Revisiting the ‘Homeland’ Through a Transnational Lens

In this paper, we bring our individual and collective memories of Nepal to reflect upon how we imagine, remember, and perform the diasporic nationalism while living abroad. We argue that diasporic nationalism is often framed by the homeland's historical dimensions and through an imagined and identificatory relation to the homeland. In doing so, we bring our learning experiences during high school in Nepal and critically zero in on how these curriculums taught us only a single narrative of Nepal-India relation by grossly neglecting the other side of the narrative. To deconstruct such a grand narrative, we critically analyze the other side of the narrative, which reveals the Nepal-India relation as a 'paradox' between closeness and detachment. We discuss cross-border controversies in which the Indian hegemony of perpetuating colonial ideas overpowers Nepal through political and geopolitical intervention. We conclude the paper with our remarks to mitigate animosities and rebuild the fractured relationship between the two nations.

Gendered Subaltern in Abhi Subedi’s Dreams of Peach Blossoms

This paper examines the consciousness of gendered subaltern in Abhi Subedi’s poetic play Dreams of Peach Blossoms and looks at how Subedi deconstructs the existing historiography to bring forth the issue of gendered subaltern who have been subjected to the hegemony of the ruling class. Drawing on insights and postulations from Subaltern Studies theorists such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Partha Chatterjee, Gautam Bhadra and others, this paper examines the pain and agonies of female characters that are glossed over in the grand narrative of the mainstream culture. This paper concludes that while exploring the painful experience of women erased from the pages of history, Subedi is focused on the Maiju culture that began since Bhrikuti’s marriage to a Tibetan King in the sixth century and reveals the injustice of patriarchy against women with an aim to make correction in such distortions of history.

The Implication of REDD+ in Community Forestry (CF) Governance and Local Livelihood: A Case from Nepal

Nepal's decentralized forest governance has now included a new actor, i.e. REDD+ which is a mechanism based on market for mitigation of climate change through conservation of forest. This paper aims to shed lights on the REDD+ effect on community forestry governance, and local livelihood. For this various published articles and reports were reviewed and analyzed. Organizations like ICIMOD, FECOFUN and ANSAB are leading a pilot project in community forestry on measurement of carbon and equalizing benefit. The major objective of the REDD+ program is to reduce forest carbon emissions by providing financial incentives for developing countries. The impacts of the implication of the REDD+ is more questionable preceding its 10th anniversary. Special income generating activities and awareness programs have been implemented by the REDD+ pilot project targeting the poor, women, disadvantaged groups and indigenous people. While some study findings show the REDD+ gave priority to the carbon outcome rather than community forestry's forest management objective which threatens the objective of meeting the local needs of people. Analysis also showed that REDD+ policies have been developed and interventions are made in a way local people’s participation and representation of their voices is limited which may weaken and reverse the trend of forest decentralization. The involvement of the new actors in forest politics can be seen as a proof of positive impact of implementation of REDD+.

Consumers’ Perception towards the Taxi Management in Kathmandu Valley: Awareness, Challenges, and Way-Forward

Taxi services are seen continuously growing throughout the globe. The service being able to cope with technological advancement has been benefitted to a greater extent. However, in Nepalese context taxi used in Kathmandu valley is still based on primitive technology and services still face several challenges. In this context, this research aims to examine consumers' perception of taxi management in Kathmandu valley. The study was carried out among 414 taxi users with the help of a structured questionnaire. The taxi users' awareness index is prepared to measure customers' awareness towards taxi management in Kathmandu valley. The data revealed that customers' awareness level regarding the taxi services in Kathmandu valley is moderate (43.5%) and still 21.8% of them are less aware. It is found that the majority (66.7%) have not faced any challenges while using taxi service and one-third (33.3%) have faced challenges - over price charge (93%), rude behaviors (89%), payment problem (64%), and communication problems are major ones. Such challenges are moderate and often occurred at night time and at office time. Respondents argued that taxi services can be managed by formulating proper rules and regulations by the government, online booking and payment systems, and the installation of GPS on taxis. These services would help to run the taxi service effectively in the valley.

Perceived Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Nepalese Banking Industry

The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between banking service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction in Nepalese banking industry. Three commercial banks operating in Kailali district (Rastriya Banijya Bank, Nabil Bank and Global IME bank) were taken as sample and 327 depositor customers of these banks were surveyed using structured five point Likert scale questionnaire. Data was collected via online and field survey by visiting the customers at related banks, business organizations and government and non government offices of Kailali. SPSS version 20, Pearson’s correlation and multiple regression analysis have been used to analyze the data. The findings of this study revealed that there is positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction. All the service quality dimensions have statistically significant positive impact on customer satisfaction except tangibility. It means higher service quality helps increase customer satisfaction. The results of this study will help bank mangers to focus on their customer’s satisfaction in order to compete favorably in banking Industry. Future researchers can conduct their study focusing on mediating effect of customer satisfaction in service quality and customer loyalty. Effect of demographic variables on satisfaction is also unanswered in this study so, further study can be done including moderating effect of demographic variables.

Review on Ethical Issues in Ethnographic Study: Some Reflections

Consideration of ethical issues in an ethnographic study is a significant matter to draw trustworthy findings and conclusions for the qualitative researchers. They need to be sensitive and honest on following the principles of ethical consideration while they are engaging in ethnographic research either in data collection or writing research papers. In this paper, I have employed literature review and self-reflective methodology to draw attention of the ethnographers to consider the ethical issues in doing ethnography. The findings and discussion have revealed that the ethnographic researchers should review the ethical aspects of their study from the Institutional Review Board; they must work in a natural setting to discover realistic experiences and/or struggles of the participants by respecting their cultural sensitivity and gaining permission and access to them as voluntary participants in the study. Moreover, the ethnographers need to take informed consent from their participants by securing confidentiality, maintaining anonymity, developing reciprocity, and preserving honesty for them in the research. Likewise, it is found that the ethnographic researcher must be conscious not to harm their participants during research work, and they should not fabricate their data, falsify the interpretation and plagiarize the already published materials in their research paper.

Dealing with Cultural Identities: A Study of Nepalese Families in Tokyo

In recent years, the Nepalese migrant population in Japan has increased exponentially. The number reached 88,951 in 2018, becoming the largest south Asian population in Japan. This number includes people in various visa categories: skilled labor, engineer, business, dependent, student and so on. The number of school children lies somewhere around 10,000. A child born and raised in a culture different to their parents’ culture goes through a complex cultural identity formation process. In this context, this paper explores children’s cultural identity development and promotion by migrant Nepalese families in Tokyo. In particular, it examines which cultural identities they are prioritizing and how they are developing host cultural identities while maintaining their native culture. The experiences of these migrant Nepalese parents were collected through in-depth interviews with 45 parents. The responses suggest that these parents are prioritizing the promotion of a Nepalese cultural identity for their child(ren). Parents focus on promoting and participating in Nepalese festivals, cooking Nepalese food at home, and meeting other Nepalese families in Japan. However, almost every parent expressed their desire for the development of a multicultural sense in their child(ren).

Editorial Vol.5(1)

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Association between Age Group and Perception towards ‘Women's Career Success and Barriers’

The age factor plays a vital role in the perception of human beings on different issues. Regarding this, the main objective of this study is to examine the association between age group and perception of Nepali universities female teachers in the issues of women's career success and barriers such as individual factor, family factor, organizational factor, and socio-cultural factor. With judgmental sampling technique, only 202 responses were selected and usable out of 275 questionnaires distributed to female University teachers. This study has tested the reliability by using Cronbach alpha. Using likelihood ratio, it was found that there is only a significant association of agegroup and perception of female teachers in the issue of women’s career success but there is no significant association in the issues of individual factor, family factor, organizational factor, and socio-cultural factor. From this output, it concluded that perceptions of women university teachers are different with different age-group in the issue of women’s career success. This study could be useful for University/college management, trainers, and human resource developers to assist the career success of female university teachers.

Representation of Cultural Ambivalence in Eliza Hamilton’s Translation of the Letters of A Hindoo Rajah

Eliza Hamilton in her two-volume epistolary novel Translation of The Letters of A Hindoo Rajah (1819), by projecting two characters who undergo the oppositional experiences during their contact with English people, creates an ambivalent situation which neither represents England as totally positive nor India as completely negative. The two perspectives of Zaarmilla and Sheermaal exclude one another’s rendering. To unpack this contradictory narrative position, the concept of acculturation and cultural stress, especially formulated by John W. Berry is taken in interlocution. By rendering these two sorts of antithetical narratives juxtaposed together confirms the dynamics of ambivalence which does not regard Saidaian notion of Orientalism intact.