This thesis explores the forces of change in lives and landscapes that have altered the Lamosangu-to-Everest route in northeastern Nepal and shows how a transect in photographs and conversations across the east-central Himalaya allows us insight and a greater understanding into the processes and consequences of this change. Three forces of change over the last twenty-five years dominated discussions with local informants: the rise of the "People's War"-Nepal's Maoist Insurgency beginning in 1996; the Democratic Revolution of 1990; and dependence on tourism for livelihood after the establishment of Sagarmatha National Park in 1976. Understanding the cultural-historical context for these forces is necessary to understand the concerns of today's residents living along the Lamosangu-to-Mount Everest Base Camp transect. The visual and ethnographic evidence discussed in this thesis takes a larger role than strict analysis of conspicuous large-scale land use change and I hope the comparative 200 I images will be used as benchmarks for future research as well as for further exploration into the ways people and place have been represented.

The purpose of this case study is to examine and explore the consequences of reintegration among female ex-combatants in Sri Lanka and Nepal. DDR-programs have often been critiqued by scholars for their lack of gender perspective, consequently this research aims to understand the unique challenges and outcomes faced by women with different intersectional identities. This study uses structured, focused comparison, to systematically compare social, economic and political aspects of reintegration based on several comparing factors such as psychological health, stigmatisation, employment opportunities, education, financial support, political participation and representation. Through this methodology, and the creation of the theoretical framework based on critical feminism and the analytical tool intersectionality, the study aims to answer what differences and similarities can be found in the two countries. The findings shows that social identities such as gender, class, caste, ethnicity, age and ideology have a significant impact on female ex-combatants’ access to reintegration. Furthermore, that prior education levels of female ex-combatant have a decisive influence on the possibility of a meaningful reintegration in society.

Research shows that in the UK, individuals from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are significantly less likely to access mental health services than the general population. In the absence of literature or robust mental health service access figures for Nepalese people living in the UK (NLU) there is little understanding of the mental health needs and help-seeking preferences of this group. This study aimed to examine factors which are associated with professional help-seeking for mental health difficulties in NLU. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1985) was used as a guiding theoretical framework to examine the strongest predictors of intention to seek professional help. Potential predictors, shame/izzat, acculturation, beliefs about the causes of mental distress and demographic variables were measured. The sample were 65 NLU recruited from community centres, health events and online groups across the UK. Results indicated that although a significant number of NLU reported having experienced mental health difficulties, very few had sought professional help. A number of variables significantly correlated with intention to seek professional help, including level of acculturation, non-Western physiological causal beliefs and izzat. According to a multiple-regression analysis of the whole sample, izzat was the most strongly related to intention to seek professional help. A number of barriers to help-seeking were identified such as hoping problems would go away or not wanting to burden others. A significant strength of the study was the use of both Nepalese and English language questionnaires which ensured that a large non-English speaking section of the NLU population was not excluded from the study. Limitations include methodological considerations such as the use of one measure which appeared to have limited validity. Furthermore, the exclusion of illiterate individuals by merit of using a self-report questionnaire limits the generalisability of these findings to the NLU more widely. Low mental health service access rates were identified within this sample relative to the prevalence of mental health difficulties. The clinical implications of this study highlight the need for policy and service level strategies to increase service access rates and the need for mental health services which are sensitive to the culturally specific issues within the population.

Objectives: The overall aim of this research was to describe the health-seeking behaviours (HSBs) of people in rural Makwanpur, Nepal, and to analyse the patient, household, community, health-system, knowledge and illness factors, and the psychological, social and cultural processes which explain these behaviours. Background: Much about the health status of populations and individuals can be understood by studying how people utilise their health services and the factors associated with this utilisation. HSB studies act as a starting point for the planning of health programmes and the structuring of health systems. Nepal, with its shortage of health providers and funding, its low service usage and its pluralistic medical landscape provides an interesting setting in which to examine HSBs. Most health policies in this context have been devised without taking into account the perspectives of the system users. Moreover, limited formal research on this topic has been carried out in this context. Methods: This study involved a mixed-methods, explanatory sequential design consisting of two phases – quantitative data collection followed by qualitative data collection. Quantitative data was collected using a cross-sectional household survey carried out in 2,334 households across ten VDCs in Makwanpur district between April 2011 and August 2011. Households were selected using a random sampling method. The survey asked about care-seeking in response to an acute episode of illness in the previous one month. Qualitative data was collected after the quantitative data using semi-structured household interviews (n=90) in three VDCs between November and December 2012. The Qualitative interviews were designed to compliment the quantitative findings and to determine the explicit factors associated with care decisions. Results: Of the 2,334 households surveyed,46% had at least one episode of illness in the month prior. The majority of illnesses were infectious or parasitic diseases (42%). Of those households experiencing illnesses, 69% chose to seek care outside of the home; 22% used traditional healers, 37% used allopathic providers and 12% opted for pharmacies as a first option. Sixteen did nothing to address their illnesses, sighting geography, finances, workload and lack of severity as the reasons. Regression models revealed that a host of different patient, household, community, illness, health facility and knowledge factors were associated with care decisions depending on the decision, but illness factors had the greatest impact overall on whether or not a household sought some care or care outside of the home, while household level factors had the greatest impact on the type of care sought outside of the home and the length of delays before seeking care. Patient gender had an impact on whether or not allopathic care was used at least once. Qualitative results revealed that health facility factors were also equally important in determining households’ conscious decision-making about specific providers. Conclusions: Overall it appears that people in Makwanpur are not underutilising health services as suspected. Households use certified government providers most frequently to address their illnesses, and do not rely too heavily on traditional healers or informal providers exclusively. The results indicate that while illness and household factors are important, in order to improve HSBs and increase allopathic care utilisation, a focus should be on improving health service delivery rather than on changing HSBs. However, in order to decrease delays in care-seeking, a focus should be made to reduce household-level barriers to care as well.

Master of Science / Department of Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Jessica L. Heier Stamm / Coordination between humanitarian organizations is critical during the response effort to a disaster, as coordinating aid improves efficiency, reduces duplication of efforts, and ultimately leads to better outcomes for beneficiaries. One particular challenge arises when temporary facilities must be established post-disaster due to the destruction of buildings. For example, the 2015 Nepal earthquakes created a need for the placement of over 4,000 temporary learning facilities after several school buildings were damaged or destroyed. It is important that humanitarians coordinate well to fill these needs efficiently and effectively, while maintaining equity among beneficiaries in the affected areas. This means ensuring that enough facilities are provided in a timely manner, and are distributed fairly to all in need. The goals of this thesis are to study coordination strategies focusing primarily on the placement of temporary educational facilities for children following a disaster. This research also aims to gather useful data by surveying active humanitarians in order to better understand their decisions made in the field. This work uses the results of this survey, along with publicly available data published after the 2015 Nepal earthquakes to create an agent-based simulation model, and uses the Nepal case study to demonstrate the efficacy of the model framework. This research finds that organizations' initial location of operation can greatly impact the number of facilities they are collectively able to establish, the geographic disparity across the region, and the organizations' utilization. Specifically, while focusing efforts on the districts with the most need is most efficient and effective, a more uniform approach yields a more equitable response. This work also finds that there can be a trade-off between overall effectiveness and the number of partnerships established in the field. These findings show a need for further study into the intricacies of coordination between humanitarian workers. This author advocates for the use of information sharing mechanisms among practitioners, as well as further utilization of agent-based modeling as a means of studying the complex nature of disaster response. Specifically there is a need to further study educational needs as a logistical problem, and strategies for solving the post-disaster facility location problem.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

Participatory ecological monitoring aims to bring together conservationists and members of the public to collect scientific data about changes in nature – in species, habitats, ecosystems and natural resources. Given that such monitoring not only concerns measures of nature but inherently the participants doing the measuring, it is as much to do with social processes as it is to do with ecological ones. By drawing on detailed ethnographic work from the community forests of Nepal, this thesis aims to explore some of the social dimensions of participatory monitoring and of its consequences for socio-ecological regimes. Current debates in political ecology, development studies and nature-society studies provide the theoretical basis for the investigation. The novelty of the thesis lies in its extensive empirical data, which allows it to explore current understandings of participatory monitoring. The thesis establishes the following tentative theoretical findings. It firstly draws attention to the importance of the informal, often unconscious ways in which we all observe changes in nature and of the need to recognise such ‘local monitoring’ in relation to participatory monitoring. It draws attention to the situated nature of practices of monitoring and the heterogeneity of people involved, suggesting that this has consequences for how costs and benefits arising from participatory monitoring are distributed amongst participants and beyond. It argues that without attending to such consequences, participatory monitoring may serve to (re)produce social inequalities which are the basis for marginalisation and that it may become embroiled in local power struggles. The thesis argues that whilst participatory monitoring may provide useful data on changes in nature, that this information will not automatically influence decision-making over nature conservation or the use of natural resources. A multitude of other factors are important in such decision-making and the ways in which these relate to and potentially constrain the effectiveness of participatory monitoring are discussed. The thesis finally offers a typology with which to better understand the complexity amongst participatory monitoring projects – based on who and what they are for – and with which to approach the conflicts and inconsistencies they present. The thesis concludes that without a careful consideration of their inherent social dimensions, participatory monitoring projects will ultimately fail in attempts to both improve the condition of nature and the lives of societies that depend on it, for the two are intimately connected. Interdisciplinary studies such as this are therefore seen to offer great potential to participatory and community-based approaches to conservation and natural resource management more widely.

This study aims to investigate the influence of livelihood strategies and gender structures for climate change adaptation among rural households in two mid-hills agrarian mountain communities in Nepal. The Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) framework has been used to provide a holistic and micro-level perspective of livelihood strategies. The method used was qualitative semi-structured interviews to reach respondents views, opinions and feelings of their reality and experiences. Findings suggest climate change may increase smallholder agriculture households’ vulnerability in rural mid-hills mountain areas of Nepal, where women as a group are disproportionately affected; the success of livelihood diversification as a autonomous adaptation strategy to climate change is dependent on local opportunities and socioeconomic aspects and must be understood in the broader context, not just related to climate change; and livelihood strategies do not necessarily present equal opportunities for sustainable livelihoods for men and women, as it may even increase existing structures of gender inequalities. / Den här studien syftar till att undersöka hushålls anpassningsstrategier och genus-strukturers betydelse för klimatförändringar, på landsbygden i två medelhöga bergssamhällen i Nepal. Ramverket hållbara uppehällen (Sustainable Livelihoods, SL) har använts i denna studie för att ge ett holistiskt- och mikronivå perspektiv på anpassningsstrategier för landsbygdshushåll. Kvalitativa semi-strukturerade intervjuer har använts för att nå respondenternas vardag och erfarenheter i form av tankar, känslor och åsikter. Studien visar att klimatförändringar förmodligen ökar småskaliga jordbrukshushålls sårbarhet i medelhöga bergssamhällen på landsbygden, där kvinnor som grupp påverkas oproportionerligt i förhållande till män; att diversifiering av uppehällen som anpassningsstrategi till klimatförändringar är beroende av lokala möjligheter och socioekonomiska aspekter och måste förstås i en bredare kontext utöver enbart klimatförändringar; att olika anpassningsstrategier inte nödvändigtvis skapar lika möjligheter för män och kvinnor, denna studie indikerar istället på att det kan öka redan existerande ojämställda strukturer mellan män och kvinnor i hushållet.

In the Hindu tradition of the Indian subcontinent, worship of the goddess has long been practiced as supreme embodiment of the divine. Around the second century, a Sanskrit Purana (ancient Hindu text that extols deities) titled the Markandeya Purana details the battles of the supreme Goddess Durga against the illusions and negative energy in the universe. This textual version of the Devi Mahatmya “Praise of the Goddess” serves as the foundation for the nineteenth century Nepalese illustrated Devi Mahatmya, commissioned by Tej Bahadur Rana from Pokhara district in Nepal. Because the folios closely follow the textual Devi Mahatmya, the illustrations’ amalgamation of styles demonstrates a double entendre of religious and political frameworks represented through Indian religious iconography with localized motifs and styles from Nepal. In this study, I argue that the illustrated Nepalese Devi Mahatmya indicates a shift in power from the Shah aristocracy to Rana oligarchy. This Devi Mahatmya contextualizes the social, religious, and historical events of nineteenth century Nepal, as a unique extension to the current scholarship about the Devi Mahatmya since it is dated and has a known patron. The intentional amalgamation of previous Newar styles, localized elements, and European décor reveals the mythical being contemporized, that is, drawing from English modernism to empower the Rana family, adding a unique flair to this manuscript as opposed to previous Devi Mahatmyas of Indian Guler or Newar style. Within the nineteenth century Nepali Devi Mahatmya, the background of this Devi Mahatmya is Guler-inspired, utilizing lightly hued backgrounds and landscapes, suggesting that the artist(s) had observed Guler compositions prior to this commission. The Nepali and Newar motifs contextualizes the Devi Mahatmyas commissioning in Pokhara, as these elements comment on the clan patriarch Jung Bahadur Rana and uncle of the patron usurping power from the Shah king, asserting a new Rana oligarchy that would last until 1951. As a result, this Devi Mahatmya is used as an offering to the goddess to legitimize Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana and the nephews that would follow his legacy.

This thesis explores the relationship between education and employment, particularly as it affects the socio-economic mobility of people from poor and marginalized communities in Nepal. I carry out a multi-sited, inter-generational analysis to investigate the aspirations, expectations, and experiences of young people. Based on ethnographic and participatory fieldwork in a village and a school in the outskirts of Lalitpur in 2012, this research grows organically to provide a detailed review of current schooling practices and their employment as well as wider implications in Nepal. Theoretically, this thesis investigates the experiences of the marginalized in terms of the relevance, level, and quality of their education. I examine the role of education as a socializing institution as well as its characteristics as a social and a positional good. I assess the outcomes of their education through internal measures (such as exam scores and pass rates) but also extend the analysis to include external ones (such as job opportunities and life trajectories). I focus on the deterministic life-stages model of transition to challenge the expectation that children go to school, acquire skills, obtain jobs, and become 'adults'. People have historically placed high hopes on education, but the potential for socio-economic mobility for the poor and marginalized are limited by the failures of the school system, sustained challenges to higher education access, limited relevance of education to employment opportunities, and continued prominence of social and cultural capital to secure jobs. Yet, their educational engagement has provided some benefits even as their expectations for gainful employment have not been met. Schooling has become an integral part of childhood, but foreign migration is emerging as a prominent alternative avenue for the aspirant youth. Further, the distinctions between children and adults are also blurred as students balance their transitions between school, work, and home to succeed within the system.