Studies in Nepali History and Society (Vol. 25 No. 1 June 2020)

The sheer diversity and lively activity of Nepal geographies makes them difficult to ignore. From the continuous uplift of mountains and itinerant migration of river channels, to the feats of engineering on display in terraced fields and remarkable histories of migration and trade across mountain passes and floodplains, Nepal is a place where the "environment"-produced through intertwined social and biophysical processes-rarely recedes as passive "context." Home to uniquely diverse and rapidly transforming bio-physical systems, geopolitical encounters and indigenous relations of knowledge and practice, Nepal has long offered a wealth of opportunities to advance nuanced geographical understandings of the co-production of socio-natural relations and affords rich grounds for transformative politics and intersectional modes of resistance.

Geographers have played an important role in identifying and conceptualizing socio-natural relations in Nepal and the Himalaya. With a foot in both the social and physical sciences, geography as a field has been particularly well-suited to tackling such questions (see Marston 2008). Geographers' embrace of diverse methodologies-from aerial photography and land use surveys, to participatory mapping and ethnography-has allowed them to identify gaps and discrepancies in data sets, challenge scientific objectivism, embrace uncertainty, and turn a critical analytical lens back on experts and institutions of scientific knowledge production (e.g., Blaikie 1985; Thompson and Warburton 1985; Ives and Messerli 2003; Nightingale 2003, 2005; Ojha 2006; Nightingale and Ojha 2013; see also Katz 1992; Nast 1994; Lawson 1995; Forsyth 2004; Robbins 2004). Consideration of multiple spatial and temporal scales has also enabled a relational approach to place and space-involving attention to how regions and localities are produced through intersecting, multi-scalar processes and flows (e.g., Gurung 1969, 1984, 2005; Sharma 1989, 2001; Metz 1991; Adhikari 2001, Bhattarai 2003; Ghimire 2014; see also Massey 1991, 2004, 2012; Harvey 2012; Hart 2018). With this perspective, making sense of the relationship between a farmer and a field, for example, requires attention not only to immediate household dynamics and the local environment, but also to histories of state displacement, transnational trade, and the collision of tectonic plates over the course of millennia.

Insights from geographical research in Nepal have been influential in advancing understandings and debates about environmental governance and development in both regional and global arenas. While geography departments in Nepal have faced challenges due to limited resources, geographical scholarship has continued to grow and develop both within and beyond academic institutions in Nepal, building on the strong foundations laid by early geographical scholarship in the region and incorporating cutting edge technologies and novel approaches to critical social and physical science. Geographical approaches have played an important role in setting research agendas, deconstructing dominant narratives, informing policy approaches, and mobilizing politicized resistance in relation to a variety of important issues including: economic development (e.g., Gurung 1969. 1984, 2005; Blaikie, Cameron and Seddon 1977; Byers 1987; Shrestha 1995, 1997; Bhattarai 2003; Sharma 2005, 2007); agriculture and environmental degradation (e.g., Thompson and Warburton 1985; Karan and lijima 1985; Metz 1989, 1991; Shrestha 1995, 1997; Ives and Messerli 2003; Nightingale 2003, 2005; Ojha 2006; Ojha et al. 2008; Adhikari 2008; Bhattarai 2011; Koirala 2017): population and migration (e.g.. Shrestha 1985, 1989, 1990; Subedi 1991; Adhikari 2001); and natural hazards (e.g., Ghimire 2011. 2017; Devkota, Doberstein and Nepal 2016; Byers et al. 2017; Gergan 2017; Rajaure and Paudel 2018). Our aim in the issue is to both take stock and look to the future of Nepal and Himalayan geography. The issue offers historical reflection, a snapshot of contemporary research, and discussions of how Himalayan perspectives can continue to further debates on questions that are of increasingly urgent global concern.

The examples and citations provided here are, of course, only a small sample of extensive bodies of work. For detailed reviews of the history and scope of the discipline of geography in Nepal see Panday (1998); Subedi and Poudel (2005); Koirala (2008); Adhikari (2010); Subedi (2014); as well as Lewison and Murton, this issue.

**Contents and Sample Pages**