SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

The Political Economy of Research and Research Institutions in Nepali History

Pratyoush Onta

Abstract

Most accounts of international social science academic production suggest that countries of the global South, including those in South Asia, have at best a marginal presence in the field that is said to be overwhelmingly dominated by North America and Western Europe. However this paper argues that academic production is not a competitive sport the results of which can be neatly presented in a table resembling the Olympics medal tally. By using historical and ethnographic vignettes from Nepal, it suggests that narratives of ‘academic dependency’ or ‘resource-gap’ miss the point. Focusing on the links between politics, financial resources and research cultures in recent Nepali history, it argues for a different vocabulary of engagement with academic production in the countries of the global South.

Speaker Biography

Pratyoush Onta has a PhD in history from the University of Pennsylvania (1996). He has written about Nepali nationalism, Gurkha history, institutions, area studies, knowledge production, and media. He has written, edited or co-edited several books including Nepal Studies in the UK (2004), Social History of Radio Nepal (2004, in Nepali), Social Scientific Thinking in the Context of Nepal (2004, in Nepali), Radio Journalism: News and Talk Programs in FM Radio (2005, in Nepali), Growing up with Radio (2005, in Nepali), Mass Media in Post-1990 Nepal (2006), Ten Years of Independent Radio: Development, Debates and the Public Interest (2008, in Nepali) and Post-1990 History of Nepali Magazines (forthcoming, in Nepali). He is also the founding editor of the journals Studies in Nepali History and Society (est. 1996) and Media Adhyayan (est. 2006, in Nepali). He has been associated with the research institute and public forum Martin Chautari in Kathmandu since 1995 and is currently its chair.