The Formation of Political Consciousness in Rural Nepal

Shneiderman, Sara

doi:10.4324/9781315145723-3

Cited by 7 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Other political parties were also very active in the region, primarily representing parliamentarian political parties such as the Nepali Congress and Nepal Communist Party (UML). As soon as their desire for social change and justice were articulated effectively in the local politics and ideology of Maoism in the 1990s, the politically empowered peasants left these political forces and joined the Maoists (Shneiderman, ). Subaltern political possibilities are always present and inherent in the historical material processes of development.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A thread of literature is emerging that considers decades of developmental empowerment (Leve, , ), left political history (Whelpton, ) and local activism (Cailmail, ) to explain the roots of the Maoist revolution. Recent ethnographic writings suggest that development was successful in empowering the peasants, but that it failed to satisfy rising expectations in rural Nepal, foregrounding the conditions for frustrated subjects to join the revolution (Gidwani and Paudel, ; Shah, ; Shneiderman, ). For Leve, however, empowerment and failed development are problematic justifications because they rely on a teleological explanation of individual agency and political awareness as a reason for the emergence of the Maoist revolution.…”

Section: Existing Explanation Of the Revolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In development interventions, local social structures such as caste discrimination, gender division of power and the feudal system of production were rendered symptoms of backwardness (Pigg, ). Even though such information was provided to stage the development agenda as an apolitical local issue, organic intellectuals such as schoolteachers, migrant workers, local leaders, peasant groups and political activists provided alternative viewpoints (Shneiderman, ). The popular anti‐monarchy movements of the 1980s and 1990s had direct connections to these processes.…”

Section: Political Articulation Of Development In Nepalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The popular anti‐monarchy movements of the 1980s and 1990s had direct connections to these processes. Such changes were articulated differently throughout the country generating various forms of politics and activism (see Hachhethu, ; Lecomte‐Tilouine, ; Shneiderman, ), but emerged in the form of the Maoist revolution in the Rapti region of Nepal in 1996. The remainder of this section will illustrate how developmental empowerment created the conditions of possibility for the rebellious articulation of developmental changes in the Rapti region by looking at the outcomes of the rural development programmes such as the Thabang School, the RIDP's training and empowerment programmes, and the life history of Lali Roka from Thabang village.…”

Section: Political Articulation Of Development In Nepalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The history and the evolving meaning of the idea of empowerment are discussed elsewhere as a contested problematic of power and hierarchy (see Escobar, ; Ferguson, ; Friedmann, ; Nederveen Pieterse, ). In Nepal, scholars have used this idea to explore how development — bikas — has become a new societal goal and a discursive common sense, generating a particular consciousness that everyone must strive toward modern life styles (see Leve, , ; Pigg, , ; Shneiderman, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Double Life of Development: Empowerment, USAID and the Maoist Uprising in Nepal

Paudel¹

2016

Development and Change

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The geographies of developmental empowerment and subaltern rebellion have unexpectedly overlapped and expanded rapidly in recent years, especially in peasant societies in the global South. By examining the relationship between the long history of development programmes and the emergence of the Maoist revolution in Nepal in the 1990s, this article demonstrates how developmental ideas, particularly the notion of empowerment, can be articulated politically. The author argues that development has a double life in which development subjectivities are reproduced through the simultaneous processes of enrolment and othering, generating the conditions of subordination for development's own reproduction. Development can generate the possibility of rebellion by creating negative consciousness of the process of othering. This article contributes to the growing literature on rebellion and development by showing how development, while striving for hegemony, continuously produces fissures in geographically specific ways that can become portals for the emergence of rebellious possibilities.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Existing Explanation Of the Revolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Political Articulation Of Development In Nepalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Political Articulation Of Development In Nepalmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Double Life of Development: Empowerment, USAID and the Maoist Uprising in Nepal

Paudel¹

2016

Development and Change

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Nepal's Ongoing Political Transformation: A review of post-2006 literature on conflict, the state, identities, and environments

Shneiderman¹,

Wagner

Rinck

et al. 2016

Mod. Asian Stud.

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This review article provides a reading guide to scholarly literature published in English about Nepal's political transformation since 2006, when Nepal's decade-long civil conflict between Maoist and state forces formally ended. The article is structured around four major themes: (1) the Maoist insurgency or ‘People's War’; (2) state formation and transformation; (3) identity politics; and (4) territorial and ecological consciousness. We also address the dynamics of migration and mobility in relation to all of these themes. Ultimately, we consider the Maoist movement as one element in a much broader process of transformation, which with the benefit of hindsight we can situate in relation to several other contemporaneous trajectories, including: democratization, identity-based mobilization, constitutional nationalism, international intervention, territorial restructuring, migration and the remittance economy, and the emergence of ecological and other new forms of consciousness. By looking across the disciplines at scholarship published on all of these themes, we aim to connect the dots between long-standing disciplinary traditions of scholarship on Nepal and more recent approaches to understanding the country's transformation.

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Unsettled autonomy: Ethnicity, tribes and subnational politics in Mizoram, North‐east India*

Roluahpuia

2021

Nations and Nationalism

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This article takes a critical look at the relationship between subnational struggles, tribal politics and political aspirations in Mizoram, North‐east India. It examines how community dynamics and relationships shape the demand for autonomy in a diverse and complex region like North‐east India. Looking at communities registered as tribes in the government scheme of classification, it underlies how autonomy becomes an arena where communities mobilise both against the central state and within themselves. The paper examines the formation of Lushai Hills District Council and the Pawi–Lakher Regional Council (PLRC) in Mizoram, their subsequent development as in the case of the Mizo Hill District Council to Union Territory and statehood and the split in the case of the PLRC into three distinct autonomous councils. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it notes that while territorial autonomy requires recognition and legitimation from the state, the way ethnic groups deploy demands for autonomy is inspired, if not instigated, by the nature of the relationship and interface within and across communities.

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The Formation of Political Consciousness in Rural Nepal

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

The Double Life of Development: Empowerment, USAID and the Maoist Uprising in Nepal

The Double Life of Development: Empowerment, USAID and the Maoist Uprising in Nepal

Nepal's Ongoing Political Transformation: A review of post-2006 literature on conflict, the state, identities, and environments

Unsettled autonomy: Ethnicity, tribes and subnational politics in Mizoram, North‐east India*

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