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“...nal
finance, which are highly contingent upon Nepal
presenting itself as a 'safe' zone for investment.
Our study focuses on the elites of Nepal's hydro
community: the developers, investors, water
experts, and government officials who occupy
the 'upstream' positions at which scientific
knowledge is produced and adjudicated. On
one hand, the denial or omission of earthquake
potential that we witnessed seems to identify
the ineluctable challenges that Nepal faces
in attempting to integrate its economy into
global markets; on the other hand, it indicates
the desire of the private sector to reap
profits from hydropower in spite of obvious
geophysical dangers. These dangers, we
argue, are a bankable risk for these elites.
However, for the people directly affected by
new hydropower infrastructures, these are
risks and uncertainties threatening already
vulnerable livelihoods.
Keywords: seismicity, hydropower, infrastructure, uncertainty,
financialization of risk, Nepal.
HIMALAYA Volume37,Number2...”
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“...kick-backs (Sangraula 2017).
However, despite these complicating issues, post-earth-
quake multi-national financing has begun to flow into
the country. In fall 2016, the International Finance
Corporation (IFC)—the private sector arm of the World
Bank—announced its intention to increase its portfolio
in Nepal from its original pledge of $500 million in 2014.
IFC’s country director for Nepal, Wendy Werner, said the
investments, particularly in hydropower, would bring
qualitative change to Nepal’s economy and way of life.
Similarly, other multi-national organizations, such as the
Italian-Thai Development Corporation (a stakeholder in
18 HIMALAYA Fall2017...”
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“...This frustration is further
compounded by an unstable and unproductive govern-
ment which has, as of this writing, re-formed 26 times
since the democratic revolution in 1990, each new itera-
tion bringing in a new roster of ministers and visions to
lead the country who are ultimately unable to succeed.
No country can improve its economic standing and the
livelihoods of its residents without a stable and reliable
source of energy (Barnes and Floor 1996; Lee 2005). In this
context, Nepal’s weak economy has opened space for the
private sector to state its case for leading development,
arguing that state-led and donation-backed programs have
failed to make appreciable returns for the average Nepali.
The hydropower sector has seized this moment to fight for
decreasing regulation of their industry, suggesting that for
every day that passes, every drop of water that cascades
from the mountains without passing a turbine represents
lost revenue and opportunity for the country. Both the
Nepalese state...”
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“...and for the
government to help create more favorable conditions for
completing this work.
Private hydropower interests advance this vision through
a series of tropes about water as national destiny, hydro-
power as development, and the fulfillment of democratic
promise. To be successful, private hydropower has to
present a confident image of certain profit in order to
realize itself through foreign investment—whether from
private firms or development banks. They engage in what
Tsing calls the ‘economy of appearances.’ Promoting
hydropower as profitable and its associated risk as cal-
HIMALAYA Volume37,Number2 21...”
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“...culture, asking participants
to see a landscape that doesn’t yet exist, the same way that
the US gold rush invited white immigrants to envision the
American West. It is reminiscent of Georg Simmel’s (2011:
482) insight about the monetization of value: “Gauging
values in terms of money has taught us to determine and
specify values down to the last farthing...The ideal of
numerical calculability has been made possible in practi-
cal, and perhaps even in intellectual, life only through the
money economy.”
These private sector machinations in support of finance
are possible due to a prevailing national discipline that
says development is necessary, and the government has
failed in its responsibility do deliver development. This
argument effectively produces a political quietude that
does not question risk and dismisses protest as the work of
rogue individuals rather than legitimate groups (Adhikari
2011), which then enables the state to draw in military
suppression of future protests without...”
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“...
upper-karnali-project-maoist-leaders-warn-govt-over-
contract.html> (accessed on April 29, 2017).
Appadurai, Arjun. 2011. The Ghost in the Financial
Machine. Public Culture 23 (3): 517-539.
Barnes, Douglas and Willem Floor. 1996. Rural Energy
in Developing Countries: A Challenge for Economic
Development. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment
21 (1): 497-530.
Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk society: Towards a new modernity.
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------. 2006. Living in the World Risk Society. Economy and
Society 35 (3): 329-345.
Boholm, Asa. 2003. The Cultural Nature of Risk: Can There
be an Anthropology of Uncertainty? Ethnos 68 (2): 159-178.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the
Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Butler, Christopher. 2016. Knowledge, Nature,
and Nationalism: The Upper Kamali Dam in Nepal.
Ph.D. Dissertation, Sociology, University of
California, Santa Cruz.
HIMALAYA Volume37Number2 23...”
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“...Marie. 2006. “We Don’t Really Want to
Know” Environmental Justice and Socially Organized Denial
of Global Warming in Norway. Organization & Environment
19 (3): 347-370.
------. 2011. Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and
Everyday Life. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Pangeni, Rudra. 2016. Damaged Hydropower Plants
Yet to Bounce Back. Republica, April 18. economy/story/40755/damaged-
hydropower-plants-yet-to-bounce-back.html> (accessed
on April 29, 2017).
------. 2015. Earthquake Damages Over Dozen Hydropower
Projects. Republica, May 5. economy/story/20398/earthquake-damages-
over-dozen-hydropower-projects.html> (accessed on
April 29, 2017).
Pigg, Stacy Leigh. 1992. Investing Social Categories
Through Place: Social Representations and Development
in Nepal. Comparative Studies in Society and History 34
(03): 491-513.
------. 1993. Unintended Consequences: The Ideological
Impact of Development in Nepal. South Asia Bulletin
13 (1&2):...”
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“... (accessed on
April 29, 2017).
Thompson, Michael; Michael Warburton and Tom
Hatley. 2007. Uncertainty On a Himalayan Scale.
Kathmandu: Himal Books.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2000. Inside the Economy of
Appearances. Public Culture 12 (1): 115-144.
Useem, Michael; Howard Kunreuther and Erwann Michel-
Kerjan. 2015. From Nepal Quake, Lessons for the U.S.
Philadelphia Inquirer, April 27. (accessed on
April 29, 2017).
World Bank. 1964. The Economy of Nepal. Washington DC:
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/
International Development Association.
Zerubavel, Eviatar. 1997. Social Mindscapes: an Invitation to
Cognitive Sociology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
------. 2002. The Elephant in the Room: Notes on the
Social Organization of Denial...”
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