SINHAS Vol 28 No 1 Dipesh Kharel and Katsuo Nawa

From Temporary Shelter to Bhukampa Ghar (Earthquake Home): Building and Dwelling in Post-Earthquake Alampu, Dolakha

Dipesh Kharel and Katsuo Nawa

Abstract
This article discusses how the Thami people of Alampu village, Dolakha District, Nepal, responded to the 2015 earthquake disaster, focusing on their (re)building and dwelling activities. After the earthquake and subsequent aftershock quakes, most villagers of Alampu first moved into temporary shelters. They then began constructing permanent earthquake resistant houses, called bhukampa ghar in Nepali. We offer an ethnographic account of how this process from temporary shelters to bhåkampa ghar was lived, experienced, and executed by various villagers in negotiation with diverse individual, collective, and institutional agencies, within ever-shifting legal, political, economic and socio-cultural contexts. 

After introducing the village and its people as well as our research methodology, we trace the transformation of Alampu in the following two sections: a brief description of pre-earthquake Alampu in terms of its dwellings, followed by the aftermath of the earthquakes in Alampu, where many villagers had moved from temporary shelters to bhukampa ghar. We then demonstrate how Thami people in Alampu experienced and renegotiated with temporary shelters and new earthquake-resistant houses, many of which were built by fellow villagers using techniques foreign to them prior to the earthquakes, heuristically using Tim Ingold’s concepts of “building” and “dwelling.”

Keywords: The 2015 Nepal Earthquakes, Thami (Thangmi) People, Alampu, Living Space, Dwelling