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Date: Sunday, Sep 07, 2003 |
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Title: Fluid Boundaries
Forming and Transforming Identity in Nepal
Speaker: William F Fisher, Professor
Director, Department of International Development, Community, and Environment (IDCE) at Clark University.
Date: November 7, 2003; FRIDAY
Location: Room 105, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Harvard University, Cambridge
Synopsis:
The Thakali of Nepal, a small community with origin in the remote Thak Khola valley in Mustang District, 300km northwest of Kathmandu have long since crossed that defining river and made successful forays into the heartland of Nepals commerce and politics. Today, Gauchan, Tulachan, Sherchan and Bhattachan, the four major clans of Thakali can be found running hotels, inns, and restaurants in the Annapurna trekking route, Pokhara, Kathmandu and beyond.
With their rise to political power and economic success, the Thakali of Nepal have searched for an identity and a clarification of their "true" culture and history since the 1980s. Although united in this search, the Thakali are divided as to the answers proposed: the "Hinduization" of religious practices, the promotion of Tibetan Buddhism, the revival of practices associated with the Thakali shamans, and secularization.
Professor William Fisher will talk about his book Fluid Boundaries: Forming and transforming identity in Nepal an ethnographic study of the Thakali community. He observes that Ironically, the attempts by the Thakali to define their identity and to return to their tradition, they must first re-create it; but this process of re-creation - to become Thakali again -is, in a way, to become Thakali for the very first time.
Speaker: William F Fisher.
William F Fisher is Professor and Director of Department of International Development, Community, and Environment (IDCE) at Clark University. Professor Fisher has been conducting research in Nepal off and on since 1981. This book on the Thakali Community is the result of that research. Fisher has also conducted research on the Janajati since 1992.
From 1992 to 2000 Professor Fisher taught in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, where he was Director of Graduate Studies in Anthropology and a Dillon Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He also taught at Princeton University and Columbia. His research centers on the social and environmental impact of large dams, forced displacement, transnational advocacy, competition over natural resources and non-governmental organizations. His research and work for such agencies as CARE, USAID, and the UNDP have taken him to several continents. Other research activities, mostly in South Asia, include ethnic associations, competition for natural resources, non-governmental associations, and the role of participation and community-based institutions in development planning and action.
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Venue:
Location: William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Harvard University, Cambridge
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