Aftershocked: Reflections on the 2015 Earthquakes in Nepal

Photo by Dipendra Khadka.

Beginning at 11:56 a.m. local time on April 25, 2015 and continuing for over two months, a series of large earthquakes and significant aftershocks, numbering more than three hundred, plagued Nepal. The earthquakes destroyed homes, historical monuments, and infrastructure, and they triggered an ongoing series of landslides, exacerbated by the monsoon. In the days and weeks following the initial earthquake, many experts on Nepal began to discuss the underlying issues that made these earthquakes as much a human-made disaster as a natural one. Our discussions evolved into a larger investigation of the role of academia in a time of crisis. Much of what is often lost in the rush to rebuild is nuance and historical context, an understanding of the particularities of place in the form of reflections on the past and its implications for the future. Anthropologists working in sites of disaster have contributed much to thinking about the aftermath of reconstruction, but they are often included in the discussion only when the urgency has passed. The essays we present here are an attempt to begin the conversation early—to introduce issues of inequality, regionalism, class, local control, the environment, and diversity even as the dust is still settling—rather than merely as a posthoc critique.

Posts in This Series

Introduction: Aftershocked

Introduction: Aftershocked

Beginning at 11:56 a.m. local time on April 25, 2015 and continuing for over two months, a series of large earthquakes and significant aftershocks, numbering mo... More

Langtang

Langtang

Some forty-nine days after the earthquake of April 25, the people of the Langtang Valley gathered for a ghewa ceremony, the Tibetan Buddhist funerary practice t... More

The Question of Locality in Rupture

The Question of Locality in Rupture

The immediate reaction of those hit by the earthquake in Nepal, whether physically or emotionally, was that of shock, confusion, anger, and grief. Chaos took ... More

Can Nepal’s Youth Build Back Better and Differently?

Can Nepal’s Youth Build Back Better and Differently?

Some of the first groups to mobilize relief supplies in response to the earthquake were youth groups. These organizations take a wide variety of forms, includin... More

The Photographed Gift: Participation, Relief Efforts, and Social Media

The Photographed Gift: Participation, Relief Efforts, and Social Media

The first earthquake to shake Nepal in the spring of 2015 happened on Saturday, April 25. Four months later, Nepalis were still experiencing aftershocks, mourni... More

Heritage, Continuity, and Nostalgia

Heritage, Continuity, and Nostalgia

The political impact of the 2015 earthquakes would have been less significant if their destructive force had not been felt in Kathmandu. The first online photog... More

Digging for Dalit: Social Justice and an Inclusive Anthropology of Nepal

Digging for Dalit: Social Justice and an Inclusive Anthropology of Nepal

Where can we find Dalits in discussions of the earthquakes? An apt metaphor would be “under the rubble,” with the muffled cries of hard-hit Nepali communities c... More

Tamsaling and the Toll of the Gorkha Earthquake

Tamsaling and the Toll of the Gorkha Earthquake

History, like earthquakes, recurs at merciless intervals in the homelands of the Tamang in north central Nepal. Military conquest, government intervention, and ... More

“We Need an Even Bigger One”: Disasters of Inequality in Postquake Kathmandu Valley

“We Need an Even Bigger One”: Disasters of Inequality in Postquake Kathmandu Valley

“Their houses are fine, ours are destroyed. But there is no help for us. Unless the rich are hurt, nothing will change. Now we need an even bigger one that affe... More

The Damage Done and the Dams to Come

The Damage Done and the Dams to Come

In April 2015, Nepal was in the early stages of ambitious plans to develop its significant hydropower potential when the earthquakes inflicted substantial damag... More

Mental Health after the Earthquake: Building Nepal’s Mental Health System in Times of Emergency

Mental Health after the Earthquake: Building Nepal’s Mental Health System in Times of Emergency

In the months since the deadly earthquake, Nepal has seen an unprecedented abundance of mental health discourse and practice. From the government to local NGOs ... More

Situating the Earthquake in the Politics of Feudal Bureaucracy

Situating the Earthquake in the Politics of Feudal Bureaucracy

Three weeks after the second earthquake in May 2015, I asked a Kathmandu taxi driver from Sindhupalchowk if the government had delivered the promised tarpaulins... More

Dots on the Map: Anthropological Locations and Responses to Nepal’s Earthquakes

Dots on the Map: Anthropological Locations and Responses to Nepal’s Earthquakes

In twenty years of working in Nepal, I have run through the earthquake scenario in my mind countless times. When it actually happened, I was not there. I had le... More