Anthropology of Nepal- Peoples, Problems and Processes (An Old and Rare Book)

About the Book An International Conference on the Anthropology of Nepal: Peoples, Problem and Processes were held in the Hotel Vajra, Kathmandu from the 7th to the 14th September 1992. It was organized jointly by the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS). Tribhuvan University and the Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney. This volume includes research articles written by 13 Nepalese and 24 foreign scholars. A distinctive feature of the collection is the special attention accorded to the kind of contribution that anthropology can make to the understanding of problems in social living. Topics covered include the following: The Anthropology of Resource Management, Urbanism in Nepal, The State and the People, Women and Power, Medical Anthropology, The Anthropology of Performance and Problems in Identity.

About the Author The Editor, Michael Allen, recently retired Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, first visited Nepal in 1954 and began his study of Newar society and religion in 1967. He has published a book The Cult of Kumari on the Newars and jointly edited (with Soumyen Mukherjee) a collection of articles entitled Women in India and Nepal. He has also published several journal articles on various aspects of Newar society and religion.

Foreword About a year ago the Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney, in collaboration with the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies, Tribhuvan University, made a decision to hold an international conference in Kathmandu on the topic of The Anthropology of Nepal: Peoples, Problems and Processes. The primary intent of the conference planners was that by bringing together a distinguished group of anthropologists from many different countries they would thereby promote a better understanding of Nepalese society and culture.

As the Executive Director of the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies I am proud to be associated with this conference, though without losing my inherent humility. This is, indeed, one of the few prides that will endure in my memory for a long time to come. The conference is the first of its kind to be held in Nepal, and hence it is also the first time that I have had the privilege to address such an awesome assembly of scholars. However, the sense of my own inferiority cannot prevent me from welcoming you with a heart that is characteristic of a member of a society that is not yet fully modernised. Despite the scientific and other advances made in many parts of the world Nepal is still a traditional, backward-looking, and to some extent, impervious society. I am proud that I am its citizen and I am proud that I mean what I say. Not meaning what you say is one of the cultivated marks of modernization. The process of growth in my personality-if I have any personality at all-can be a microcosmic case for an anthropological study of Nepalese culture.

The story of what we call anthropology in Nepal is not very old. It began fitfully with the research work of western scholars in the nineteenth century. Kirkpatrick (1811), Hamilton (1819), Hodgson (1874), Oldfield (1880), Vansitartt (1894), Levi (1905), Northey and Morris (1926) and Landon (1928) among others, did work that stretched between history and anthropology.Their publications gave us some bright insights into the nature and structure of Nepalese society and culture, and in so doing provided the nucleus for the coming generations of anthropologists, both Nepalese and foreign.

**Contents and Sample Pages**