A two-day workshop considering the lives and movements of Nepalis in all parts of the world was held in Oxford as part of the AHRC project Vernacular Religion: Varieties of Religiosity in the Nepali Diaspora, co-directed by David Gellner and Sondra Hausner. The discussion circled the globe: the panel discussions started in India, continued east to Southeast Asia (Thailand, Burma, and Singapore), west to the Gulf, and across the earth to North America and Europe (UK and Belgium), in order both to draw out patterns of similarity among Nepali populations across the world and identify possible differences between locations. One overarching similarity was the strength of the associational life of Nepalis everywhere in the world (although there were apparent differences in the kinds of organizations that had the most popularity and momentum). And one paradoxical problem that emerged everywhere—but had seemingly different responses in different places—was whether Nepalis thought of themselve...
The civil wars of the twenty-first century: Sushma Joshi's slightly twisted perspective of the universe.