Bio:  Sara Shneiderman is Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in the Department of Anthropology and the Institute of Asian Research at UBC’s School of Public Policy & Global Affairs. She is the author of Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India and co-editor of Darjeeling Reconsidered: Histories, Politics, Environments. Her current SSHRC-funded transdisciplinary research partnership funded focuses on the social and political dimensions of post-earthquake reconstruction in Nepal <https://elmnr.arts.ubc.ca/> . At UBC, she is Co-Coordinator of the Himalaya Program and Co-Director of the Centre for India and South Asia Research (CISAR).  

Abstract: In April and May 2015, Nepal experienced 2 devastating earthquakes. Nearly 10,000 people died and 600,000 homes were destroyed in 14 districts of this South Asian country that is home to over 30 million people. The earthquakes were at once a traumatic and galvanizing experience for the approximately 30,000 Nepalis in Canada, including about 2,500 in British Columbia.

As is well-documented in global disaster studies literatures, diaspora communities often play an important role in responding to disasters in their home countries. From fundraising, to providing direct relief, to providing advisory and translation services to humanitarian organizations, to speaking with the media, moments of crisis provide diverse opportunities for community engagement. In so doing, such moments of rupture may themselves work to forge diasporic identities. We argue that this was indeed the case for the Nepali-Canadian community in British Columbia. The experience of responding to the 2015 earthquakes enabled consolidation of an emergent South Asian identity in Canada, as it brought Nepali-Canadians into new relationships with each other, their home country, and other South Asian communities. Written collaboratively by a political scientist, an anthropologist and an economist (two of whom are Nepali-Canadians, with the third being an American anthropologist of Nepal who is now a permanent resident of Canada), this paper draws upon multiple disciplinary approaches to  investigate disaster response within the Nepali-Canadian community in British Columbia, as well as ongoing research about the reconstruction process.

The first part of the paper draws upon our personal experiences with immediate post-earthquake responses. We present several brief vignettes that show how the category of ‘Nepali-Canadian’ became visible to individuals, organizations (both community-based and global humanitarian), and governments (both Nepali and Canadian) through the  work of disaster response on the ground in British Columbia. We describe how debates over fundraising strategies and modes of channelling the raised funds (through Canadian Red Cross or the Nepali Prime Minister’s Relief Fund, for instance) made explicit ideological differences within the community—often linked to political party affiliations back home—requiring in-depth discussion to reach consensus. We then explore how Nepali organizations networked with non-Nepali South Asian organizations, highlighting how ‘Nepaliness’ both fits and does not fit within received understandings of the category of ‘South Asian’ in BC. Finally, we consider how several Nepali-Canadians became involved with the broader swell of civil society ‘direct relief’ efforts, traveling to Nepal and ultimately raising funds for their own relief and reconstruction projects.

The second part of our paper draws upon our collective involvement in a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, “Expertise, Labour and Mobility in Nepal’s Post-Conflict, Post-Disaster Reconstruction” (see https://elmnr.arts.ubc.ca; Shneiderman is PI and Parajulee and Shrestha are Collaborators). We present a summary of research findings about the general state of reconstruction on the ground in 2018, 3 years after the earthquakes, and situate the role of Nepali-Canadians in British Columbia vis-à-vis these ongoing processes