![Sample our Economics, Finance,Business & Industry journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5931/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Economics-Finance-Business-Industry.jpg"})
Many parts of the Himalaya are at once indigenous people's homelands, national parks or conservation areas, world-renowned trekking and mountaineering destinations, and the sites of ongoing ecological and socioeconomic development interventions. In addition, for many residents, protective territory deities reside in nearby peaks, and valleys between provide sacred places of refuge. Like in mountain regions elsewhere, these meanings represent overlapping and entwined claims of authority and territory from the state, indigenous communities, development agencies, and religious institutions. In this article I consider the ways in which resident Sherpas in Khumbu, Nepal, negotiate the overlapping spaces, authorities, and territories associated with understandings of the region as Khumbi yullha's—a local deity—territory and the Nyingma Buddhist institutional claim to the region as a beyul—a sacred, hidden valley refuge, which development actors, both inside and outside the Khumbu Sherpa community, have attempted to mobilize as a sacred landscape supporting environmental conservation initiatives. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in 2009 to 2010 and 2013, I focus on the spatiality of the cultural politics of religion in Khumbu in competing claims of territory from the Buddhist monastic institution and localized practices and the ways in which such constructions shape the outcomes of intervention programs.
喜马拉雅的诸多部分, 同时是原住民族的家园, 国家公园或保育地区, 世界知名的徒步旅行和登山地点, 以及持续不断的生态和社会经济发展介入的场域。此外, 对许多居民而言, 提供保护的领土神灵便驻守在邻近的山顶上, 而其间的谷地, 则提供了避难的神圣地点。诸如其他地方的山岳地区, 这些意义, 呈现出国家、原住民社群、发展组织和宗教机构之间重叠且相互交缠的主权及领域主张。我于本文中, 考量尼泊尔坤布的夏尔巴人协商关乎将区域理解为在地神灵坤布尤拉 (Khumbi yullha) 的领域, 以及宁玛 (Nyingma) 佛教机构宣称该区域作为神圣且隐匿的山谷避难处之 “秘境” 的重叠空间、主权和领土, 其中来自于坤布夏尔巴社群内部与外部的发展组织, 同时尝试动员上述对圣地地景的理解作为支持环境保育的动机。我根据在 2009 年至 2010 年与 2013 年间的十八个月田野工作, 聚焦坤布在佛教修道院机构与在地实践之间相互竞争的领土宣称的宗教文化政治空间性, 以及此般构造形塑介入计画之结果的方式。
Muchas partes de los Himalayas son a la vez patrias de población indígena, parques nacionales o áreas de conservación, destinos de excursionismo y montañismo de renombre mundial y escenarios de intervencionismo de desarrollos ecológicos y socioeconómicos actuales. Además, para muchos residentes, en los montes circundantes residen deidades protectoras del territorio, y los valles que quedan en medio proveen lugares sagrados de refugio. Como ocurre en las regiones montañosas de otras partes, estas significaciones encarnan reclamos de autoridad y territorio que se traslapan y entrelazan, tanto del estado como de las comunidades indígenas, agencias de desarrollo e instituciones religiosas. En este artículo registro las maneras como los residentes sherpas de Khumbu, Nepal, negocian los espacios superpuestos, las autoridades y territorios asociados con el entendimiento de la región como el territorio de Khumbi yullha—una deidad local—y el reclamo institucional de Nyingma budista sobre la región como un beyul—un oculto refugio sagrado del valle, al que actores del desarrollo, tanto dentro como fuera de la comunidad sherpa de Khumbu, han intentado movilizar como un paisaje sagrado que apoya iniciativas de conservación ambiental. Con base en dieciocho meses de trabajo de campo entre 2009 y 2010 y en 2013, me concentro en la espacialidad de las políticas culturales sobre religión en Khumbu, en reclamos en competencia por territorio de la institución monástica budista y las prácticas y maneras locales dentro de las cuales tales construcciones configuran los resultados de los programas intervencionistas.
Palabras clave:
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insights and suggestions to improve this article.
Notes
1 I indicate Sherpa words as Sh., Tib. for Tibetan, Nep. for Nepali, and Sk. for Sanskrit. For ease of reading and pronunciation, on first usage I present foreign language terms in a simplified or common rendering.
2 The 2011 census recorded 2,572 Sherpas in Nauche and Khumjung Village Development Districts (Central Bureau of Statistics, National Planning Commission Secretariat, Government of Nepal 2014); however, it is likely that many Khumbu Sherpas are registered in Kathmandu, which would bring the total population closer to 5,400 as reported by Stevens (2008).
3 I use pseudonyms for all research participants quoted here.
4 Makley (2014) described a similar tension, which has always existed between monastic and lay traditions in the Tibetan ethnic region of Amdo, in which monastic leaders deride lay mediums, shamans, for propagating low religion and “baser desires.”
Funding
This research was generously supported by the National Science Foundation (Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant BCS-1303147 and CAREER Grant BCS-0847722), the Society of Women Geographers (Pruitt National Dissertation Fellowship), the IIE Fulbright program and the United States Education Foundation–Nepal, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Tokyo Foundation, and the Association of American Geographers.