Identity in Nepal: Ethnic, Individual, Political

Abstract

Identity, broadly conceived as ethnic and individual, has traditionally been viewed in Nepal as a given, long-standing, primordial entity that can be used to fill in blank spaces on the ethnographic map. More recently, ethnic identity has been conceived of as forged in the furnace of various contemporary political, economic, social, and religious interests that need to be attended to, while individual identity requires increasingly detailed and exacting procedures to portray it. Both kinds of local identity can be overtaken by national political movements, such as a Maoist insurgency, which, although overlooked by anthropologists, creates powerful identities of its own.