Lecture Series CXVII | 50 Years of Change in Nepal

Post on14 Feb 2025

Social Science Baha

invites you to its
Lecture Series CXVII

David Seddon
on
50 Years of Change in Nepal

4 pm | 24 February 2025 (Monday) | Yala Maya Kendra, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur

This lecture will consider some aspects of how and why Nepal has changed—considering both trends and turning points—in the 50 years (1974-2024) since the speaker’s first visit to carry out research on ‘the effects of roads’ in what was called ‘west-central Nepal’—Dhaulagiri, Gandaki, and Lumbini Zones, as they were then. Roads were viewed as means of integration of rural areas into the national economy and state consolidation, but their impacts were complex and varied across different regions. In the following decades, there has been an expansion of roads and infrastructure, urbanisation, and, lately, labour migration, that have considerably shaped Nepali society and economy. Politically, Nepal transitioned from absolute monarchical rule under the Panchayat system to multi-party system in 1990, followed by a decade-long Maoist insurgency (1996-2006), becoming a federal republic in 2008. The adoption of the 2015 Constitution and the shift to a federal governance structure and rising importance of remittances have been significant politico-economic turning points. This lecture will also reflect on some current issues such as governance, sustainability of remittance-based economy, climate change, and the long-term consequences of labour migration that are becoming salient for the country’s future.

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David Seddon is a British academic renowned for his extensive work in development studies, focusing on Nepal and Africa. His initial and subsequent research in Nepal led to many publications, including (with Piers Blaikie and John Cameron) Peasants and Workers in Nepal (1979) and Nepal in Crisis: Growth and Stagnation at the Periphery (1980), and Nepal: A State of Poverty (1987). In 2001, (with Jagannath Adhikari and Ganesh Gurung), he published The New Lahures: Foreign Labour Migration and the Remittance Economy of Nepal and in 2002 (with Jagannath Adhikari) Pokhara: Biography of a Town. In 1972, he joined University of East Anglia (UEA) as a lecturer at the newly established (then called) School of Development Studies, becoming professor in 1994. In 1999, he helped design the UK-funded Rural Access Project (RAP), and between 2001 and 2006, he was the social development and conflict adviser to the RAP. In 2003 (with Arjun Karki), he edited The People’s War in Nepal and in 2010 (with Prabin Manandhar) In Hope and in Fear: Living Through the People’s War in Nepal. Since taking early retirement from UEA in 2004, he has been a freelance researcher and consultant, has updated The New Lahures (2021), and written (with Jagat Basnet and Suresh Dhakal) Rural Unrest in Nepal: A History of Resistance, Revolt and Rebellion (2020), and Lahure Women: Two Centuries of Struggle Service and Silent Fortitude (2021).