A Tale of Three Cities: Rebuilding Heritage Sites in Post-Disaster Nepal

• In Event: Civil Society and Social Movements in the Global South

Abstract

Disasters create a need for states and communities to make decisions and rebuild what has been lost. Current research has shown the importance of factors such as governance (Aldrich, 2019) and pre-disaster social networks (Aldrich, 2012; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015) on post-disaster recovery, defined as the rebuilding of a community to pre-disaster levels. By focusing on outcomes such as local population growth and housing, this body of literature bears on important questions of community resilience and disaster preparedness. However, much remains to be learned about the interests of those participating in the reconstruction and how post-disaster rebuilding decisions are made. To this end, evidence from ethnographic studies in disciplines such as anthropology and geography suggests that disasters can act as catalysts for the domination of new (or previously existing, but weak) ideas, policies, or frameworks (Simpson, 2013; see also Ruszczyk, 2018). In this paper, I combine insights from these bodies of research and employ social movement theory to argue that a local community’s previous contact with the state and composition of pre-disaster social networks shape the reconstruction process and the objects that are rebuilt, especially in public or communal spaces. Post-disaster rebuilding creates an opportunity that can be utilized by communities with resources in the form of social networks and a history of grievances as a focal point of community mobilization to strengthen community identity. Employing this framework, I use process tracing and novel interview data to explain variation among three ancient religious heritage sites in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal that were damaged during the 2015 and 1934 Nepali earthquakes.

Author

• Shana Scogin, University of Notre Dame