Himalayan Mobilities

The goals of this book are to update information on the effects of rural road development, both in Nepal and globally, explain the environmental, socioeconomic, and sociocultural impacts of expanding rural road networks in the Nepalese Himalaya, and to promote further studies on rural road development throughout the world based on studies and investigations performed in Nepal. Readers will learn about the history of rural road development, as well as the challenges to effectively design and construct rural roads and how these obstacles may be overcome. Chapter one offers a global review of road development, and both the positive and negative impacts of rural road implementation. Chapter two defines mobilities within the context of coupled social and ecological systems, specifically in the Nepalese Himalaya. Chapters three through five detail the environmental, socioeconomic, and sociocultural impacts expanding rural road networks through several case studies. The concluding chapter summarizes the findings of the book, discussing the need for interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration to avoid negative consequences. This book will be of interest to teachers, researchers, policy makers, and development organizations.

Mobility studies emerged from a postmodern moment in which global ‘flows’ of capital, people and objects were increasingly noted and celebrated. Within this new scholarship, categories of migrancy are all seen through the same analytical lens. This book builds on, as well as critiques, past and present studies of mobility. In so doing, it challenges conceptual orientations built on binaries of difference that have impeded analyses of the interrelationship between mobility and stasis. These include methodological nationalism, which counterpoises concepts of internal and international movement and native and foreigner, and consequently normalises stasis. Instead, the book proposes a ‘regimes of mobility’ framework that addresses the relationships between mobility and immobility, localisation and transnational connection, experiences and imaginaries of migration, and rootedness and cosmopolitan openness. Within this framework and its emphasis on social fields of differential power, the various contributors to this collection ethnographically explore the disparities, inequalities, racialised representations and national mythscapes that facilitate and legitimate differential mobility and fixity. Although they examine nation-state building processes, the anthropological analysis is not confined by national boundaries. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

In Asia, where authoritarian-developmental states have proliferated, statehood and social control are heavily contested in borderland spaces. As a result, in the post-Cold War world, borders have not only redefined Asian incomes and mobilities, they have also rekindled neighbouring relations and raised questions about citizenship and security. The contributors to the Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands highlight some of these processes taking place at the fringe of the state. Offering an array of comparative perspectives of Asian borders and borderlands in the global context, this handbook is divided into thematic sections, including: Livelihoods, commodities and mobilities Physical land use and agrarian transformations Borders and boundaries of the state and the notion of statelessness Re-conceptualizing trade and the economy in the borderlands The existence and influence of humanitarians, religions, and NGOs The militarization of borderlands Causing us to rethink and fundamentally question some of the categories of state, nation, and the economy, this is an important resource for students and scholars of Asian Studies, Border Studies, Social and Cultural Studies, and Anthropology. Chapter 12 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

The 21st century seems to be on the move, perhaps even more so than the last. With cheap travel, and more than two billion cars projected worldwide for 2030. And yet, all this mobility is happening incredibly unevenly, at different paces and intensities, with varying impacts and consequences to the extent that life on the move might be actually quite difficult to sustain environmentally, socially and ethically. As a result 'mobility' has become a keyword of the social sciences; delineating a new domain of concepts, approaches, methodologies and techniques which seek to understand the character and quality of these trends. This Handbook explores and critically evaluates the debates, approaches, controversies and methodologies, inherent to this rapidly expanding discipline. It brings together leading specialists from range of backgrounds and geographical regions to provide an authoritative and comprehensive overview of this field, conveying cutting edge research in an accessible way whilst giving detailed grounding in the evolution of past debates on mobilities. It illustrates disciplinary trends and pathways, from migration studies and transport history to communications research, featuring methodological innovations and developments and conceptual histories - from feminist theory to tourist studies. It explores the dominant figures of mobility, from children to soldiers and the mobility impaired; the disparate materialities of mobility such as flows of water and waste to the vectors of viruses; key infrastructures such as logistics systems to the informal services of megacity slums, and the important mobility events around which our world turns; from going on vacation to the commute, to the catastrophic disruption of mobility systems. The text is forward-thinking, projecting the future of mobilities as they might be lived, transformed and studied, and possibly, brought to an end. International in focus, the book transcends disciplinary and national boundaries to explore mobilities as they are understood from different perspectives, different fields, countries and standpoints. This is an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in mobility across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study.

Drawing from extensive archival work and long-term ethnographic research, this book focuses on the so-called Bhotiyas, former trans-Himalayan traders and a Scheduled Tribe of India who reside in several high valleys of the Kumaon Himalaya. The area is located in the border triangle between India, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR, People’s Republic of China), and Nepal, where contestations over political boundaries have created multiple challenges as well as opportunities for local mountain communities. Based on an analytical framework that is grounded in and contributes to recent advances in the field of border studies, the author explores how the Bhotiyas have used their agency to develop a flourishing trans-Himalayan trade under British colonial influence; to assert an identity and win legal recognition as a tribal community in the political setup of independent India; and to innovate their pastoral mobility in the context of ongoing state and market reforms. By examining the Bhotiyas’ trade, identity and mobility this book shows how and why the Himalayan border region has evolved as an agentive site of political action for a variety of different actors.

Mobility aims to take the pulse of this enormously expanded and energetic field. It explores the breadth of the disciplinary areas mobility studies now encompass, examining the diverse conceptual and methodological approaches wielded within the field, and explores the utility of mobility to illuminate a cornucopia of mobile lives: from the mass movements of individuals within global processes such as migration and tourism, to homelessness and war; from the entangled relations caught up in the movement of disease, people and aid across borders, to the inability of someone to cross over a road. The new edition explores the more sustained elaboration of mobility studies within a wide variety of disciplinary approaches and subject matters. It echoes the growing internationalization of mobility research, reflected in diverse case studies from the Global South, South Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and so far under-represented perspectives from China, Australasia, post-socialist Eastern Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere. The book also features an additional chapter on mobility studies, to survey and explore the diverse quality of the field, and methodologies, in order to reflect the growing diversity of methodological approaches to mobilities, from walk-alongs and critical cartography to the mobile arts. The book offers an accessible reading of the way mobility has been tackled and understood, neatly exploring and summarizing a topic that has exploded into different variations and nuances. The text allows scholars and students alike to grasp the central importance of ‘mobility’ to social, cultural, political, economic and everyday terrains by providing accessible writings on key authors within key ideas and case study boxes, suggested further readings and summaries, while at the same time making a significant contribution to scholarly writings and debates.

Reflecting the variety and diversity of mobile methods and their applications, this comprehensive Handbook illuminates the multiple dimensions and transdisciplinary nature of mobilities research, from transport to tourism, cargo to information as well as physical, virtual and imaginative mobilities. It brings together key contributions on the state of the art of qualitative and quantitative research, multimethod combinations and co-creation methods within the mobilities paradigm.

The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Management is a critical, authoritative review of tourism management, written by leading international thinkers and academics in the field. Arranged over two volumes, the chapters are framed as critical synoptic pieces covering key developments, current issues and debates, and emerging trends and future considerations for the field. The two volumes focus in turn on the theories, concepts and disciplines that underpin tourism management in volume one, followed by examinations of how those ideas and concepts have been applied in the second volume. Chapters are structured around twelve key themes: Volume One Part One: Researching Tourism Part Two: Social Analysis Part Three: Economic Analysis Part Four: Technological Analysis Part Five: Environmental Analysis Part Six: Political Analysis Volume Two Part One: Approaching Tourism Part Two: Destination Applications Part Three: Marketing Applications Part Four: Tourism Product Markets Part Five: Technological Applications Part Six: Environmental Applications This handbook offers a fresh, contemporary and definitive look at tourism management, making it an essential resource for academics, researchers and students.