Speaker: Paola Tiné

Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)

Facing a steady increase in the cost of education and job-market competition, as well as emerging opportunities to attain well-being, people in Nepal are confronted by the need to restructure moral codes and care for their families. My book ‘Modern Dharma’ investigates how and why – amidst conflicting necessities – people make moral choices in the name of well-being. Drawing on 15-month research, in this presentation I discuss some findings from my research outlined in this book and highlight the ways in which kinship relationships are central in well-being negotiations in Nepal. Taken all together, the stories discussed demonstrate that in Bhaktapur well-being coincides with a balance between the achievement of one’s goals and the maintenance of domestic harmony through the negotiation of needs and desires. By examining the interrelated and mutually influencing ways in which people revise relationships, shape their moral selves and ultimately negotiate social change, this books sheds new light on the lived experiences through which moral ideas and behaviours are negotiated for the purposes of attaining well-being from a domestic perspective. This study adds new empirical knowledge to this scholarship through an exploration of domestic transformations among middle-class families in Bhaktapur.