The Routledge International Handbook of Himalayan Environments, Development and Wellbeing

Shifting dynamics of peoples, livelihoods and territories, influenced by global warming, require new ways of thinking and new kinds of politics beyond the sovereignties of idealized traditional European nation-states. The Routledge International Handbook of Himalayan Environments, Development and Wellbeing features over 70 scholars from the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences who explore the interrelationships between environmental change, development and wellbeing across the entire Himalayan region – from the Indian Himalayas in the east to Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet (TAR), India and Gilgit-Baltistan in the west.

Within over 50 chapters, the handbook presents engaging field-based research on the region’s socio-cultural diversity, climate adaptation and socio-economic transformation. It examines creative ways Himalayan communities adapt, seek wellbeing and respond to environmental and development challenges. Lessons about learning from Indigenous and local peoples, about governance of forests and water, and grassroots conservation practices from the Himalayan region can help inform global networks of researchers and practitioners.

The handbook will interest scholars, students, stakeholders and the public about the evolving relationships between Himalayan peoples, territories and global warming, offering insights into people’s creative ways for understanding, adapting, and seeking wellbeing in environmental relations and development possibilities.

Ben Campbell is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Durham University, UK. He traveled in 1976 into Himalayan spaces between Kashmir, Nepal and Darjeeling, starting his research career learning Tamang in Nepal in 1988. He directs an MA program on Sustainability, Energy and Development, and his book about the impact of nature conservation on Indigenous environmental knowledge and practice in a Tamang-speaking community is Living Between Juniper and Palm: Nature, Culture and Power in the Himalayas (2013).

Mary Cameron is a writer and socio-environmental activist whose research in Nepal explores human-nature engagements, Ayurvedic medicine, and gender and caste. From 1992 to 2021, she was Professor of Anthropology, and directed gender studies programs at Florida Atlantic University and Auburn University, USA. She received three Fulbright grants; alumni, leadership and teaching awards; and numerous other grants. She authored Three Fruits: Nepali Ayurvedic Doctors on Health, Nature, and Social Change (2019) and the award-winning On the Edge of the Auspicious: Gender and Caste in Nepal (1998).

Tanka B. Subba is Visiting Professor at the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, and Ombudsperson of Darjeeling Hills University. Earlier, from 2012 to 2017, he served as Vice-Chancellor of Sikkim University. He received such awards as the Homi Bhabha Fellowship (Mumbai), Dr. Panchanan Mitra Lectureship and R.P. Chanda Centenary Medal for 2015 (Asiatic Society, Kolkata), DAAD Guest professorship at the Free University of Berlin, and Baden-Wuerttemberg Fellowship at the South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University. He has authored and edited 18 books and published over 80 articles on various issues related to the Eastern Himalayas.