paper: The World Bank.
HIMALAYA Volume37Number2...”
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“....
Pigg, Stacy Leigh. 1992. Inventing Social Categories
through Place: Social Representations and Development
in Nepal. Comparative Studies in Society and History 34 (3):
491-513.
Pigg, Stacy Leigh. 1993. Unintended Consequences: The
Ideological Impact of Development in Nepal. South Asia
Bulletin 13 (1 & 2): 45-58.
Sander, Catherine, Kimber Haddix McKay, Angjuk Lama,
and Pralhad Dhakal. 2015. Pro-Government’ Is Not ‘Pro-
Corruption’ in the Aftermath of the Nepal Earthquakes.
Anthropology News 56 (6).
Simpson, Edward. 2013. The political biography of an
earthquake: aftermath and amnesia in Gujarat, India. London:
Hurst.
Simpson, Edward, and Michele Serafini. 2015. The
Neoliberal Aftershock. Himal Southasian, 12-52.
Stirrat, Jock. 2006. Competitive humanitarianism: relief
and the tsunami in Sri Lanka. Anthropology Today 22 (5):
11-16.
Tamang, Seira. 2015. Dangers of Resilience. The Kathmandu
Post...”
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