Between a rock and a hard place: Vulnerability and precarity in rural Nepal

Abstract

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractDrawing on a local study on Nepal's Terai, this paper explores the nature of livelihood exposure to shocks and stresses amongst rural households in two Village Development Committees in Sunsari District. The primary data are derived from a 117 household survey supplemented by 19 purposefully sampled follow-up interviews. The paper opens with a discussion of the changing nature of exposure in the global South, distinguishing between inherited vulnerability and produced precarity. We then provide background to the research site and the research methods. In the core empirical part of the paper we unravel and distinguish between the livelihood threats and opportunities faced by households in the area and use these to reflect on the nature of 'exposure', its historical origins and contemporary (re)production. The final part of the paper uses the Nepal case to build a more general argument, proposing that if we are to understand the puzzle of continued livelihood exposure and uncertainty in the context of aggregate economic expansion we need to identify and interrogate the processes that may, at the same time, produce wealth and reduce vulnerability, while also generating precarity.

Ambivalence towards discourse of disaster resilience

“…Unfortunately, Nepal ‘remains one of the world's 48 “least” developed countries even after more than sixty years of “development”’ (Rigg et al, , p. 64). With regard to the economy, ‘almost half of all households in Nepal have either a current or returnee migrant’ (World Bank, , p. 26), illustrating how difficult it is to earn a livelihood in the country.…”

Rethinking Asian poverty in a time of Asian prosperity

“…Table , which has been adapted from work carried out in rural settlements on the Terai of Nepal (Rigg et al, ), sets out this distinction between vulnerability and precarity. While the assumption here is that we are moving from conditions of vulnerability towards a situation of precarity, the elements of each can be co‐present and most individual households probably experience elements of both.…”

“…(Standing, 2013: 2) Taking a precarity perspective, with Ban Non Tae and Ban Tha Song Korn in mind, requires us to think about how farm households become incorporated into the market economy, both in situ through how market relations occupy rural social, economic and physical space, and ex situ through how people become incorporated into other sectors in other places. Table 1, which has been adapted from work carried out in rural settlements on the Terai of Nepal (Rigg et al, 2016b), sets out this distinction between vulnerability and precarity. While the assumption here is that we are moving from conditions of vulnerability towards a situation of precarity, the elements of each can be co-present and most individual households probably experience elements of both.…”

Precarious livelihoods: Examining the intersection of fish work and ecological change in coastal Jamaica

“…Precarity is an emerging analytical field, including in geography and labour studies, focusing on thematic concerns such as aging, migration, the gig economy and refugee studies (see Cruz‐Del Rosario & Rigg, ). There is also a budding focus on precarity in the global South: Rigg, Oven, Basyal, and Lamichhane () focus on rural precarity of farming livelihoods in Nepal, Swider () looks at labour precarity in China’s construction industry and Larmer () reflects on permanent precarity in the Central African copperbelt. As Weston () argues, even if Fordism never fully developed and precarity is not a new condition in the global South, people globally are struggling for an imagined future that no longer seems possible.…”

“…As Weston () argues, even if Fordism never fully developed and precarity is not a new condition in the global South, people globally are struggling for an imagined future that no longer seems possible. Precarity further focuses on new forms of poverty, what Rigg et al () refer to as produced exposure whereby working conditions are impacted by shifting markets, changing population dynamics and biophysical shifts in ecosystems.…”