Description
Kathmandu comprises an intricate collection of spaces, histories, conflicts, and imaginaries. Long a site of contestation, aspiration, and external projection, the city encompasses a bundle of seeming contradictions: ancient and modern, traditional and cosmopolitan, ever-changing and yet consistently itself. In the twenty-first century, research about contemporary Kathmandu-and the Kathmandu Valley more broadly-has proliferated, owing to transformations in the city itself as well as to shifts within the social sciences. The upshot has been a diverse and nuanced literature exploring the intertwined politics, cultures, and geographies of the present city and its surrounds. Collected here for the first time, the articles in this volume offer an exemplary snapshot of current research about a rapidly changing metropolis. Presenting both classic texts and more recent work by young scholars, this book maps the contours of a still-emerging body of work, exploring everything from housing markets to heritage, memory to migration, infrastructure to identity, and much more. The diversity of themes is meant not only to give a broad overview, but also to supply readers with embarkation points for further research. Thus, as both a handy reference and an introductory anthology, KATHMANDU: A READER sustains a crucial, ongoing conversation about the city’s past, present, and future.
Benjamin Linder is an anthropologist and cultural geographer with interests in urban place-making, transnational mobilities, and cultural transformation in Nepal. He currently serves as the Coordinator for Public & Engaged Scholarship at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IAS), Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is also an associate editor of Studies in Nepali History and Society.
