Paper long abstract:

Nepal: a word that conjures up images of snow-capped mountains and Himalayan culture - 'Shangri-La', a 'zone of peace', a country quietly living post-conflict. But for whom are these images circulated? And, for today’s discussion, for whom is the term 'post-conflict' useful? In this paper I will illustrate that the term 'post-conflict', and the political ideology surrounding it, borders on fallacy in Nepal, potentially damaging larger processes of social negotiation. What is 'post-conflict'? What defines it? What are its limits? Can we ever truly reach a pure state of 'post-conflict'? And, what gains appear once a state of 'post-conflict' is reached? Is 'post-conflict' merely part of the vocabulary mobilized in the process of modernization to 'remake' societies, to re-tell the (hi)story of the present?