Featuring a panel of graduate students and emerging schol ars across different disciplines and institutions in Canada\, the roundtabl e discussion will explore the ongoing experience of what it is like to cond uct research about the Himalayan region during a time of sheltering-in-plac e.
Please register for the event here. The Zoom link will be emailed to you one week before the event.
Panelist Bios:< /p>
Tsering Dolkar Watermeyer (she/her/hers) is a PhD candidate at th e UBC School of Social Work. Her PhD research explores the role of Tibetan ethnocultural organizations in integration of ‘minority within minorities’ in Canada. Tsering is also a registered social worker and has been working in clinical settings since 2010.
Chulthim Gurung is a PhD
candidate in McGill University’s Buddhist Psychology program\, under the Sc
hool of Religious Studies. His Ph.D. research focuses on the Mental factors
(Tibetan: sems byung\, Sanskrit: caitasika)\, an important Buddhist philos
ophical topic in the Abhidharma literature.
Bicram Rijal i s a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at Simon Fraser University. His researc h focuses on the politics and transformation of sanitation and defecation h abits\, infrastructure\, and the uncertainty of everyday life in Nepal.
Sujata Thapa is a Ph.D. candidate in Planning\, within the De partment of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. Her resear ch interests include gender and globalization\, urban poverty\, inequality\ , safe mobility and transportation in the cities of Global South. Her curre nt research focuses on the right to mobility and access to transportation i n Kathmandu Valley.
Ian Turner is a doctoral student at th e University of Toronto\, Department for the Study of Religion. An anthropo logist of Buddhism as found amongst the Newars of Nepal\, Ian examines how houses\, domestic spaces and home life inform and are formed by the Newars’ enduring Vajrayāna traditions.
Elsie Lewison completed her PhD in Geography at the Universi ty of Toronto in 2019 and is currently a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the U BC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Her postdoctoral work explor es how the COVID-19 pandemic is re-shaping agricultural governance strategi es in both the Himalaya and British Columbia\, with particular focus on org anic agriculture\, labour mobility and domestic market development.< /p>
Dagmar Schwerk‘s research focuses on Tibetan and Bhutanese intell ectual and political history and her forthcoming monograph addresses the lo ngstanding philosophical debate about Mahāmudrā from a Bhutanese perspectiv e. She teaches courses about Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhist literatu re and material culture with experiential learning elements.
