Climate Change
Featured article
Chakraborty, R., Rampini, C., & Sherpa, P.Y. (2023) Mountains of Inequality:encountering the politics of climate adaptation across the Himalaya. Ecology & Society. 28 (4).
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PUBLICATIONS
special report
Contributing Author, Chapter 17 “Decision Making Options for Managing Risk” of the IPCC WGII Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).
Contributing Author, Chapter 2 “High Mountain Areas” of the IPCC Special Report on the Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).
Academic
Chakraborty, R., Rampini, C., & Sherpa, P.Y. (2023) Mountains of Inequality:encountering the politics of climate adaptation across the Himalaya. Ecology & Society. 28 (4).
Johnson, Leigh and Mikulewicz, Michael and Bigger, Patrick and Chakraborty, Ritodhi and Cunniff, Abby and Griffin, P. Joshua and Guermond, Vincent and Lambrou, Nicole and Mills-Novoa, Megan and Neimark, Benjamin and Nelson, Sara and Rampini, Costanza and Sherpa, Pasang Yangjee and Simon, Gregory, Intervention: The Invisible Labor of Climate Change Adaptation (November 10, 2022).
Chakraborty, R., & Sherpa, P. Y. (2021). From climate adaptation to climate justice: Critical reflections on the IPCC and Himalayan climate knowledges. Climatic Change, 167(3), 1-14.
Chakraborty, R., Gergan, M. D., Sherpa, P. Y., & Rampini, C. (2021). A plural climate studies framework for the Himalayas. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 51, 42-54.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2020) "Review of Life in Himalaya: An Ecosystem at Risk by Maharaj Pandit," HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies: Vol. 39: No. 2.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2019) "Review of Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas by Karine Gagne," The Journal of Asian Studies, 78 (4), 960-961.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2018) "Review of Sustainable Mountain Development: Getting the Facts Right by Jack D. Ives," HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: Vol. 38 : No. 2 , Article 31.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2015), "Institutional Climate Change Adaptation Efforts among the Sherpas of the Mount Everest Region, Nepal," in Donald C. Wood (ed.) Climate Change, Culture, and Economics: Anthropological Investigations (Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 35) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.1 – 23
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2014). Climate change, Perceptions, and Social Heterogeneity in Pharak, Mount Everest Region of Nepal. Human Organization, 73(2), 153-161.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2014) Climate Change Impacts among Sherpas: An Anthropological Study in the Everest Region, Nepal. Resources Himalaya Foundation, Kathmandu. Habitat Himalaya, 18(1).
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2014) "Review of 'Climate Change Modeling for Local Adaptation in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region (Community, Environment and Disaster Risk Management, Volume 11)' edited by Armando Lamadrid and Ilan Kelman," HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: Vol. 34 : No. 2 , Article 23.
Public
May 2019 "Photographing Transformation and Ethnographic Predicaments in Nepal's Himalaya" for Glacier Hub.
May 2015 "Nepali Villagers Trapped Under Threat of Glacier Floods" for Glacier Hub.
September 2014 "Flooded with Memories in Nepal" for Glacier Hub.
March 3, 2014 "Engaged Anthropology Grant: Pasang Yangjee Sherpa" for The Wenner-Gren Blog.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2014) "Investing in Youths to Connect Communities." In Himalayan Trail 2014. Kathmandu: Mountain Spirit.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2013) "Understanding Climate Change in the Everest Region." In Annual Publication of Mountain Trail 2013. Kathmandu: Mountain Spirit.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2013) "Well-Intentioned Efforts and Unintended Consequences: A Case from Pharak." In Mountain Trail 2013, Quarterly Newsletter. Kathmandu: Mountain Spirit.
Sherpa, Pasang Y. (2012) "Examining the Responses to the Effects of Climate Change from an Exclusionary/ Inclusionary Perspective in Pharak (Everest Region) of Nepal." In Research Reports of Research Fellows. Social Inclusion Research Fund, Nepal.
PRESENTATIONS
Talk
“Highlights from latest climate change assessment reports and the implications for Nepal's mountain communities,” webinar for Mountain Spirit, Nepal. April 2020.
"Indigenous Perspectives of Climate Change in the Himalayas," Lewis-Clark State College (September 2019)
"Gender and Livelihoods in High-Mountain Societies," International Forum on Cryosphere and Society, ICIMOD, Kathmandu (August 2019)
"Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples," Evergreen State College (May 2019)
"Sacred Himalaya in the Anthropocene" at the University of British Columbia Himalaya Program, UBC, Vancouver (April 25, 2019)
"Climate Change in Sacred Himalaya" at the Himalayan Environmental Education and Policy Conference, Hanifl Center, Mussoorie, India (November 29-December 2, 2018)
"How Do Nepalis Experience Climate Change? Perspectives from the Himalayas" at the Indigenous Climate Justice Symposium, Evergreen State College, Olympia (May 2017)
"How Do Nepalis Experience Climate Change?" at the conference on Nepal and Himalayan Studies at Cornell: Community Engagement, Knowledge Circulation, and the Future of Scholarship, Cornell University (April 2017)
"Knowing and Responding to Climate Change in Humla, Nepal" at the Yale Himalaya Initiative, Yale University (December 2016)
Panel
"Mount Everest Region: Contested Geographies of Adaptation to Climate Change" at the American Association of Geographers, Washington, D.C. (April 4, 2019)
"The Future of Climate Change Adaptation in Nepal" Northwest Regional Knowledge Sharing Conference, Microsoft HQ, Redmond (January 19, 2019)
"An Assessment of Climate Change Literature (2000-2016) in Nepal" and "Contrasts and Concurrences: Across generations, gender, ethnicity, age, and nationality in Sherpa studies" with James Fisher at the Himalayan Studies Conference, University of Colorado Boulder (September 2017)
"Fieldwork Reflections on the Sacred Landscapes of Kailash/Kang Rinpoche/Tise" at the Mountains and Sacred Landscapes conference, The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (April 2017)
Micro-Histories and Divinities in Changing Landscapes (Moderator) at the Mountains and Sacred Landscapes conference, The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (April 2017)
Roundtable
"Interrogating "South Asia": Sherpa, Climate Change and the Himalayas" at the Conference of the South Asia Grad Collective, University of California Irvine (October 2019)
"Decolonizing Research in the Himalayas" at the Himalayan Studies Conference, University of Colorado Boulder (September 2017)
"Epistemology on a Himalayan Scale: Local Ecological Knowledge, Sacred Landscapes, and Animate Beings" and "Mediating the Sacred through Natural and Built Environments in High Asia: An Interdisciplinary" at the Mountains and Sacred Landscapes conference, The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC) (April 2017)
MEDIA
September 2019 "Human Dimensions of Climate Change in the Himalaya: An interview with Anthropologist Pasang Yangjee Sherpa" for Alpinist.
September 2019 "More than symbols: Pasang Yangjee Sherpa on cultural invisibility," article (part of a series the experiences of Himalayan Sherpas adapting to a warmer world) by Natasha Vizcarra for Landscape News.
August 2018 Heart of Conservation: Stories from the Wild Podcast with Lalitha Krishnan in Mussoorie, India.
October 2017 Alpinist Podcast on "Mountaineering and Climate Change." Associate Editor Paula Wright discusses climate change impacts on mountain environments with climbers and researchers, including Mark Carey, Pasang Yangjee Sherpa and Alison Criscitiello.
RESEARCH
Sacred Himalaya in the Anthropocene (ongoing)
Bringing questions raised by the species-thinking designation of the current epoch as the ‘Anthropocene’ anchored in the West into conversation with experiential knowledge of Himalayan environments, I am interested in opening pathways for co-production of knowledge without erasing marginalized voices, especially in policymaking spaces.
In this research, I draw from posthumanist, decolonial and Indigenous literature to explore competing understandings of human-environment relationships. The category of “Sacred Himalayan landscapes” as conceived of by external secular transboundary conservation and development initiatives is distinguished from Himalayan residents’ experience of the landscape as sacred.
This research builds on my on-going study of climate change impact and response in Nepali mountain communities, where adaptation efforts are dominated by techno-managerial approaches and bio-physical science. I argue that such approaches contrast with long-standing local practices.
Sherpa Perceptions of Climate Change and Institutional Responses in Mt. Everest Region
In light of scientific reports and local observations in the Everest region in Nepal revealing the vulnerabilities of Sherpa people to the effects of climate change, this research showed how Sherpa perceptions of climate change differed in various socioeconomic conditions, what causes these differences and how these differences impact the effectiveness of risk management policies and practices. Through the case of the Sherpas, this research showed how a small scale socio-cultural system is increasingly interconnected to global geopolitics and global commerce, and yet the voices of the local people remain unheard and their concerns continue to be masked by what elites in the global scale socio-cultural systems deem to be important.
It revealed that governmental and nongovernmental institutions have organized several activities in the Everest region as responses to the effects of climate change. The term ‘climate change,’ however as the researchers and institutions use it is still a foreign concept for the majority of Sherpas in Pharak (southern part of the region). The participation of local Sherpas in these activities in minimal and in some cases limited to their symbolic representations to promote institutional agenda. The research concluded that unless local people are treated as equal partners with credible knowledge, capable of making significant contributions, and existing social heterogeneity is accommodated, intuitional responses to climate change at the local level will not be effective and may be detrimental.