Paper short abstract:

Ethnography is often used in studies of commons in Nepal. This paper examines different uses of the concept of 'community' in such studies to determine if its use as a component of analyses of commons is warranted either in relation to the modern Nepalese nation-state or in other global contexts.

Paper long abstract:

The growth of community-based resource management in Nepal, particularly in relation to forests and radio broadcasting, is frequently identified as a cause for optimism about the country's future development, especially following the violence of civil war and the ensuing political turmoil of the new republican period. This growing literature on community management of scare resources has led to Nepal becoming a reference point for global studies of the community management of commons, and played an influential role in these studies through the provision of empirical case-studies to support contemporary theorisation of commons management. Ethnographic data from Nepal is often used as a component of such studies, which are also lauded as exemplars of interdisciplinary research. However, unlike other tropes that have dominated anthropological critiques of the construction of Nepal in the Western imagination―for example, mountaineering, the country's Gurkha troops, and tourism in the context of Orientalist fantasies of Shangri-la― the concept of 'community' has not yet been examined in detail to determine whether its deployment as a component of analysis in commons research is warranted in the context of the modern Nepalese nation-state or applicable in other contexts. This paper builds on previous critiques of Western social scientific research in Nepal by examining different uses of the concept of 'community' in commons research. In parallel to global critiques of development discourse, the paper examines assumptions about the trajectory of Nepalese development and modernisation, and looks at their contestation by different political actors, including Nepali anthropologists and other social scientists.