Epicentre to Aftermath
Rebuilding and Remembering in the Wake of Nepal's Earthquakes

Analyses the impact of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes and the need to understand disasters in their cultural and political context.

Michael Hutt (Edited by), Mark Liechty (Edited by), Stefanie Lotter (Edited by)

9781108834056, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 September 2021

478 pages
23.7 x 15.6 x 3.4 cm, 0.74 kg

Epicentre to Aftermath makes both empirical and conceptual contributions to the growing body of disaster studies literature by providing an analysis of a disaster aftermath that is steeped in the political and cultural complexities of its social and historical context. Drawing together scholars from a range of disciplines, the book highlights the political, historical, cultural, artistic, emotional, temporal, embodied and material dynamics at play in the earthquake aftermath. Crucially, it shows that the experience and meaning of a disaster are not given or inevitable, but are the outcome of situated human agency. The book suggests a whole new epistemology of disaster consequences and their meanings, and dramatically expands the field of knowledge relevant to understanding disasters and their outcomes.

Part I. Contextualizing Disaster: Preface
1. Reconstituting pasts and futures: contextual agency in a disaster aftermath Mark Liechty and Michael Hutt
2. Earthquakes in Nepali history John Whelpton
Part II. Rebuilding Lives: 3. Expertise, labour and mobility in Nepal's post-conflict, post-disaster reconstruction: Law, construction and finance as domains of social transformation Sara Shneiderman, Dan Hirslund, Jeevan Baniya, Philippe Le Billon, Bina Limbu, Bishnu Pandey, Katharine Rankin, Nabin Rawal, Prakash Chandra Subedi, Manoj Suji, Deepak Thapa and Cameron Warner
4. Labour and the humanitarian present: thinking through the 2015 Nepal Earthquakes Shyam Kunwar, Elsie Lewison and Katharine N. Rankin
5. Disaster, deceptions, dislocations: reflections from an integrated settlement project in Nepal Jeevan Baniya
6. Humanitarian responses of I/NGOs after the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: empirical evidence from Gorkha, Sindhupalchok and Southern Lalitpur Amrita Gurung and Jeevan Baniya
7. Policies, politics and practices of landslide risk management in post-earthquake Nepal: perspectives from above and below Katie Oven, Shubheksha Rana, Gopi K. Basyal, Nick Rosser and Mark Kincey
Part III. Rebuilding Structures: 8. The politics of participatory disaster governance in Nepal's post-earthquake reconstruction Nimesh Dhungana
9. Changing perspectives on international aid in Nepal since the 2015 earthquakes Shobhit Shakya
10. Reclaiming heritage: the politics and poetics of Newar urbanism Sabin Ninglekhu, Patrick Daly and Pia Hollenbach
11. Kathmandu Durbar Square: heritage reconstruction as a political process of negotiating ownership and authority by Stefanie Lotter
Part IV. Building Memory: 12. Cultural heritage display after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal: the architecture galleries, Patan Museum Katharina Weiler
13. Art as participation, gift and resource: Nepali artists' engagement in post- earthquake Kathmandu Valley Christiane Brosius
14. Gathering absences and presences: memory work, photographs and affective recovery in the Langtang Valley Austin Lord and Jennifer Bradley
15. Bhukampa: Nepali recitations of an earthquake aftermath Michael Hutt.

Subject Areas: Regional government [JPR], Physical anthropology [JHMP], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Anthropology [JHM], Sociology [JHB], Social impact of disasters [JFFC]