Threads of Experience

11 threads of inquiry were woven throughout my research in Khumbu. Here, I present an overview and additional references for these topics.

The glaciers of the Himalaya are melting at a rate double that of similar latitudes putting ecosystems, livelihoods, and human and more-than-human lives at risk. Likewise, anthropogenic impacts of adventure activities in this region necessitate a reframing of the complex relationships amongst humans and more-than-humans. A research approach decentering human experience allows for an embodied awareness of these relationships to emerge. In this research, I examined the meaning and experience of place in the context of adventure activities in the upper Solukhumbu District, Nepal through a topographic ethnography and narrative vignettes of the trails in and around Mount Everest base camp. The questions I sought to illuminate examined the agency and relationships of human and more-than-humans amongst the dirt and stone trails, glaciers, and mountains of this area and the vast influence and enactments of tourism. The Himalaya was a co-creator of this research. I asked not what this place is but how, which allowed for an understanding of human and more-than-human contextual experiences and note the reactions and responses of such relationships. The key to my inquiry was an intimate and embodied awareness of place and experience, in turn, developing a pedagogical praxis tool to facilitate such embodied awareness with place. This new materialist framework urges a rethinking of the influence and agency of matter and proposes a multi-species perspective, reframing human enactments of the Anthropocene and complicit behaviors of this epoch.

In my process, I asked questions, I experienced, wrote, and then asked “What do I do with all that I examined and presented”? I utilized diffraction in a study of diffraction patterns by taking the various perspectives of Khumbu– from my own embodied onto-epistemological apparatus, the data of the land, the data of media, the data of literature, the data of observation, the data of other’s words either said to me or in another outlet/to another apparatus disseminated via media and literature. I assembled an embodiment of topography to examine the process of becoming with the land/place to then answer the research questions.  I presented diffraction patterns and in those patterns found the contact zones, or interferences of matter in which differences are cut/made together in intra-action. The contact zones were my place/field of study where the threads emerged. 

Inanimate Intimacies

The inanimate, which is actually quite animate and agential, are those aspects of life that go unnoticed, seem less-than, are an other to the more meaningful experiences one might note, yet are vital to the meaning and actions of place. It is the electrons, the movements of the air, the altitude, the tiniest matter of life that the human eye cannot make a cut from, but it is embodied and embedded in the actions and experiences of human and more-than-human. This is the agency of the unnoticed. 

Himalayan mountains, dirt, rock, soil, wind, weather, clouds, ice, altitude, glacier, mountain (could this be quantum intimacies?), even feelings, memories, and systems of the body.

Agency and Power

Agency is not a thing; it is a doing. It is phenomenon. Agency and power was examined in this lens and noted contexts such as the guide/client relationship, Sherpa business and economic power, and so on. Everest as mountain, a more-than-human inanimate intimacy, does not intentionally produce a meaning that is very different and celebrity than other mountains. It is the intra-action of bodies, discourses, and institutions that do so.

Everest, and the agency and power of it is complex. Agency is the phenomena that make up the place – the rocks, and glaciers, and dirt, and tourists, Sherpa, books, imperialist legacy, capitalocene and so on. And within that the minute details of entangled agency – such as the way the wind sways in the afternoon in Dingboche, rocking the drying blankets cleaned for tourists and workers alike in the Everest View Guesthouse (seen on the multimedia Khumbu tourism video), or the multitude of iterative steps on the trails to Everest Base Camp that wear down the rocks and dirt that intra-act in fine details, making the path more consistent through space and time. This web of agency are the relationships of human enactments of power that are relationships, such as my guide and me, Sherpa business owners and trekking tourists, or the complex contact zones of ice fall doctors and international Everest climbers. 

Embodied Observation

This developed through the multifaceted field research process, indicated in my design as embodied ethnography. I realized that I was not just participating with the naturecultures of Khumbu and observing, but something transcorporeal was occurring. My body reacted and responded to place and in turn the place informed me, enveloped me, communicated with me. As I became with the place I understood it more. I was not just participating, but intra-acting with my entire body, senses, and mind in the research assemblage. What I sought to understand I became a part of, becoming-with, and inseparable. Embodied observation takes cues and notes from what is happening to, with, and around the researcher. It is inspired of auto-ethnography and heuristics as it does not deny researcher immersion in the research process. It tunes and employs the onto-epistemological apparatus of researcher. Embodied observation attunes to the inanimate agencies of more-than-human– the rocks, glaciers, altitude, etc. As researcher, I intra-acted– reacted and responded– with food and water, to altitude, temperature, breath, wind. In this research, importantly, embodied observation meant I attuned to my feet on the trails, shifting and moving and responding to the land.

Pain, sight, sound, smell, touch, the transcorporal understanding of place, embodied awareness.

Tourism

This is the infrastructure and economy that is built and enacted around, for, and within the tourist, tourism provider, employment, periphery or fringe work (such as potato farmer) and the more-than-human land. In this research, it refers to the international, western, local, Sherpa, Nepali, culture of adventure trekking in the Khumbu. It includes expeditions, expedition and trekking companies, the unorganized traveler (solo, not a part of a trek or company, no guide). The necessities of tourism such as products from water to beer to tampons to cookies (some needed, some not, some provided to earn more profit). Furthermore, this includes the Sherpa and western culture of commodifying the Khumbu for tourism and profit (this overlaps, like all other themes). 

Hyper tourism, Adventure tourism, tourism infrastructure– teahouses, porters, guides employment, stores (consumer goods such as TP, cola, beer, Pringles, bottled water, tampons, cookies biscuits).

Anthropocene

The geologic and philosophical epoch of human caused change and destruction to the necessary systems and thresholds to sustain the balance of the Holocene on Earth. Anthropogenic actions and inactions have led to climate change, of which global warming is responsible for the melting glaciers of the Himalaya. The warming of the Himalaya is occurring nearly 2 degrees higher than other areas of similar latitude and longitude on Earth. This complex science is examined in the literature, enactments of the Anthropocene by humans and the reactions/responses of more-than-human.

Anthropocene was a guiding point of inquiry, yet the determinations of what is Anthropocene and what is needed in this era led me further away from this neologism. Anthropocene supports human essentialism. But Anthropocene as a tool that humans can use to understand the anthro-impact of climate change is needed. This period needs to be seen in the entangled states– cthulucene, the Gaia theory of connectedness. Humans are less independent and more engaged in dynamic, continual remarking, remaking of the world through actions and relationships. In iterations of space and time, unnoticed and minute– the threads of which cannot be totally unwoven– is other than Anthropocene. If humans, or more specifically in this case Western humans engaged in a Western notion of place and capitalism can see outside a bubble of our own area of existence, to see the multiple human or more-than-human perspectives and contextual experiences, then what can it do for the future? Can humans cease to totally destroy? Is that the point here? I struggle with an answer, but I wistfully assume yes, that is the point. This is about sustainability, making certain that future generations matter. But I depart from Brundtland[1] Commission’s report, Our Common Future to argue that more-than-human generations should be considered. For all this is sacred, in agency or in spirit. In the amazingness of the fact that in this cosmos a world such as Earth exists, the short hominid lifespan is barely a cosmic blink. With reverence to the more-than-human, the awe and massiveness of this place, Earth is so much more than a rotating hot rock. Let that mean something. That was the intent of this research– showing meaning beyond the human experience through the agency of the unnoticed, the so called inactive or inanimate and in that a reconfigured notion of Anthropocene

Scientific and philosophical epoch; melting glaciers, dry dusty trail, earthquake (yes and no), water, snow, human use, consumption, etc.

[1] Brundtland commission on sustainable development defined sustainability as the uniting of development and environment. In Our Common Future, it was defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland, et al., 1987). 

Capitalocene

Gear, objects used to use land, necessities, wants, branding of gear, companies, commodification

Perhaps, Capitalocene, rather than the Anthropocene is more accurate of a descriptor for the current epoch. If not for the enclosure of the commons and the market economy, would we be in this era at all? This is implicitly the structures, power, and entanglements of the capitalism driven market economy of which tourism is a part. Importantly, capitalism includes the anthropogenic destruction by said market economy, commodification of more-than-human, colonization (neocolonial and neoliberal) of people and land. Capitalocene involves the complicit participation of humans on a day-to-day basis through the use and purchase of products. In this dissertation, the outdoor industry, the gear that is used in the Himalaya and mountains, is considered (e.g.– La Sportiva shoes, Mammut, The North Face, etc.). The mundane products that are identified on porter’s backs, stores, and garbage dumps are considered as well (e.g., Pringles, baby wipes, Snickers bars, beer, Kala Pattar water). 

Imperialism/colonialism/postcolonialism/neocolonialism

British symbolic power; effect on modern tourism.

This thread was presented in those agential cuts, or instances in the research, in which the specificities of Euro-Imperialism was apparent. In the case of Everest, this was often a legacy of British colonization and Imperialism, yet in the case of the potato was Euro-imperialism. This was seen in literature, naming, and expeditions to Khumbu and subsequent expeditions, charities, and anthropological field work. The Lukla airstrip arguably was a result of this. The style of expedition was a remnant of imperialism and has influenced the literature and the western mountain traditions. Conquer, assault, militaristic traditions of expeditions are from such imperialistic desires and ambitions.

Western Mountain Traditions

  Adventure, revelation, self-spiritual discovery, allegory, metaphor, true-mountaineering, ego expansion, commercialization, pure-alpinism, Yuppie Mountaineering.

The traditions of western European colonization and enclosure of the land, commodification of wilderness and nature, market economy, the 19th century romanticization of wilderness and nature and the colonial expansion and god given right to indigenous land (manifest destiny) captured this thread. Mountaineering, mountain climbing, wilderness travel inspired by the previous cultural conditions have led to the development of Western mountain traditions –why and how the Westerner travels and moves in mountains (trekking to climbing Everest). There is not a neat and tidy category for contemporary Western mountain traditions. Rather it is inspired by tropes of mountaineering past such as the revelatory nature and untouched virgin land of mountains (writing out thick and long standing indigenous traditions), the realm of God (but not the gods and goddess of the indigenous), a spiritual wandering and act of gnosis, a self-congratulatory symbolic power first of British imperial power through knowledge (if not a political act) and then of the bragging rights and board room to proof of corporate leadership ability. Western mountain traditions involve an entitlement to travel in places of untrammeled pure wilderness (which is allegory and doesn’t exist as pure and untouched). It is acknowledged by the separation of this nature from the nature of culture and civilization, the travel and challenge of place to create a better man or citizen. An escape, a cleanse, and a bucket list. 

Sherpa

Identity and culture, religion, sacred landscape, economy.

Sherpa as thread in this is given its due through literature, anthropological accounts, and the embodied observation and participation of place. Sacred landscape and Tibetan Buddhist practices are entangled throughout the natureculture of Khumbu and are thus discussed and presented. The attempts to neither exotify or appropriate this culture are made. Importantly, Sherpa’s participation and power in the tourism industry was presented as Sherpa have shaped and continue to shape tourist expectations and the income derived from said expectations. It is said the Sherpa know more about the western traveler and their wants and needs when in Khumbu than the western traveler knows Sherpa. 

Chomolungma/Everest

EBC Trekkers; EBC climbers and expeditions.

Chomolungma is the material ← → discursive that is both fossilized ancient sea thrust upwards by volcanic plates and faults deep at the core of the sub-continent and now swathed in ice and snow and symbol of human power. Chomolungma, the closest indigenous name to the mountain used before imperialist surveys and subsequent naming of Everest, is the Sherpa/Tibetan name to this sacred peak. This thread primarily uses Chomolungma in a decolonizing practice, however literature suggests that the interchangeable use of Everest, Sagarmatha, and Chomolungma. Chomolungma is thus used in most instances, but Everest to discuss the commodity of the mountain and the industry that has grown around it. The focus on this thread is mostly in the entangled state of both mountain/rock and the adventure tourism rendition of this peak as both metaphorical and allegorical spiritual/personal, political and capitalist achievement. The fetishitization of Everest is seen in this entangled material ← → discursive state of media, literature, social, and historical hauntings.