We extend a warm welcome to Assistant Professor Phurwa Dondrub Dolpopa who joined the UBC Department of Geography in July. Dr. Dolpopa completed his MA and PhD degrees at the University of Colorado Boulder. Based on nearly two years of ethnographic field research in Dolpo, Nepal, his home and field site, his dissertation developed a critical understanding of how Himalayan lifeways are fundamentally altered by and respond to global biodiversity conservation efforts and national state-making projects. Dr. Dolpopa primarily employs qualitative methods that are grounded in ethnographic, embodied, multimodal, and collaborative approaches to producing and mobilizing knowledge.
Yaks and caterpillar fungus harvesters scan frozen pastures in Dolpo, Nepal. Photo credit Phurwa Dolpopa.
He has been following the caterpillar fungus and the snow leopard to understand a critical conjuncture of global climate and environmental change, biodiversity conservation efforts, state violence and resource extraction, and Indigenous struggles for land and livelihood in the region.
“These nonhuman beings [caterpillar fungus and snow leopard] are not just an excellent pair of lenses or case studies to look at broader processes of socioenvironmental change in the Himalayas today but also key agents shaping them,” explains Dr. Dolpopa.
A herder fetches water from a retreating glacial stream. Photo credit Phurwa Dolpopa.
Dr. Dolpopa’s current research projects include 1) a book-length investigation of how the Dolpopa, an Indigenous Nationality of Nepal, navigate the material conditions and structural processes of Nepali state building and territorialization that are realized on the ground through conservation and development projects centered on the caterpillar fungus and the snow leopard, 2) a long-term, collaborative in-situ documentation project to collect, translate, and publish a wide array of Dolpopa oral literature; and center them as the foundation to theorize the relational and governance values of Indigenous knowledge, and 3) a feature-length film that takes an observational approach to document the relationship between Dolpopa and Nepali state actors in everyday acts of governing the environment.
Dr. Dolpopa is a versatile scholar tackling a diversity of emerging issues and research questions on the Himalayas. In this capacity, he has written about or is interested in conducting research on the development effects of road building and other infrastructure projects on rural lives, dynamic interactions of agropastoralists with global capital and state power, state restructuring and social justice in Nepal, and mass youth outmigration and its implications on Indigenous land, language, and lifeways.
An excavator opens a new “track” road in Dho Tarap, Dolpo; a common scene across the High Himalayas today. Photo credit Phurwa Dolpopa.
Dr. Dolpopa will also be affiliated with UBC’s Interdisciplinary Biodiversity Solutions Collaboratory, where he is eager to collaborate with scholars across the disciplines to develop policy-relevant solutions to contemporary biodiversity challenges that center global Indigenous perspectives and concerns. Beyond the Department of Geography, he looks forward to connecting and working with colleagues in the Himalaya Program and Critical Indigenous Studies at UBC.
We are thrilled to have Dr. Dolpopa join our community of passionate scientists and leading-edge geographers. The department looks forward to many fruitful collaborations with him and can’t wait to see how his research program unfolds.
