PROGRAMME

Pitamber Sharma
(Former Professor of Geography, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu)

The Global Asias framework provides an alternative to the narrative of the Asian Century by highlighting the interconnectedness, diversity and dynamic adaptations of Asian societies. Seen from the lenses of marginality, modernity and mobility, Nepal elucidates the complex interplay of these processes in contemporary regional and global discourse and challenges the dominant narratives by focusing on voices that have remained under-represented. Nepal’s landlocked location between two demographic and economic giants, its historic isolation as a buffer state, modes of governance, rich cultural heritage and geopolitical marginality has shaped the inter-relations of marginalities, mobilities and modernities over time. While mobilities in Nepal have been conditioned by economic and political imperatives, radical political transformations in the last three decades leading to the overthrow of the monarchy and establishment of the federal republic have brought the marginal voices to the forefront. The complex interplay of tradition and innovation in Nepal’s modernisation process has been influenced historically by Gorkha recruitment into foreign armies, increased articulation of Nepal’s mountainous space economy, increased urbanisation, an entrenched and significant volume of labour migration to destinations  beyond India, increasing significance of the diaspora, increasing tourism, and Nepal’s increasing engagements with the outside world in the face of the challenges of geopolitical marginalities. In the Global Asias context, Nepal exemplifies the complexities of a country at the cross-roads of tradition and modernity.

Keywords: Global Asias, Nepal, marginalities, mobilities, modernities.

Pitamber Sharma taught at the Department of Geography, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, and worked as a Regional Planner at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Kathmandu. He also served as Vice-Chair of the National Planning Commission of the Government of Nepal in 2008. His publications include Urbanization in Nepal (1989), Tourism as Development (2000), Market Towns in the Hindu-Kush Himalayas (2002), Unravelling the Mosaic: Spatial Aspects of Ethnicity in Nepal (2008), Towards a Federal Nepal: An Assessment of Proposed Models (2009), Some Aspects of Nepal’s Social Demography: Census 2011 Update (2014) and Nepal’s Social Demography Revisited (co-author, 2025). He holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University.