Social Transformation in Post-Conflict Nepal: A Gender Perspective

Abstract

The concept of social transformation has been increasingly used in social science to study significant political, socio-economic and cultural changes in both individuals and groups. While there is significant diversity in approaches to social transformation across different disciplines, most scholarship approaches social transformation as a top-down and intentional process with specific and definable goals. This approach risks reducing the subjective experiences of people, which are dynamic, multiple, fluid and unpredictable, to a mere structural abstraction. This thesis argues that social transformation needs to be approached from both a gender perspective and the bottom up, and that this approach reveals the dynamism, power struggles and human agency, which enrich our understanding of how transformation occurs. This is particularly important in the context of a complex traditional structure of caste, class, ethnicity, religion and regional locality as in Nepal, where the experience of the ten-year civil conflict of the Maoist insurgency (1996-2006) has significantly impacted every section of the society. This thesis explores the ways in which social transformation may be understood and its underlying dynamics differently constructed if women’s lived experiences become the basis for theorizing. Through extensive interviews with women in post-conflict Nepal, this thesis analyses the intended and unintended impacts of conflict and traces the transformations in women’s understandings of themselves and their positions in public life. Using in-depth interviews with women from significant newly emerged categories, who had minimal or no presence in pre-conflict Nepal, such as women Constituent Assembly members, women combatants, war widows and women tempo drivers, this thesis argues that the transformative effects reach far beyond women’s formal presence in public sphere and have an existential effect which can only be discerned through the voices of women. Narratives from Nepalese women from different ages, castes and both urban and rural settings provide insight into the depth of transformation underway in Nepal, in ways and to an extent that exceed the ‘measurements’ offered by applying established indicators. The work of the three key theorists, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler, provides the language to conceptualize this research. This thesis suggests that despite the challenges that women are still facing, they have felt a significant transformation not only in their lives but also in their families and societies. Of the factors contributing to the changes in post-conflict Nepal, this research stresses the importance of the change in subject positions of women, the emergence of new role models, and the power of collective agency. These factors are facilitated by the opening of a space for empowerment of women, in addition to internal and external factors such as globalization, people’s movements, the media, and NGO interventions.