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Ms Mona Chettri

MA Development Studies (New South Wales)

Overview

Mona Chettri
Name:
Ms Mona Chettri
Email address:
Thesis title:
Identity Politics in the Eastern Himalayas
Year of Study:
3
Internal Supervisors

PhD Research

My Ph.D research ‘Ethnicity in Politics-a case study of the Nepalis of the eastern Himalaya’ is a comparative study on ethnic politics in three Himalayan areas of Sikkim, Darjeeling and east Nepal. It focuses on multiple arenas of negotiations between ethnic groups and the state, which consequently leads to a variation in the articulation and manifestation of ethnic identity in the eastern Himalaya. My research is an analysis of the symbiotic relationship between ethnicity and politics. It highlights the complexities of identity politics as well as the social, economic and political factors that contribute to the construction of political identities in South Asia.

In 2012 I was the Research Student Representative for the Department of South Asian Languages and Cultures. Currently, I am the Graduate Teaching Assistant for the course ‘South Asian Culture’ in the Faculty of Languages and Cultures.

My research interests include socio-political movements, borderland cultures, development discourse in South Asia and everyday forms of politics.

PhD Publications

  • ‘Choosing the Gorkha- at the crossroads of class and ethnicity in the Darjeeling hills’, Asian Ethnicity, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14631369.2013.764763
  • Peer Review -Reviewed articles for South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (2010) and Studies in Nepali History and Society (2012)
  • Forthcoming Book Review- Opening the Hidden Land- State Formation and the Construction of Sikkimese History (2011) by Saul Mullard in Himalaya, the Journal for Nepal and Himalayan Studies.

PhD Conferences

  • Paper Presentation (Panel Convenor)
    ‘Choosing the Gorkha Identity- At the Crossroads of Class and Ethnic Politics in Darjeeling’, British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) Annual Conference, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 12-14th April, 2012
  • ‘Transformation and Crisis in Frontier City-The Case of Siliguri’, Annual Conference on South
    Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 20-23 October 2011.
  • ‘Ethnicity and Political Contour of Naya Nepal- A Case Study of the Regional Politics in
    Eastern Nepal’, International Conference on Changing Dynamics in Nepali Society and Politics,
    Kathmandu, Nepal, 17-19th August 2011.
  • ‘Evolution of an Identity-The Political Re-definition of the Gorkhas of the Darjeeling Hills’,
    Britain-Nepal Academic Council, Cambridge University, 20-21st April 2011.
  • ‘The Politics of Cultural Revivalism in the Eastern Himalayan Borderland’, Britain-Nepal
    Academic Council, University of Durham, 19th April 2010.
  • ‘Expressing Otherness through the Self - Dress Code and Cultural Propaganda in the Darjeeling
    Hills’, SOAS Research Students Society Conference, London, 30-31st March 2010