Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Enclave Development and Socio-spatial Transformations in Asian Borderlands
- 1 Post-disaster Development Zones and Dry Ports as Geopolitical Infrastructures in Nepal
- 2 Onwards and Upwards: Aerial Development Zones in Nepal
- 3 Casinos as Special Zones: Speculative Development on the Nation’s Edge
- 4 Thinking the Zone: Development, Climate, and Heterodystopia
- 5 From Shangri-La to De facto SEZ: Land Grabs from “Below” in Sikkim, India
- 6 Development Zones in Conflict-Affected Borderlands: The Case of Muse, Northern Shan State, Myanmar
- 7 Smart Enclaves in the Borderland: Digital Obligations in Northeast India
- 8 Post-Disaster Economies at the Margins: Development, Profit, and Insecurities Across Nepal’s Northern Borderlands
- 9 Development from the Margins: Failing Zones and Suspended Development in an Indonesian Border Village
- 10 From Boom to Bust – to Boom Again?: Infrastructural Suspension and the Making of a Development Zone at the China-Laos Borderlands
- 11 Genealogies of Extraction: De Facto Development Zones in the Indonesian Borderlands
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
8 - Post-Disaster Economies at the Margins: Development, Profit, and Insecurities Across Nepal’s Northern Borderlands
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Enclave Development and Socio-spatial Transformations in Asian Borderlands
- 1 Post-disaster Development Zones and Dry Ports as Geopolitical Infrastructures in Nepal
- 2 Onwards and Upwards: Aerial Development Zones in Nepal
- 3 Casinos as Special Zones: Speculative Development on the Nation’s Edge
- 4 Thinking the Zone: Development, Climate, and Heterodystopia
- 5 From Shangri-La to De facto SEZ: Land Grabs from “Below” in Sikkim, India
- 6 Development Zones in Conflict-Affected Borderlands: The Case of Muse, Northern Shan State, Myanmar
- 7 Smart Enclaves in the Borderland: Digital Obligations in Northeast India
- 8 Post-Disaster Economies at the Margins: Development, Profit, and Insecurities Across Nepal’s Northern Borderlands
- 9 Development from the Margins: Failing Zones and Suspended Development in an Indonesian Border Village
- 10 From Boom to Bust – to Boom Again?: Infrastructural Suspension and the Making of a Development Zone at the China-Laos Borderlands
- 11 Genealogies of Extraction: De Facto Development Zones in the Indonesian Borderlands
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter is concerned with the making of development zones in Nepal’s northern borderlands. Focusing on the shifting economic geographies of traders and businessmen, I demonstrate that the current revival of border markets and informal economies is inseparable from the combined processes of state restructuring and infrastructural reconstruction that ensued after the 2015 earthquakes devastated large parts of the country. I seek to develop the category of “informal development zones” to attend to the ways in which state power is enacted to control and discipline the margins in the post-disaster moment, while also foregrounding how rural inhabitants engage with, resist, or support the formalities of state laws and regulations. Looking closely at local narratives of social differences and insecurities, I show how people navigate the complex space between competition and choice to carve out investment strategies and entrepreneurial opportunities. Informal development zones are transforming life in borderlands and offer an urgent reminder of the uncertain and uneven outcomes of market economies following moments of rupture.
Keywords: disasters, informal economies, trade, border markets, infrastructure development, ruptures
Introduction
Appey owns a tented shop at Bachu, a wide, open grassland at roughly 4,100 metres below the Ngula Dachen Pass (5,090m), which leads into China, connecting rural inhabitants of northern Nepal's Tsum Valley with cities and market towns in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Situated more than half a day's walk beyond Tsum's last village, Appey's shop is the final serviced stopover before the steep approach to the pass – somewhere people can pause for a meal along the way or stay for the night.
The place is simple. Appey has pitched two large communal tents next to one another. He has then tied plastic tarps on poles to the main tent to create a kitchen, where he prepares food on an open fire. Sacks of rice, lentils, and flour, along with canned pork, instant noodles, tea, and whisky, are stacked high on metal shelves further inside. The seating area, an arrangement of handwoven rugs, blankets, and insulated mats, is usually occupied by groups of men from the lower hill regions. They pass the time playing dice, listening to pop music from a massive loudspeaker. In the neighbouring tent is a pool table, and several mattresses that can be rolled out to sleep on. Without electricity or transmission lines at this altitude, the equipment is powered by two large solar panels and batteries.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Development Zones in Asian Borderlands , pp. 187 - 210Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2021