Drawing from his experience as a researcher and humanitarian working in Nepal in the wake of the earthquakes that struck Nepal in April and May of 2015, Austin will analyze the social and political dimensions of contemporary ‘post-earthquake Nepal’. Specific topics include the different scales of disaster, the scalar politics of response and recovery, and the implications of the Nepal earthquakes of 2015 and their aftermath for long term infrastructure development and national planning.
Austin currently lives and works in Kathmandu, where he serves as the Director of Rasuwa Relief (a humanitarian volunteer initiative which has provided diverse kinds of immediate and long-term support to over 4,300 Nepali households in the wake of the disaster), an Advisor to the Langtang Management & Reconstruction Committee, and an independent research consultant who has advised a variety of institutions in the post-disaster context.
The Yale Himalaya Initiative brings together faculty, students, and professionals across Yale University whose work focuses on the Himalayan regions of Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan, and China, as well as the Tibetan cultural areas that traverse the borders of all those states.