Studies In Nepali History And Society December 1996

Dolpo is a culturally Tibetan enclave in one of Nepal's most remote regions. The Dolpo-pa, or people of Dolpo, share language, religious and cultural practices, history, and a way of life. Agro-pastoralists who live in some of the highest villages in the world, the Dolpo-pa wrest survival from this inhospitable landscape through a creative combination of farming, animal husbandry, and trade. High Frontiers is an ethnography and ecological history of Dolpo tracing the dramatic transformations in the region's socioeconomic patterns. Once these traders passed freely between Tibet and Nepal with their caravans of yak to exchange salt and grains; they relied on winter pastures in Tibet to maintain their herds. After 1959, China assumed full control over Tibet and the border was closed, restricting livestock migrations and sharply curtailing trade. At the same time, increasing supplies of Indian salt reduced the value of Tibetan salt, undermining Dolpo's economic niche. Dolpo's agro-pastoralists were forced to reinvent their lives by changing their migration patterns, adopting new economic partnerships, and adapting to external agents of change. The region has been transformed as a result of the creation of Nepal's largest national park, the making of Himalaya, a major motion picture filmed on location, the increasing presence of nongovernmental organizations, and a booming trade in medicinal products. High Frontiers examines these transformations at the local level and speculates on the future of pastoralism in this region and across the Himalayas.

Engaging with a range of public health issues, this book charts important social and political transitions in Nepal through the lens of medicine and health development. It focuses on mission health care institutions, tuberculosis control programmes as a site of medical intervention, the "pharmaceuticalization" of mental health and public health, and in relation to development ideologies the attempted creation of modern subjects and citizens to advance the health of the nation. Based on two decades of experience, both as a physician and public health professional and an anthropologist, the author presents these issues through four case studies of health programme intervention in a district in central Nepal to show the inter-related aspects of the processes. The book explains how local realities align with, resist, and are complicated by globalized narratives and practices of health and development. It pays careful attention to traditional healers, infectious disease, micronutrient initiatives, mental health and the historical, ideological, and political-economic context of mission-based development work. Offering an ethnographic picture of the challenges and possibilities for action that exist in Nepal , this book is of interest to academics in the field of medical and development anthropology and those working directly in the fields of health and development.