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Abstract
This thesis takes a political ecological approach to critically examine what happens when Dolpopa ways of knowing, being and governing their land and territories interact and mingle with state structures of conservation (and democracy) in Northwest Nepal. Through a resource-based approach, it first examines the ways in which state authority emerges and intensifies in Dolpo by discussing the role of Shey Phoksundo National Park in the contested governance of caterpillar fungus (Tib. yartsagunbu) in Dho Tarap valley. It then takes a relationship-based approach to explore alternate ontologies and governance practices of the Dolpopas that are conceived and carried out in their own terms, and that account for the agency of nonhumans and the maintenance of relationships with them. Drawing from three months of ethnographic field research as well as from the author’s engagements with Dolpo community over the past decade, this thesis argues that externally imposed imperatives of conservation materialize on the ground not only as an extractive regime of accumulation of resources like yartsagunbu but also as an emergent structure of dispossession of Dolpopa governance practices and ontologies. At the same time, though, the thesis demonstrates the robustness of Dolpopa governance practices and ontologies as they come into being and sustain themselves vis-à-vis conservation.
