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The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives between Nepal and New York
What sustains and remakes family and community through migration?

For centuries, people from Mustang, Nepal, have relied on agriculture, pastoralism, and trade as a way of life. Seasonal migrations to South Asian cities for trade as well as temporary wage labor abroad have shaped their experiences for decades. Yet, more recently, permanent migrations to New York City, where many have settled, are reshaping lives and social worlds. Mustang has experienced one of the highest rates of depopulation in contemporary Nepal—a profoundly visible depopulation that contrasts with the relative invisibility of Himalayan migrants in New York.

Drawing on more than two decades of fieldwork with people in and from Mustang, this book combines narrative ethnography and short fiction to engage with foundational questions in cultural anthropology: How do different generations abide with and understand each other? How are traditions defended and transformed in the context of new mobilities? Anthropologist Sienna Craig draws on khora, the Tibetan Buddhist notion of cyclic existence as well as the daily act of circumambulating the sacred, to think about cycles of movement and patterns of world-making, shedding light on how kinship remains both firm and flexible in the face of migration. From a high Himalayan kingdom to the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, The Ends of Kinship explores dynamics of migration and social change, asking how individuals, families, and communities care for each other and carve out spaces of belonging. It also speaks broadly to issues of immigration and diaspora; belonging and identity; and the nexus of environmental, economic, and cultural transformation.

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The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives between Nepal and New York
What sustains and remakes family and community through migration?

For centuries, people from Mustang, Nepal, have relied on agriculture, pastoralism, and trade as a way of life. Seasonal migrations to South Asian cities for trade as well as temporary wage labor abroad have shaped their experiences for decades. Yet, more recently, permanent migrations to New York City, where many have settled, are reshaping lives and social worlds. Mustang has experienced one of the highest rates of depopulation in contemporary Nepal—a profoundly visible depopulation that contrasts with the relative invisibility of Himalayan migrants in New York.

Drawing on more than two decades of fieldwork with people in and from Mustang, this book combines narrative ethnography and short fiction to engage with foundational questions in cultural anthropology: How do different generations abide with and understand each other? How are traditions defended and transformed in the context of new mobilities? Anthropologist Sienna Craig draws on khora, the Tibetan Buddhist notion of cyclic existence as well as the daily act of circumambulating the sacred, to think about cycles of movement and patterns of world-making, shedding light on how kinship remains both firm and flexible in the face of migration. From a high Himalayan kingdom to the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, The Ends of Kinship explores dynamics of migration and social change, asking how individuals, families, and communities care for each other and carve out spaces of belonging. It also speaks broadly to issues of immigration and diaspora; belonging and identity; and the nexus of environmental, economic, and cultural transformation.

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The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives between Nepal and New York

The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives between Nepal and New York

The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives between Nepal and New York

The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives between Nepal and New York

Overview

What sustains and remakes family and community through migration?

For centuries, people from Mustang, Nepal, have relied on agriculture, pastoralism, and trade as a way of life. Seasonal migrations to South Asian cities for trade as well as temporary wage labor abroad have shaped their experiences for decades. Yet, more recently, permanent migrations to New York City, where many have settled, are reshaping lives and social worlds. Mustang has experienced one of the highest rates of depopulation in contemporary Nepal—a profoundly visible depopulation that contrasts with the relative invisibility of Himalayan migrants in New York.

Drawing on more than two decades of fieldwork with people in and from Mustang, this book combines narrative ethnography and short fiction to engage with foundational questions in cultural anthropology: How do different generations abide with and understand each other? How are traditions defended and transformed in the context of new mobilities? Anthropologist Sienna Craig draws on khora, the Tibetan Buddhist notion of cyclic existence as well as the daily act of circumambulating the sacred, to think about cycles of movement and patterns of world-making, shedding light on how kinship remains both firm and flexible in the face of migration. From a high Himalayan kingdom to the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, The Ends of Kinship explores dynamics of migration and social change, asking how individuals, families, and communities care for each other and carve out spaces of belonging. It also speaks broadly to issues of immigration and diaspora; belonging and identity; and the nexus of environmental, economic, and cultural transformation.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780295747699
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Publication date: 10/15/2020
Series: Global South Asia
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Sienna R. Craig is associate professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College, and author of Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine.

Table of Contents

Recognition and Gratitude ix

Map of Mustang, Nepal xiv

Map of Himalayan Languages in New York City xv

Introduction 3

Part I Attending to Birth 15

Blood and Bone 17

Finding the Womb Door 32

Part II Parents and Children 49

Letters for Mother 51

Going for Education 60

Part III Subsistence and Strategy 83

Paper and Being 87

Bringing Home the Trade 102

Part IV Women and Men 125

Night Visitors 127

At the Threshold of This Life 134

Part V Land and Lineage 153

Gods and Demons 155

The Ground beneath Our Feet 172

Part VI Loss and Transformation 197

Three Seasons in the Fire Monkey Year 199

Between Presence and Absence 209

Conclusion 227

Glossary 235

Essay on Sources and Methods 241

Bibliography 263

Credits 275

Index 277

What People are Saying About This

Kirin Narayan

"Drawing on insights from decades of fieldwork and friendship—in Mustang and New York—this luminous, poignant book recasts ethnographic form in swirling bands of short essay, fiction, narrative ethnography, and scholarly commentary."

Stacy Pigg

"An exquisite portrait of a community stretched apart by migration and at the same time darned back into new shapes of connection through the world-making ties of kinship."

Vincanne Adams

"Life at the ends of kinship is exposed here through masterful storytelling, giving us a glimpse into the sadness, hopes and joys of Nepalis on the move."

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