I am a socio-cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on two areas of inquiry: firstly, the emergence of an ethnic identity among the Tharu of Nepal and its relationship to processes of state formation, and secondly, the relationship between environmentalism and globalization in Sri Lanka. My research in Nepal since 1989 has led to a number of published articles and a book, Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal, published by Cornell University Press in 2002. My current work focuses on the study of environmental issues in South Asia. I recently completed the editing of a book on cultural understandings of the environment in the Himalaya, which examines how different cultural groups in the region understand the concept of environment and what practical consequences result from those understandings for bio-physical processes. I am now working on a book project on the development of biodiversity conservation in Sri Lanka from colonial times to the present. I have been teaching at Macalester since 1995. EDUCATION: A.B., Dartmouth College, 1985; M.A., University of Chicago, 1987; Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1994
Articles
Srilaṅkālī saṃvaidhānik vikāsko pāth" (Lessons of Sri Lankan Constitutional Development). In Nepali., Himāl Khabar Patrikā (2009)
“The Cosmopolitanism of Environmental Activists in Sri Lanka.”, Nature and Culture (2008)
This paper examines the emergence in Sri Lanka of transcultural thinking about environmental issues as...
"Shaping the tourist's gaze: Representing ethnic difference in a Nepali village.", The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2001)
A certain practice associated with the tourism industry in Nepal’s Chitwan district — the ‘village...
"The shaman and the priest: Ghosts, death and ritual specialists in Tharu society.", Himalayan Research Bulletin (1999)
"Modernization, the state, and the construction of a Tharu identity in Nepal.", Journal of Asian Studies (1998)
Books
Culture, Nature, and Society in the Himalaya: Symbolic Ecologies (2009)
For the last half-century, scholarship on human-environment relations in the Himalaya has focused on two...
Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Entries
“Tharu ra rajya: prajatantra, rajya nirman ra janajati pahican”, Mades: samasya ra sambhavna. (Madesh [Tarai]: Problems and Prospects.) (2006)
Refereed Journals Edited
“The royal assassinations”. (A symposium on the murders of Nepal’s royal family)., Himalayan Research Bulletin (2001)
Other Papers, Articles and Opinion Pieces
"Response." (to Ashis Nandy, "South Asian Politics: Modernity and the Landscape of Clandestine and Incommunicable Selves.", Macalester International (1997)
Area Studies, Regional Worlds: A White Paper for the Ford Foundation. (with A. Appadurai, J. Bhabha, and S. Collins), The University of Chicago: The Globalization Project (1997)