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“...HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 37 | Number 2 Article 9 December 2017 Aftershock: Reflections on the Politics of Reconstruction in Northern Gorkha Rune Bolding Bennike University of Copenhagen, runebennike@gmail.com Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation Bennike, Rune Bolding (2017) "Aftershock: Reflections on the Politics of Reconstruction in Northern Gorkha," HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: Vol. 37 : No. 2, Article 9. Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol37/iss2/9 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Macalester College Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This Perspectives is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons(2)Macalester College at DigitalCommons(2)Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association...”
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“...Aftershock: Reflections on the Politics of Reconstruction in Northern Gorkha Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Geoff Childs and colleagues at the Rule and Rupture Research Program as well as one anonymous reviewer for incisive comments to drafts of the article. Research for the article was supported by the European Research Council. This perspectives is available in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: http:/ / digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol37/iss2/9...”
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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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“...around the government in relief and reconstruction (Nelson 2015; Leve 2015; Sander et al. 2015; Tamang 2015). Despite these sensitivities, parts of the debate seemed distinctly at odds with what I was seeing take place in northern Gorkha. One of the things I found most strik- ing was the persistent narrative that nothing, really, was going on in Nepal in terms of reconstruction. For instance, at the South Asia Conference at the University of Wisconsin—Madison in October 2015 participants in a roundtable discussion on the earthquake kept repeat- ing the same laments that were prevalent in Nepali and international news media that none of the over $4 billion that international donors pledged to the Nepali state for post-earthquake reconstruction had yet been distrib- uted. While this was certainly true at the time and highly problematic, many people seemed to equate this inactivity on the side of formal, state-led reconstruction with a total lack of reconstruction. Due to the very tangible, infrastruc-...”
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“...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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“...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 the aftershock of disaster means. In my mind, however, the aftershock remains confusing. I feel that what I’m writing now might be countered, again, in a month or two; that the aftershock continues its churning that creates new forms of political potentiality past the present moment of stocktaking. Thus, what I write here is more a...”
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“...Figure 1. House under reconstruction shortly after the first major earthquake. (Bennike, 2015) trail that provides the lifeline to the area had been broken. Foods usually brought from the bazaar in Arughat, which is a three-day walk downstream, were in short supply. For a while, people had stores of local foods (e.g. corn, barley, millet, potatoes) on which to survive, but their stocks of rice, lentils, salt, tea, and milk powder were quickly depleted. Everything coming into the area had to be trans- ported by helicopter, a process that was both costly and inefficient. Hence, the priority for people in the area was not the usual relief materials, but was in fact the reopening of the trail. The distribution of the relief materials that did trickle into Bihi, loaded into small helicopters was a complicated political affair. With local elections suspended for almost two decades, no formally legitimate local bodies existed to which to turn. In this vacuum, a local leader and former VDC head...”
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“...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 to argue with head on: what could be wrong with ‘good work’? (Simpson 2013: 266) The earthquake created new opportunities for fundraising and opened up peripheral areas, such as northern Gorkha, to a host of new organizations and an increased influx of resources. Following the initial focus on logistics and relief, the emphasis shifted to reconstruction. While the govern- 60 HIMALAYA Fall2017...”
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“...merit’s National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) moved slowly towards the distribution of reconstruction funds they were steeped in political infighting, and other orga- nizations took the opportunity to scale up their operations in northern Gorkha—among these Christian organiza- tions such as World Vision, Christian Relief Services, and Mountain Child. When I visited in November and December 2016, the resource influx and need to spend was tangible. Christian Relief Services tarps were piled high in many houses; World Vision had just completed the distri- bution of Nrs. 45,000 in cash to each household throughout the area; and Mountain Child had established a pre-school in Samagaon and were working on the reconstruction of a school in Ghap. For these organizations, the earthquake had provided a major opportunity. As the founder of MC candidly stated in an appeal for funding shortly after the earthquake, the sit- uation provided ‘an unprecedented opportunity to unfold God’s pervasive grace...”
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“...New opportunities emerged in Kathmandu, too. Sonam, out of whose office we began coordinating relief to northern Gorkha quickly after the disaster, is now heavily involved in reconstruction work. Sometime after the earthquake, he registered the relief network we had estab- lished as a fully-fledged NGO.12 While Sonam was already running a successful trekking business before the earth- quake, the aftershock has placed him in a unique position. Educated as an emergency architect from a European university, and with extensive experience in activism for the protection of cultural heritage in the mountains, Sonam has become a crucial figure for reconstruction projects in northern Gorkha and beyond. In January 2016, his office was overseeing the reconstruction of six 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...”