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Human Organization, Vol. 73, No. 2, 2014
Copyright © 2014 by the Society for Applied Anthropology
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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
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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
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(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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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