Other Events

Public Release 
of the book 

A Project of Memoreality: Transnational Development and Local Activism among Rural Women in Nepal 
by
Saubhagya Shah 
with an introduction by 
Chaitanya Mishra

​2 pm • 15 December, 2017 (Friday) • Yala Maya Kendra, Patan Dhoka

Speakers
Anup Bikram Shah, brother of late Saubhagya Shah
Dyuti Baral, Social Science Baha
Binod Pokharel, Central Department of Anthropology, Tribhuvan University
Bimbika Sijapati Basnett, Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia
Youba Raj Luintel, Central Department of Sociology at Tribhuvan University
Sudhindra Sharma, Social Science Baha/Interdisciplinary Analysts

From the back cover
This is an ethnographic study of a group of rural women from south-central Nepal brought together by a development intervention. It details how these women used their collective identity forged through an income-generating project to address issues such as women’s property rights, domestic violence, gambling and alcoholism, and even political representation. In examining the intended as well as unintended consequences of an externally initiated ‘women’s development project’, Shah assesses the structural limitations of a development enterprise while also focusing on what he terms the creative agency of the project beneficiaries. This agency becomes apparent in a number of ways, including the construction and projection of memory into the domain of social significance, or ‘memoreality’; the ready adoption of transnational flows of discourses, resources, and legitimacies; and the use of the tools of development to politicise other arenas of socio-political life. A Project of Memoreality will serve as an important contribution to understanding the dynamics of women’s activism in Nepal as well as the complexities of the development industry.