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Human Organization, Vol. 73, No. 2, 2014 Copyright © 2014 by the Society for Applied Anthropology 0018-7259/14/020153-09$1.40/1 Climate Change, Perceptions, and Social Heterogeneity in Pharak, Mount Everest Region of Nepal Pasang Yangjee Sherpa Based on 15 months of research conducted between 2010 and 2012, this paper examines how climate change is unfolding for Sherpas in Pharak, the southern part of Nepal’s Everest region. Sherpas are noticing environmental changes, undergoing socioeconomic transformation, being introduced to climate change, and becoming exposed to multiple forms of environmental knowledge from various sources. Thus, climate change in this research emerges as an issue not contained within a single geographic territory or an academic discipline but as the product of multiple knowledge systems in addition to observable effects on the natural environment. This research reveals the narrowly defined institutional climate change narratives that focus on melting of glaciers and glacial lake outburst floods. I argue that a sustained emphasis on such institutional narratives will obscure the wider range of both short- and long-term climate change effects and thereby limit our understanding of their impacts on the residents of this region. I further argue that in order to understand Sherpa perceptions of climate change, it is necessary to understand the exposure and access of individual Sherpas to various sources of knowledge and resources. This can be achieved by exploring social heterogeneity and understanding how social networks function in this small-scale cultural group. Key words: climate change, perceptions, social heterogeneity, Nepal, Sherpas I n her review of the growing anthropological literature on climate change, Crate (2011) points out that the scope of anthropology has expanded to engage local with global contexts. She argues for a “climate ethnography” that is multi-sited, collaborative, and adopts a crossscale, multi-stakeholder approach. By engaging multiple stakeholders in such ethnographic efforts, “we trace global processes locally and track how global processes are being articulated via local knowledge systems to elucidate the convergences and conflicts between the global to local conversations and understandings about climate change” (Crate 2011:186). Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is a Lecturer in cultural anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. The author would like to acknowledge the financial support received from a Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, the Harka Gurung Research Fellowship through Social Inclusion Research Fund in Nepal, and a research fellowship from the Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies. Their generosity assisted in timely completion of her research. She would also like to thank John Bodley, Barbara Brower, Nancy McKee, Late Pralad Yonzon, and Ram Chhetri for their mentorship throughout this research. This paper benefitted from the valuable comments by two anonymous reviewers and Mark Moberg, Editor-in-Chief for Human Organization. The author takes full responsibility for any errors that remain. VOL. 73 NO. 2, SUMMER 2014 In this paper, I present an ethnographic illustration of how climate change is unfolding for Sherpas in Pharak, the southern part of Nepal’s Everest region. This case study draws upon 15 months of research conducted between 2010 and 2012. In documenting climate change perceptions of Sherpas, the research employs a holistic approach by exploring socioeconomic and institutional connections between the locality of Pharak and the national and the global contexts. Climate change in this research emerges as an issue not contained within a bounded geographic territory or single academic discipline but as the product of multiple knowledge systems in addition to observable effects in the natural environment. At the local level, Sherpas, along with the national government, scientists, researchers, and development practitioners, appear as stakeholders concerned about climate change in the Everest region. In this context, I follow Hastrup’s (2012:148) description of scale as “not a matter of more or less but of different points of perception” as I apply a multi-scalar approach to assessing climate change narratives at the local, national, and global levels. Sherpas are noticing significant environmental impacts resulting from climate change and are becoming exposed to different kinds of knowledge from various sources as they themselves are undergoing rapid socioeconomic transformation. I draw upon the “dynamic sustainabilities” perspective put forward by Leach, Scoones, and Stirling (2010) to analyze 153 the processes by which climate change can be contextualized in this transitioning society. This perspective recognizes that today’s world is highly complex and dynamic and therefore requires looking at the interaction of different systems – social, ecological, and technological – across multiple scales and as they play out in particular places with particular environmental and social contexts. I argue that an examination of social heterogeneity among Sherpas assists us in understanding how individuals are heterogeneously exposed to different climate change effects and knowledge systems, resulting in varying perceptions of a changing environment and climate. I consider heterogeneity to be a characteristic of small-scale societies, following Bodley’s (2012) use of the principle of heterogeneity as a corollary of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity refers to the fact that decisions are made at the lowest feasible level in the social structure, starting with the individual then moving up to the household, family, or village levels as demanded by the circumstances. In the process, people are encouraged to mobilize social networks to solve problems rather than relying on hierarchies (Bodley 2012:13). Scientific Knowledge of Climate Change Effects Evidence from the Everest Region over recent decades has demonstrated a steadily warming climate. Shrestha et al. (1999) found that between 1977 and 1994, mean annual maximum temperature trend distributions show warming affecting most parts of Nepal. Mean annual high temperatures increased 0.06 degree Centrigade per year in most of the northern belt, consisting of the Trans-Himalayan and Himalayan regions (Shrestha et al. 1999). Shrestha and Aryal (2011) extended this early analysis of temperature data with more recent measurements. These demonstrate that the warming trend is still continuing and that the rate of warming has not diminished. The 2011 National Climate Change Policy of Nepal recognizes change in temperature and rainfall and associated natural disasters such as landslides, flooding, and drought, as well as Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF), as significant climate change risks for Nepal (Ministry of Environment 2010). On the overall Climate Change Vulnerability Index, Solukhumbu district, where the Everest region lies, is ranked as high. Conversely, on the Climate Change Adaptation Capability Index, the same district is ranked low (Ministry of Environment 2010). With 278 glaciers and 10 potentially dangerous glacial lakes, the Dudh Koshi basin of the Everest region is the largest glaciered basin in Nepal (Bajracharya and Mool 2009). In the Everest Region, Imja Tsho, identified as one of the most critical glacial lakes in the country, has attracted worldwide attention due to its potentially extreme danger (ICIMOD 2011). Comparative analyses of photographs and maps compiled over recent decades have shown the steady expansion of the Imja glacier lake (Byers 2007; Somos-Valenzuela et al. 2013; Watanabe, Ives, and Hammond 1994; Watanabe, Kameyama, and Sato 1995). According to Watanabe, Ives, and Hammond 154 (1994), what were five small ponds in the 1950s had coalesced by 1975 into a single lake interspersed with islands. One such island completely disappeared between 1978 and 1980 while the lake area of 0.54 sq km in 1984 had measurably expanded by 1991. In assessing the dangers of such expansion, scientists reference the Nare Lake GLOF of 1977 and the Dig Tsho GLOF of 1985 as two earlier recorded and highly destructive outburst events in the Dudh Koshi basin. In 2009, Watanabe, Lamsal, and Ives (2009: 255) felt compelled to address such climate change impacts in print “because of a series of alarmist mass media and even scholarly prognostications.” They added that “[t]he imminence of catastrophic [GLOFs] accompanied by large losses of life and property in the Himalaya and on the lowlands to the south has been linked with similar dire predictions that global warming will eliminate all glaciers and snow from the mountains within a few years” (Watanabe, Lamsal, and Ives 2009:255). The authors stressed that they had no intention to imply that rising temperatures are not affecting Himalayan glaciers and snow cover, nor that GLOFs will not increase in frequency, with associated threats to life and property. Yet, they continued, there is an urgent need for accurate appraisal of the situation, “preferably based upon a combination of sound scientific research and incorporation of traditional knowledge of the local people likely to be affected” (Watanabe, Lamsal, and Ives 2009:255). Other studies of climate change in the Everest region have taken vulnerability-based approaches and risk reduction perspectives to assessing local impacts. Glacial retreat and potential GLOFs have been the focus of investigation for several climate change studies of the region. Exploratory studies of changes in biological resources are in their infancy, and studies of the human dimensions of climate change remain limited. However, previous studies about Sherpas and their relationship with the environment, although not framed as a climate change issue, offer a wealth of information for climate change studies (Brower 1991; Sherpa 2013; Skog 2010; Spoon 2008, 2011a, 201lb; Spoon and Sherpa 2008; Stevens 1996). McDowell et al. (2013) adopted a vulnerability approach to assess human susceptibility to hydrological change in four Khumbu communities. In the present climate change context, their works serves to develop a baseline understanding of changing water resource dynamics and human well-being in Khumbu. The 2010 anthology published by Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) presents several studies providing baseline information from Khumbu on environmental concerns that could inform future climate change research. My research presented here is the only ethnographic study of institutions and climate change issues in the region and also the only long-term ethnographic study conducted by a native of the region. The Field: Local, National, and Global I conducted 15 months of fieldwork from May until August of 2010 and from January until December of 2011 in Pharak, Khumbu, Kathmandu, and the United States. These places became my field sites, as they are not just places where HUMAN ORGANIZATION my Sherpa informants or their families live but also places that are influencing cultural changes for local Sherpa residents. It was also crucial that my fieldwork was conducted outside Pharak in places where climate change narratives and policies relating to vulnerability assessment, adaptation, and resilience are designed for Sherpas, but not by them.Pharak was my primary field site, where the majority of my data was collected. A substantial amount of time was also spent in Khumbu and Kathmandu to gather institutional information about climate change that directly affected Sherpas in Pharak. Informal interviews were conducted in Kathmandu and the United States with Sherpas originally from Pharak and Khumbu. Pharak and Khumbu are Sherpa names for places popularly known as the Everest region in Nepal. The territory of Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park (SNP) covers Khumbu, and the national park buffer zone (BZ) covers Pharak. After the ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the Everest region became a popular tourist destination. Today, the approximately 7,000 residents of this region welcome more than 32,000 tourists every year. Khumbu, the northern part of the region, is where Mt. Everest lies and consequently where most tourists and visitors spend most of their time. The village of Namche, locally known as Nauje, is the most popular site among tourists for acclimatizing to high elevations and is therefore best able to profit from tourism revenue. Khumjung and Khunde are other Khumbu villages often visited by researchers and development practitioners. The first school and the first hospital built by Sir Edmund Hillary in the 1960s in the Everest region are located in Khumjung and Khunde, respectively. A number of researchers have studied these villages over the decades, beginning with the famed ethnographer Christoph von FürerHaimendorf in the 1950s. Pharak is the southern part of this roadless region, where the Tenzing-Hillary airport is also located. There are more than 20 settlements of varying sizes on either sides of the Dudh Koshi (Milky River). Khumbi-yul-lha, the protector mountain deity of the region, lies between Kongde and Thamserku, two immense mountains on the left and right sides, respectively. Khumbi-yullha appears to be watching the region, and Sherpas regularly make offerings to please this mountain deity. Such offerings may include silk scarves, food items, and incense. The Mane (prayer) stones in the villages offer opportunities for visitors to earn spiritual benefits and intercession. There are also several sacred sites inhabited by lu (Naga in Sanskrit, the female serpent spirit of water and land), where local beliefs heavily stigmatize activities and behaviors considered to be polluting (Sherpa, M. N. 2013). The temple Rimijung Gonda serves as the spiritual center for the Pharak people; it is here that the annual Dumje festival is organized and religious rituals are performed. Ethnographic Fieldwork In the summer of 2010, I conducted fieldwork in Khumbu, Kathmandu, and in Pharak. I completed participant observation of a climate change awareness-raising event in VOL. 73 NO. 2, SUMMER 2014 Khumbu that involved a foot race, Sherpa dance programs, Sherpa food stalls, and speeches by the organizers. I also observed and participated in the annual Dumje festival, numerous community gatherings, and institutional meetings, where social, cultural, and economic issues of the region were discussed. Since I was attending the meetings of several institutions and NGOs (discussed below), most of my time in the Everest region was spent in Khumbu instead of Pharak. While in the region, I interviewed key informants and local leaders about environmental and socioeconomic changes as well as cultural concerns for Sherpas. In 2011, I conducted fieldwork among Sherpas in Pharak. I lived in an on-route village with a family who also ran a teahouse. On a daily basis, I observed the family members interact with each other and with other villagers. During tourist seasons, I helped them in the kitchen and dining area, although my contributions were limited by a lack of relevant work experience. This locale enabled me to engage in many casual conversations with trekking groups and their Western customers. Conversations with Nepali guests usually centered on what I was doing in the village, while my exchanges with Western guests more commonly addressed the realities of climate change in the region. During off-tourist seasons, I observed farming practices, visited herders, and participated in community gatherings and religious rituals. I also gathered national and regional climate change information concerning Sherpas in Pharak from key informants, institutional meetings, and interdisciplinary academic gatherings in Kathmandu. When in Pharak, I conducted semi-structured interviews, participant observation in numerous official settings and meetings, and recorded impromptu conversations among informants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with informants (n=39) from Pharak and Khumbu. I conducted stratified random sampling to identify informants living in on-route villages and off-route villages. On-route villages are on the main trekking trail to Mt. Everest, and off-route villages are off the main trail. During interviews, informants were asked to identify their age, gender, and occupation. These interviews included a list of open-ended questions about environmental changes and socioeconomic changes in the region. Participant observation of 14 institutional meetings was conducted during fieldwork. At these meetings and activities, I observed: (1) participation of Sherpas – who was present and the nature of their participation; (2) the performative aspects of the event – how the event was structured, staged, and conducted; and (3) the delivery of messages – what information was presented, who delivered it, and to what intended audience. Impromptu conversations among informants, usually conducted around kitchen tables while drinking minted black tea, were also recorded in Pharak. These exchanges provided additional insights into how Sherpas perceive climate change and respond to extreme events. Dynamics of Climate Change The term “climate change” is literally translated into Nepali as jalvayu parivartan. The Nepali and English terms 155 are used interchangeably during official meetings and other gatherings, just as speakers of the Nepali language frequently employ borrowed English words during conversations. During my fieldwork, the Sherpa translation of the term climate change was not used in Pharak. Instead, Sherpa informants almost always employed the English term and adopted the Nepali translation only occasionally. My research found that the phrase “climate change” for Sherpas in the Everest region has been institutionalized to refer to global warming, melting of glaciers, and GLOFs. When using the phrase “climate change,” informants made references to institutional activities organized in the region whether or not they were related to climate change. Institutions engaged in the region involve a variety of NGOs usually working in collaboration with the national park officials and in a few cases with local Sherpa groups. For Pharak Sherpas, institutions are identified by their non-traditional and official way of functioning and referred to as “office work” or “project work” or by the acronyms of individual institutions such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Tourism for Rural Poverty Alleviation Program (TRPAP), and Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC). Over the decades, NGOs with various programmatic interests including environmental conservation, pollution control, gender equality, and tourism management have become active in the Everest region. Since 2004, their organizational presence was joined by a number of organizations focusing on climate change issues. These institutions are governmental and non-governmental as well as commercial in nature. While not-for-profit institutions led and implemented development projects and programs in the 20th century, recent climate change activities suggest that commercial institutions are also interested. Prior to the Copenhagen Climate Summit (COP 15) in 2009, there was a proliferation of institutional activities responding to the effects of climate change in the Everest region. Most of these activities were widely publicized and covered by national and international media, including a convening of the national cabinet in Kalapatthar leading up to the COP (15). There Nepal would make its case of climate change vulnerability by highlighting threats facing the popular Everest region. In Pharak, however, many Sherpas were not aware of these activities, and some even mentioned that they only learned about the cabinet meeting from the news on television, broadcast from Kathmandu. After COP 15, the number of climate change activities in the region declined significantly because there was now less perceived need to build a case for climate change vulnerability. This has not, however, lessened the environmental concerns of many Sherpas. Organizational activities related to climate change have primarily consisted of workshops and presentations given by institutions to local people. They were and continue to be mostly organized in Namche and Khumjung, popular on-route villages in Khumbu. The objectives of these activities were found to be “raising awareness” about anthropogenic climate change as understood by the Inter-governmental Panel on 156 Climate Change (IPCC) and “empowering people” by equipping Sherpas with communication technology and knowledge of climate change impacts on glaciers and potential GLOF. When such activities take place, the same group of people would regularly participate—largely male Sherpa hotel owners in their 20s-40s who reside in on-route villages. Institutional activities designed as responses to the effects of climate change are developed outside the region, usually in Kathmandu, and involve experts, scientists, development practitioners, and occasionally Sherpas residing in Kathmandu. These activities focused on glacier melting and a potential Imja GLOF as the result of climate change. While these have been widely discussed at the national and global level, as I note in this article, they are not the only effects of climate change that Sherpas have noticed. According to their published reports, every institution in the region that deals with climate change aims to provide a participatory approach, but in practice their interactions with participants tended to be hierarchical. It was also observed that male participants in such meetings interacted more while females seemed to remain passively in the background. In 2006 during a workshop in Monzu, an on-route village, a female participant stated that “…women are not good for these things; ask only the men to speak. We don’t know anything.” In the case of Pharak Sherpas, institutional activities aimed at helping Sherpas become more resilient were instead found to have aided in manufacturing rumors and misunderstandings, potentially putting lives in danger. Interviews and conversations with Pharak Sherpas in 2010 and 2011 revealed that there had been at least two false alarms of Imja glacial lake flooding. In one of these cases, news of rising water and possible GLOF was spread to several Pharak villages within hours by mobile phones. Sherpas fled to higher ground with their belongings, including one mother with her newborn child who could only find refuge in the middle of the night in her potato field. This incident had occurred a week after a climate change information sharing workshop was organized in Namche. The workshop presented findings of scientific studies examining the impact of climate change on glaciers and glacial lakes. It also presented the path of potential Imja GLOF, which revealed that Pharak villages close to Dudh Koshi would be vulnerable. Almost half of the workshop attendees, who numbered around 50 in total, were non-residents, and many of them were members of the organizing team. According to Navin Singh Khadka (2012), an environmental reporter for the BBC, many Sherpas claim they are not involved in climate change studies and that alarmist media reports about such studies frequently cause panic among local residents. When interviewed by Khadka, Ang Chhiri Sherpa, chairman of an association of tourism entrepreneurs in two on-route Khumbu villages, observed that “every time we begin to forget about the threats from glacial lake outburst, then comes news of yet another study through the radio and television, and this has been happening over and over again for more than 15 years now…. Instead of having to fear death HUMAN ORGANIZATION like that again and again, we would rather die once if the lake really bursts out one day” (Navin Singh Khadka 2012). Sherpa Perceptions of Climate Change In order to find out how Sherpas perceive climate change, I posed questions about changes in snowfall, rainfall, temperature, agricultural cycles, and GLOFs. These questions were prepared by reviewing the literature before going into the field. I followed Vedwan and Rhoades’ (2001) approach from India and later also incorporated approaches from studies conducted among Tibetan communities by Byg and Salick (2009) and Salick, Byg, and Bauer (2013) as I studied Sherpa perceptions of climate change. The phrase “climate change” was not used during interviews unless my informants themselves brought it up. If informants themselves did not mention climate change, by the end of the interviews I asked if they had heard about it. Only three out of 29 informants in Pharak said that they had. In contrast, all seven of my informants in Khumjung, including a non-Sherpa long-term resident from Khumbu and a Sherpa politician in Kathmandu, said they had heard about climate change. My Khumbu informants appeared to know what to expect and what to say during interviews, which was not the case in Pharak. Yet, Sherpas do perceive that there have been changes in snowfall and rainfall patterns, increased temperatures, and increased occurrence of extreme events. During the course of this research, a heavy flood following a storm, an earthquake, and two severe gales disrupted life for days at a time in Pharak. Many Sherpas compared the present weather conditions with their childhood years, and some recalled getting plenty of snow during Lhosar, the New Year festival that normally falls in February. When asked specifically about the amount of snowfall at present compared to the past, all informants mentioned that it has decreased drastically; some even said that where they regularly received a couple of feet of snow at a time in past decades, there was almost none now. In 2010, Sherpas characterized the weather to be extraordinarily warm, and in the following year, they described temperatures as unusually varied and unpredictable. Informants described some days as hot, others much less so, and indicated that some places were substantially warmer than others. The unusual weather and temperature patterns became a common topic of conversation among informants during the summers of 2010 and 2011. During such conversations, Sherpas directly linked the effects of heat and rainwater to the survival of their cash crops. Among the crops that Sherpas grow are potatoes, barley, buckwheat, beans, and green leafy vegetables. In 2010, many Pharak Sherpas noted that the heat had destroyed many of their crops during that year’s growing season. In 2011, Sherpas said some villages had good harvests, while too much rainwater damaged crops in others. Rinzin, an informant, recalled a conversation he had with his friends the year before about global warming and climate change as they looked at the mountains lacking snow cover. All of them linked that VOL. 73 NO. 2, SUMMER 2014 year’s temperatures and rainfall patterns with increased food prices in the market. He described their sense of relief in 2011 as they saw more snow on the mountains. Sherpas perceived monsoon rains to be irregular and unpredictable. Unpredictable changes in the timing and intensity of rainfall were also noted. Sherpa farmers, whose farming practices depend on monsoons, were concerned about increasingly variable rainfall. Sherpas reported that they used to observe signs in nature to determine planting and harvesting times but cannot reliably do so today. Water availability in seasonal springs was seen as an indicator to determine times for planting in some villages, but this is no longer the case because temperatures that permit planting and water availability do not coincide as they once did. Sherpa farmers also noted that unfamiliar insects and pests have appeared in their gardens and that there have been changes in the times that migratory birds arrived. Since 2008, Pharak Sherpas have also noticed mosquitoes in their villages for the first time. Some Sherpas speculated that the mosquitoes might have arrived in the luggage of air travellers from Kathmandu, which is at lower elevation. Rinzin recalled another conversation with Western tourists in his teahouse about the presence of mosquitoes as an indication of global warming. He later observed that the mosquitoes in Pharak did not sting like those in Kathmandu and therefore must not be the same. In the summer of 2013, I observed that mosquitoes were much more prevalent in Pharak than in 2008, 2010, and 2011. When asked why there were changes in rainfall, snowfall, and temperature, nearly all my informants in Pharak either said they did not know or that they might be the result of a normal and natural process. The only exceptions were the three individuals who were aware of climate change as understood by non-local organizations. When asked about extreme events, most informants described diminishing religious faith and behaviors that increased religious and spiritual pollution in the region as possible reasons. The three Pharak informants mentioned above and the seven Khumbu informants cited climate change as a possible reason and said they learned about climate change mainly from institutional activities that are organized in the region, but had also heard of it from the media, official personnel, friends, and relatives. All 29 Pharak informants, including monks, considered scientific explanations for variable or unusual weather as logical but regarded religious or spiritual causes as primary. Younger, educated Sherpas generally express less religious faith compared to older generations. For the latter, increased religious and spiritual pollution were considered to be the result of a lack of understanding of local customs and Sherpa religion. Informants described that non-Sherpa migrants in the region pollute sacred sites, which anger lu. Informants mentioned that the non-Sherpa migrants go counterclockwise around Mane, kill animals, and burn garbage, all of which were described as spiritually polluting acts that anger local deities. Immediately after the heavy rains and flooding in August of 2011, villagers came together for a religious 157 ritual to appease local deities in order to protect the village from future harm. Tengboche Rinpoche, abbot of Tengboche Monastery, also planted prayer vessels in several villages in 2010 to appease deities so that they would protect the region. In September, an earthquake struck the Everest region and destroyed several houses, pathways, and bridges. Kanchi, an informant in Pharak, perceived the earthquake to be related to climate change because at the same time there was a team of 30 international scientists visiting Khumbu to study Imja Lake, the potential GLOF which had already become a source of fear for the villagers. After the earthquake, Phuti recalled that “[w]hen I heard loud thunder, I thought the mountains would fall and crash. I thought we were all going to die. People were talking about [the] end of the world, and I thought this was it.” By December of 2011, I found many Sherpas in Pharak talking with some anxiety about the end of the world scenario as portrayed in the Hollywood movie 2012. When I asked my grandfather, an ordained Buddhist monk, about the future of Sherpas, he instead asked me if it was true that the world would end in 2012. In December of 2012, I received a phone call from another relative, who is also one of my informants, sharing her relief, with a laugh, that the world did not come to an end after all. Variations of Perception The interviews and participant observation revealed Sherpa perceptions of several environmental changes and extreme events, which are identified in this research as local knowledge of climate change. Yet, they also revealed that Sherpas emphasized different changes and explained them in different ways based on their socioeconomic backgrounds. Older Sherpas, who experienced the era prior to tourism as one of extreme poverty, also experienced more natural disasters than younger Sherpas. They were found to calculate risks and uncertainties more often while describing current conditions in the village. They believed that extreme events were caused by diminishing religious faith and increased spiritual pollution. On-route female hotel owners perceived that extreme events were becoming more common and were starting to take an economic toll on their businesses. The destruction of paths and bridges made it difficult for tourists to reach the area and caused a shortage of goods in the market. Yak herders, who spend most of their time moving vertically to higher elevations and have a broader view of the regional environment, described altitudinal and seasonal changes in vegetation as well as changes in the movements of wild animals. When asked specifically about the latter, they said that slash-and-burn farming practices in lowland villages were forcing animals to move upland. They also believed that the national park’s and community forestry user groups’ conservation efforts had helped increase the snow leopard population in the area. Farmers, on the other hand, primarily observed changes that are happening in their gardens and on broader agricultural cycles. They perceived that there have been changes in pest 158 activities in their gardens coupled with an increased possibility of growing newer varieties of vegetables. Many of these could not be cultivated when farmers were younger because it was difficult to find new seeds but above all because it was usually colder in the past. Farmers were also found using greenhouses to grow plants they bring from Kathmandu. Tashi said he seeks low cost and high efficiency greenhouse materials and methods when he is in Kathmandu. A Sherpa woman explained that she was planting her potatoes much earlier because she had to travel for pilgrimage and shopping. Pema explained that the villagers are “always in a rush these days trying to free themselves during tourist seasons; that is why they plant earlier than they should.” Social Heterogeneity and the Small-Scale Cultural World In order to understand how and why the socioeconomic backgrounds of Sherpas influence their perceptions of climate change, it is necessary to examine Sherpa social heterogeneity. It was found that the residence, occupation, age, and gender of my informants exposed them to different sources of knowledge and knowledge systems influencing how they perceive climate change. Informants resided either in onroute villages or off-route locales. Among the occupations mentioned by informants were farmers, herders, hotel owners, and monks. Some informants also mentioned they had retired or reported “other” for their occupation. Age groups were identified in decades for male and female informants; the youngest informant was in her 20s, and the oldest was in his 80s. Local sources of knowledge were identified as environmental changes and extreme events, as discussed above. Knowledge systems were identified as local and institutional, although both local and institutional knowledge systems contained variations within them. It was found that the institutional knowledge system was simultaneously enfolded within the local knowledge system while also maintaining its distinctiveness. The local knowledge system included both religious understandings and scientific explanations received from schools, the media, and institutional activities. Institutional knowledge systems generally followed the concept of anthropogenic climate change as understood by the IPCC. It should be mentioned here that considering the dramatic socioeconomic changes in this Sherpa region and the cultural transformations people have gone through since the advent of the tourism industry in the 1950s, it is virtually impossible to describe social heterogeneity that will characterize all Sherpas across time. It is highly likely that the nature of heterogeneity in Pharak as I discuss here will change in the near future, as Sherpas and non-Sherpas continue to migrate in and out of the region. As evidenced in Khumbu by Spoon (2008; 2011a; 2011b), Sherpas’ educational backgrounds may play a greater role in Pharak social heterogeneity in the future. Compared to Khumbu, Pharak sees fewer educated younger Sherpas returning from Kathmandu and the village has greater difficulty retaining them. HUMAN ORGANIZATION Previous studies have explored social heterogeneity in Khumbu and discussed how exposure to Westerners, education, and tourism influence Sherpas. Barbara Brower (1993) examined the growing prominence and influence of secular, articulate leaders and educated Sherpas, all of whom were men. She found that such leaders’ concerns in the co-management of resources within the newly established Sagarmatha National Park (SNP) were more influenced by their close association with Westerners than by the needs and expectations of their former neighbors. Kurt Luger (2000) wrote about differing Sherpa backgrounds as he witnessed the reticence of Sherpa youth and inferred that their shyness in interviews was a result of their social positioning, clan membership, infrequent contact with tourists, and limited travel experience, time abroad, and above all, limited formal education. In Khumbu, Spoon (2008; 2011a; 2011b) addressed the heterogeneous nature of traditional knowledge among Sherpas across generations, which are also affected by their exposure to formal education and tourism. Here, I consider social heterogeneity in terms of residence, occupation, age group, and gender in Pharak as I observed them during fieldwork and discuss how they influence Sherpa perceptions of climate change. I begin with an interview excerpt from Rinzin, an educated male hotel owner from an on-route village, who regularly attended organizational activities and meetings: There are Eco Clubs in schools, where students are taught about climate change and the information is transferred to their homes. Among local people, however, there is no clear understanding of climate change. Locals have experienced climate change, but they are not aware of how climate change works. Older people, who live in villages, are not aware of the term climate change, but people who are engaged in trekking are aware of it. I think the generation gap and education are the main reasons why many people are not aware…. On-route villages and off-route villages have different situations. Onroute villagers are able to interact with more people directly and thus seem to be more informed. My friends and I talk about Imja and other changes we notice in our villages, but we don’t have official discussions about it…. A significant impact of tourism in the Everest region is the visible difference in infrastructure and business activity between on-route villages and off-route villages (Sherpa 2008). On-route villages are located on the main trail to Mt. Everest and thus receive a greater flow of tourists compared to off-route villages. Every household in on-route villages hosts some form of business catering to tourists such as resorts, lodges, teahouses, teashops, restaurants, stores, pubs, bakeries, and cyber cafés. Thus, households in on-route villages are mainly engaged in tourism-related businesses, but some are also involved in farming. Only one on-route household was found to practice traditional cattle herding in Pharak. During tourist seasons in the Fall and Spring, lodges and teahouses hire helpers to cook and serve tourists. During off-seasons, workers are hired to help plant and harvest crops. Households that are unable to hire such help rely on their neighbors and VOL. 73 NO. 2, SUMMER 2014 relatives. On-route hotel owners were concerned about the tourism industry and market prices and were found to pay close attention to extreme events and weather conditions that discouraged tourists from coming to the region or increased prices of goods. Farmers and their helpers on the other hand spent their time in the fields or collecting firewood in the forests and thus were more aware of the changes happening there. Within households, women make domestic management decisions about buying and selling commercial products, and hire helpers to collect firewood, serve tourists, and work in the fields. Men also work and make household decisions, but women are considered responsible for managing the domestic sphere, whereas men attend community gatherings and represent their families in the public realm. Women follow behind men in such settings, symbolically representing their position vis-à-vis their male relatives in a way that appears more culturally “appropriate” than the expectations of outsiders. My relatives affirmed such practices with the expression Pomo Thongi (i.e. it “looks correct”). In off-route villages, household economic activities appear much more traditional compared to on-route villages. Every household is engaged in traditional farming, although some have successfully experimented with greenhouses and new types of vegetables. These households sell their crops and vegetables in on-route villages during weekly markets and through direct contact with on-route households. Almost all off-route households have family members either living in on-route villages or outside the region. One off-route village in Pharak was found to have at least one member from every household residing in the United States. Sherpas who live in these villages permanently were found to be children, mothers, older grandparents, monks, and nuns. Adults in their 20s and 30s were found to spend most of their time away from the villages either studying or working elsewhere. Migrant workers are hired to help with domestic work and farming. In both on-route and off-route villages, residents were found to use mobile phones, television sets, and radios. However, it was the stores in on-route villages that handled the maintenance and recharging of these devices. Connection to the Internet through mobile phones has helped Sherpa to stay in touch with their friends and relatives in numerous places around the globe. On-route cyber cafés also provide facilities for Sherpas to use the Internet. By 2013, many of my informants from on-route villages had set up Facebook pages. As a side benefit, this has allowed me to stay in touch with them and maintain a research presence even when I am not there. Institutional activities are mostly organized in on-route Khumbu villages. In order to attend, Sherpas spend hours and in some cases a day or two walking to their destinations. This means that they would have to remain away from their family and also bear the cost of traveling. The participants are thus mostly male hotel owners from on-route villages who can financially and socially afford these trips. Some institutions have compensated their participants and some have organized activities in different locations, which have helped in increasing participation. However, an assessment of climate 159 change-related institutional activities showed that participation continues to be limited. It was found that while the same group of people continued to be saturated with information of climate change and what needs to be done, the majority of Sherpas in the Everest region, including farmers and herders whose livelihood directly depend on the environment, are left out of these conversations. Socially heterogeneous Sherpa individuals were thus exposed to and more aware of certain environmental changes based on their diverse experiences and identities. Social networks consisting of individuals from the same age group, gender, occupation, and residence allowed them to converse with each other, drawing meanings from various knowledge systems and influential agents in conceptualizing these changes. The media, official personnel, friends, and relatives outside one’s social network were identified as influential agents who offer additional and alternative information on climate change. Social networks for Sherpas included neighbors, who may or may not be relatives. Similar socioeconomic status was found to be a significant criterion for inclusion in these networks. Close relatives with unequal socioeconomic statuses, although living nearby, for example, were not found to interact in the same social networks. Discussion and Conclusion As shown in this paper, understanding climate change perceptions among Sherpas requires, first of all, distinguishing the institutionally-introduced and -applied phrase “climate change” from the climate change events that Sherpas actually experience. The need for this distinction exists because when the phrase is used locally, it currently represents an institutional narrative that is narrowly defined for this region, and one that does not encompass the totality of all experiences among all Sherpas. I argue that a sustained emphasis on this institutional narrative will overshadow the wider range of short- and long-term climate change effects that are occurring locally and thereby limit our understanding of their impacts on the residents of this region. Secondly, in order to understand Sherpa perceptions of climate change, it is necessary to understand the exposure and access of individual Sherpas to various sources of knowledge and resources. This can be achieved by exploring social heterogeneity and understanding how social networks function in this transitioning group. In bringing projects and programs to locals, as was found in this region, it cannot be assumed that the whole will benefit from the information and resources received by a small group of participants. On the contrary, these projects and programs can have unintended negative consequences, as it did for the new mother in Pharak, in addition to the already existing environmental, social, and economic problems. This ethnographic research highlights the local knowledge of Sherpas about climate change as well as the institutional climate change narratives that largely exclude the lived experiences of local Sherpas in the Everest region. Institutional 160 narratives derive from what policymakers and researchers outside of the region consider to be climate change effects worthwhile for pursuit. This research shows that institutional activities with the aim of assisting local people in better understanding and preparing for climate change, notionally employing a participatory approach in reports, have unevenly distributed scientific findings of climate change. As a result, a small group of people is saturated with information while the majority continues to be excluded from institutional and policy conversations, consequently subjecting some Sherpas in Pharak to anxiety, uncertainty, and even danger. The questions raised, then, in this research are: (1) how can institutions effectively disseminate their knowledge to local people, and (2) how can we bridge local knowledge and institutional knowledge? My research suggests the importance of recognizing the social heterogeneity of this small-scale cultural group and understanding existing social networks – possible only through long-term field based studies – in addressing such contemporary problems. Barnes et al (2013:541) emphasized the increasingly critical role of anthropological contributions in productive debates especially “as discussions on climate change expand to include not only physical descriptions of the phenomenon but also questions of different groups’ receptivity to the science, policy response, and characterization of impacts.” To this end, I expect this ethnographic research to play a useful role. 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