Paper short abstract:

Maoist politics intersect with village interrelationships, loyalties and animosities, leading to realignments, transformations, contradictions and paradoxes. Analysis highlights the mediatory and often desperate strategies used by villagers and insurgents to negotiate their shared experience.

Paper long abstract:

Many villagers in rural Nepal live a 'revolutionary life'. For most this is not by choice but due to external circumstances as the area in which they live is, to a greater or lesser extent, under the control of Maoist insurgents.

In an attempt to pre-empt conflicting loyalties, Maoist activists are often posted outside their own areas. Party members with local knowledge, however, remain essential to the further development of the movement. Thus an important but sometimes inadequately discussed dimension of the revolutionary movement is the challenge of managing the complications and contradictions that arise when politics intersect with long standing personal, ethnic and cultural interrelationships, loyalties and animosities.

By focusing on a group of villages in west central Nepal this paper chronicles the everyday life of locals in these areas including Maoist party activists and the non-aligned majority. Through an examination of institutions such as the rituals of death, the mediation of conflict and the production of alcohol this presentation highlights the potentially contentious relationship between local and Maoist practices. By focusing on a series of case histories it highlights some paradoxes and contradictions inherent in the everyday life of Nepal's Maoist movement and the mediatory, and often desperate, strategies used by both the insurgents and non aligned villagers to negotiate their shared social experience. Through these case studies we gain added insight into the everyday politics and policies of revolutionary movements as well as a greater understanding of the nature and extent of agency and resistance exercised by non aligned civilians.