MSc, Anthropologist
Project
I am currently working on my PhD project entitled "Political Activism in the
context of Nepal's Democratic Transition: Mobilisation, Hope and
Survival among youth in Kathmandu."
The project investigates the processes through which political
participation among young activists in Kathmandu are
negotiated and constructed. In spite of the political stability
introduced by the nation-wide elections and the Constituent
Assembly in the spring, large and popular socio-political movements
like the Maoist's youth wing and Young Communist League (YCL)
continue to push their own agendas of 'street-justice' and
'ideological education' that both complement and challenge existing
state institutions.
The goal is to provide a frame for an anthropological analysis of
activism through an attention to how young people navigate
'political society', and thereby contribute to notions of politics,
through a focus on negotiations of sociality on the margins of the
political, and youth, in the dialectical understanding of the
struggle between generation and social becoming. Through a double
focus on the mobilization of young people for political purposes,
and the way in which youth 'survive' through political movements,
the study will investigate how the political field is constructed,
and discuss how specific forms and perceptions of participation
emerge as hegemonic.