Making Sense explores the experiential, ethical, and intellectual stakes of living in, and thinking about, a world in which language cannot be taken for granted. In Nepal, many deaf signers use ...Nepali Sign Language (NSL), a young, conventional signed language. The majority of deaf Nepalis, however, use what NSL signers call natural sign. Natural sign involves both conventional and improvisatory signs, many of which recruit semiotic relations immanent in the social and material worlds. These features make conversation in natural sign both possible and precarious, since sense-making depends on signers’ skillful use of resources and on addressees’ willingness to engage. Natural sign reveals the labor of sense-making that in more conventional language is carried by shared grammar. Ultimately, this highly original book shows that emergent language is an ethical endeavor, challenging readers to consider what it means, and what it takes, to understand and to be understood. “Making Sense delves into the heart of what it means for people to understand each other when they cannot take communication for granted. It is one of the best ethnographic studies about deaf people and signing practices that I’ve read.” — Lina Hou, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara “Beautifully organized and conceived, highlighting in depth the ethical dimensions of communication and understanding.” — Kristin Snoddon, Associate Professor, School of Early Childhood Studies, Toronto Metropolitan University
Suitably Modern traces the growth of a new middle class in Kathmandu as urban Nepalis harness the modern cultural resources of mass media and consumer goods to build modern identities and pioneer a ...new sociocultural space in one of the world's "least developed countries." Since Nepal's "opening" in the 1950s, a new urban population of bureaucrats, service personnel, small business owners, and others have worked to make a space between Kathmandu's old (and still privileged) elites and its large (and growing) urban poor. Mark Liechty looks at the cultural practices of this new middle class, examining such phenomena as cinema and video viewing, popular music, film magazines, local fashion systems, and advertising. He explores three interactive and mutually constitutive ethnographic terrains: a burgeoning local consumer culture, a growing mass-mediated popular imagination, and a recently emerging youth culture. He shows how an array of local cultural narratives--stories of honor, value, prestige, and piety--flow in and around global narratives of "progress, " modernity, and consumer fulfillment. Urban Nepalis simultaneously adopt and critique these narrative strands, braiding them into local middle-class cultural life. Building on both Marxian and Weberian understandings of class, this study moves beyond them to describe the lived experience of "middle classness"--how class is actually produced and reproduced in everyday practice. It considers how people speak and act themselves into cultural existence, carving out real and conceptual spaces in which to produce class culture.
Nepal's Investment Climate Afram, Gabi G; Salvi Del Pero, Angelica
2012, 03-13-2012, 2012-03-19, 2012-04-04, 20120101
eBook, Book
Odprti dostop
The objective of the Nepal Investment Climate Assessment (ICA) is to evaluate the investment climate in Nepal in all its dimensions and promote policies to strengthen the private sector. The ...investment climate is made up of many dimensions that shape the opportunities for investments, employment creation, and growth of private firms. Such dimensions include factor markets, product markets, infrastructure services, and the macroeconomic, legal, regulatory, and institutional framework. The report's key finding is that while there are some niche sectors growing and expanding employment in Nepal (including tourism and certain educational and other services), there are many constraints to the investment climate in Nepal that are hindering the development and growth of the private sector. In particular, political instability, poor infrastructure, poor labor relations, poor access to finance, and declining exports plague Nepal's private sector. To overcome many of these issues and move forward, many reforms are needed. Given the extent of the challenge, effective public-private dialogue is required so that the government and the private sector can work in partnership to address these constraints. The pervasiveness and impact of political instability in Nepal makes the investment climate in the country comparable more to Afghanistan than other countries in the region or the comparator countries used in the analysis. While this comparison is unflattering, it is true. Political instability has stifled growth and limited Nepal's ability to exploit its hydropower and tourism potential. Interestingly, many firms do not perceive access to land and finance as major obstacles. This could be a reflection of lack of dynamism: Nepalese firms are simply not planning to invest, expand, and grow in their unstable and unpredictable environment. The peace dividend is not difficult to measure. As the surveys show, ending civil unrest alone would give back to enterprises 44 working days a year. The effects on economic activity, investment, growth, and job creation could be potentially huge.
New Nepal Pandey, Nishchal N
2010, 2010-05-13, 2008-08-01
eBook
This book reflects the nature of the enormous challenges facing Nepal and the exceptionally important discussion on how to resolve these problems and move ahead.
Transnational business people, international aid workers, and diplomats are all actors on the international stage working for organizations and groups often scrutinized by the public eye. But the ...very lives of these global middlemen and women are relatively unstudied.Mediating the Global takes up the challenge, uncovering the day-to-day experiences of elite foreign workers and their families living in Nepal, and the policies and practices that determine their daily lives. In this book, Heather Hindman calls for a consideration of the complex role that global middlemen and women play, not merely in implementing policies, but as objects of policy.
Examining the lives of expatriate professionals working in Kathmandu, Nepal and the families that accompany them, Hindman unveils intimate stories of the everyday life of global mediators.Mediating the Global focuses on expatriate employees and families who are affiliated with international development bodies, multinational corporations, and the foreign service of various countries. The author investigates the life of expatriates while they visit recreational clubs and international schools and also examines how the practices of international human resources management, cross-cultural communication, and promotion of flexible careers are transforming the world of elite overseas workers.
Tracing the experiences of mobile Himalayans across the globe, Places in Knots describes the ways in which Himalayan people relate to the multiple places they inhabit and the work and trouble of ...keeping their communities tied together. Martin Saxer describes global Himalayan ventures as a form of expansion of community rather than out-migration. Moving out does not sever the bonds of community. Instead, it is the pull that tightens the knot.Coffee-table books and trekking agencies continue to advertise the Himalayas as remote "hidden valleys," and NGOs see them as fragile mountain ecosystems to be protected from global forces of destruction. Places in Knots shows how these tropes of remoteness inform development and conservation policies and thus shape the contexts in which Himalayan connections with the wider world are forged and maintained. Following Himalayan journeys between valleys in Nepal and beyond, Saxer draws a picture of globalization that emerges not from the centers or below—but rather from the edge. Thanks to generous funding from LMU München, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Tracing the experiences of mobile Himalayans across the globe, Places in Knots describes the ways in which Himalayan people relate to the multiple places they inhabit and the work and trouble of ...keeping their communities tied together. Martin Saxer describes global Himalayan ventures as a form of expansion of community rather than out-migration. Moving out does not sever the bonds of community. Instead, it is the pull that tightens the knot. Coffee-table books and trekking agencies continue to advertise the Himalayas as remote "hidden valleys," and NGOs see them as fragile mountain ecosystems to be protected from global forces of destruction. Places in Knots shows how these tropes of remoteness inform development and conservation policies and thus shape the contexts in which Himalayan connections with the wider world are forged and maintained. Following Himalayan journeys between valleys in Nepal and beyond, Saxer draws a picture of globalization that emerges not from the centers or below—but rather from the edge. Thanks to generous funding from LMU München, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Voicing subjects Kunreuther, Laura
2014., 20140411, 2014, 2014-03-26
eBook
Without the intellectual and emotional support of family ,close friends ,colleagues ,students ,research assistants ,editors ,and anonymous reviewers ,most books —and I know this book —would not have ...come to fruition .I am first and foremost grateful for all the help of people in Nepal ,without whom this research would not have been possible .I benefited from conversations at the Martin Chauteri group and with other anthropologists at Tribhuvan University .I thank Nirmal Tuladhar for helping to sponsor the initial stages of research through CNAS .Pratyoush Onta has been an important interlocutor —both in his writing and in person —since we met in the early
Retheorizing Religion in Nepal is an engaging and thought-provoking study of Religion in South Asia, with important insights for the study of religion and culture more broadly conceived. Grieve uses ...ethnographic material as well as poststructuralist and postcolonialist approaches to critique and expand religious studies as a discipline.
Landslide problems are abundant in the mountainous areas of Nepal due to a unique combination of adverse geological conditions, abundant rainfall and anthropogenic factors, which leads to enormous ...loss of life and property every year. To control such problems, systematic studies of landslides are necessary, including inventory mapping and risk assessment. This study applies the analytical hierarchy process method in the Tinau watershed, Nepal. A landslide susceptibility map is prepared on the basis of available digital data of topography, geology, land-use and hydrology. The landslide susceptibility map is validated through physical and statistical methods. The results reveal that the predicted susceptibility levels are found to be in good agreement with the past landslide occurrences, and, hence, the map is trustworthy for future land-use planning.
► This study applies the AHP method in the Tinau watershed, Nepal. ► Landslide susceptibility map is prepared on the basis of available data. ► The data used are topography, geology, hydrology, land use and rainfall. ► The map is validated through physical and statistical methods. ► Predicted susceptibility levels agree with the past landslide occurrences.
