Tashi Delek!
Hi. I’m Pasang.
…anthropologist, researcher, educator from Pharak, southern part of Mount Everest region in Nepal.
I am an Assistant Professor of Lifeways in Indigenous Asia at the University of British Columbia.
My research topics for the past decade have included Indigeneity, human dimensions of climate change and the Sherpa diaspora.
I use ethnographic methods to study everyday concerns of Himalayan people in order to normalize our experiences and represent us as equal partners in decision-making spaces.
I believe that our sustainability as a people in the wake of climate change depends on keeping our stories about people, places and things alive for the next generation.
Featured Academic Articles:
“A Plural Climate Framework”
Current Opinion in Env. Sustainability
“Indigeneity”
Verge: Studies in Global Asias
“Mountains of Inequality”
Ecology & Society
Latest
Postcard from the Himalayas: Hard rain is already falling
Latest scientific assessments show that even if global warming is limited to 1.5C, warming in the Himalayas is going to be higher than the global average. Glaciers are projected to melt at an even faster rate than previously predicted. Living with the looming threat of a glacial lake bursting its banks is a reality.
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Climate sciences pursue the quantifiable. And so, climate change discussions at the policymaking level have fallen short of recognizing the uncertainties Himalayan people face.
For those experiencing climate change in the high mountains, uncertainty comes not only from unpredictable rain patterns, but from not knowing who − in the physical world and other worlds − can provide stable ground.
From the essay published in The World Today (October 2021). Read the essay here.
Mountain As Metaphor: A Future of Multiple Worldviews
A mountain is a metaphor. To imagine a future of alpinism is to imagine the kind of future we, collectively as global citizens, want to create on and off the mountain. The gift of history offers us an advantage. The knowledge we have inherited orally or textually shows us what to leave behind and what to take forward. Each of us has a choice to make. I dream of a future that is just and fair. What would that be like? This question cannot be answered without coming face-to-face with our present reality.
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In the future, I hope alpinism is able to project multiple worldviews together at once—not as a competition to establish a hierarchy, but as a way to learn from each other and to treat everyone with dignity. I hope alpinism is not just about stepping on the mountain, but about strengthening our relationship with it and with each other. I hope that the mountains are not reduced to commodities for sale; that we are able to see and hear the people whose labor makes the mountaineering tourism industry possible; and that we recognize that they are indispensable, not disposable.
From the essay published in Alpinist Magazine 75 (Autumn 2021). Read the whole essay here.
