I argue that this growth – namely, the founding of over 90 journals in these disciplines since 1990 – can be attributed to several factors that have come to play in the Nepali social world in the last two decades. [break]
This growth has taken place in an environment structured by relatively more open political and economic dispensation, and in the context of the general expansion of college and university-level academia in Nepal in terms of the number of institutions, academic practitioners, disciplinary portfolios and students.
This growth has also taken place amidst, as sociologist Chaitanya Mishra has put it, growing urbanization and deeper de-sacralization of social life in Nepali society, a symptom of which is the increased valorization of empirical modes of enquiry, colloquially and professionally referred to as “fieldwork.
” The number of journals has also increased at a time when new communication and printing technologies became available to Nepali practitioners, and international sources of funding were partially re-directed towards intermediate-level institutions such as think tanks, academic non-governmental organizations and the like.
In this article, I have identified a few factors that need to be highlighted in connection with the explosive growth of academic journals in Nepal.
Foremost among them is the constitutional guarantee (both in the Constitution of Nepal, 1990, and the Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2007) with respect to the right to organize and the right to freedom of expression.
This guarantee is fundamental to the rise of academic journal collectives and their ability to aspire according to their own needs and ambitions.
Second, the expansion of higher education across the country, especially the growth in the number of disciplines offered at the Masters’ level is also responsible for the increase in the number of journals. We can take up a couple of examples to show this link.
The Central Department of Rural Development was established at Tribhuvan University (TU) in 2001.
Three years later, it decided to publish its own journal, Nepalese Journal of Development and Rural Studies, partially to address the lacuna of relevant reading materials.
Similarly, Mahendra Multiple Campus in Baglung started the MA program in sociology and anthropology in 2002 and its journal Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology in 2005.
The journal’s major objective is “to empower teachers and students” in the department by publishing the creative outputs of their research.
Its editors have also encouraged students to convert their dissertations into articles for this journal, and added that such an opportunity will allow “local students to take part in academic exercise to promote sociological and anthropological knowledge.”
Journals, then, are a productive response to the demand for reading materials as MA programs in new disciplines are established in different parts of the country, and a forum for the output produced by related faculty members and students.
The third factor behind the growth of journals is the change in the eligibility criteria for registration of students for doctoral programs at TU.
Previously, such students had to submit three articles, none of which had to be published ones.
Around the turn of the century, this criterion was changed whereby those applying to register their candidacy for a doctoral program in TU’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences had to still submit three articles, but at least one of which had to be a previously published one in the academic format (namely, with references and footnotes).
The growth in the number of journals in recent years is partially fuelled by this link.
The fourth factor behind the growth of journals is the link between the granting of specific points to research articles when TU faculty members are up for promotion, from the position of a Lecturer to a Reader and from a Reader to a Full Professor.
In the latest regulations published by TU’s Sewa Ayog (2064 BS) that describe the bases for faculty appointments, promotions and job performance evaluations, research articles have been given some priority.
For instance, while only two research monographs can be counted for this purpose for a TU-employed Reader contesting to be promoted to the rank of a Professor, up to seven articles can be used for the same purpose.
It is suspected that this provision has indirectly fuelled the growth of journals in Nepal, especially outside of Kathmandu where faculty members working in TU’s various constituent campuses feel like they are discriminated against by their colleagues based in Kathmandu who edit journals published by the corresponding central departments of TU.
To get around this perceived and real bottleneck in their career path, the faculty members based outside of Kathmandu are said to have started some journals.
The fifth factor is related to the workings of organizations of specific-discipline practitioners. For example, the now-defunct journal Nepali Political Science and Politics was started by the Political Science Association of Nepal (POLSAN) in 1992, barely two years after the organization had been established.
More recently, in 2010, the Sociological and Anthropological Society of Nepal (SASON) has established its own annual journal, SASON Journal of Sociology and Anthropology.
One of the desired activities to do for such associations formed by academic practitioners – as is the case with their counterparts in other countries – seems to be to publish a journal.
Sixth, new universities that broke TU’s monopoly also published journals. For instance, Ritambhara was published from Mahendra Sanskrit University – now renamed Nepal Sanskrit University – in 1996 and Bodhi and Journal of Education and Research were established by faculty members at Kathmandu University in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Seventh, the increase in the number of academic NGOs interested in specific types of academic work was also responsible for the growth of Nepali journals in the social sciences and the humanities.
These journals include Studies in Nepali History and Society, Nepali Journal of Contemporary Studies, and Media Adhyayan.
It must also be noted that the growth of Nepali academic NGOs (and the journals they have editorially supported or published) is partly related to the fact that some Nepali academics who returned to Nepal after long years of graduate training abroad chose not to work for the erstwhile universities.
Instead, they have invested their energy into creating forums and journals that not only cater to their academic expertise and needs but also to their “taste” of academic rigor and style.
It must also be added that even NGOs, which are otherwise not immersed in academic production, have encouraged research and publication, including in journals.
Eighth, rights-seeking social movements have also created an environment for related research and journal publication. Although no academic journals seem to have come out of the Nepali women’s, Dalit and Madhesi movements to date, there are several journals that are products of (and part of) the Janajati movement, including Shodhmala: Journal of Magar Studies Center, Nepal Indigenous Journal, Tamang Journal and Limbuwan Journal.
The premier issue of Shodhmala was published in 2006 and a total of four issues had been published by the end of 2010, mostly in Nepali, with some articles in English.
The only issue of the Tamang Journal published in 2009 in Nepali is an impressive one at almost 300 pages.
Edited by Amrit Yonzan Tamang, a veteran editor of several Tamang publications and the author of several books, including the autobiographical Tilpunge Thito (2010), it contains more than 20 full-length articles divided in four different sections: Tamang society, culture and history; Tamang literature and arts; Tamang mass media; and miscellany. In its editorial, it is written: “The idea of this journal has been floated to especially encourage Tamang youth to write research-based articles and to make available to readers serious writings on the Tamangs.”
The ninth factor responsible for the growth of journals was related to the fact that some students were interested in starting new journals devoted to their disciplines.
Examples of such journals include Discourse, Samaj, Journal of SASS, and Anweshan Research Journal.
The first three are publications of students in the discipline of sociology/anthropology at the Patan Multiple Campus, Tri-Chandra Campus, and TU’s Central Campus respectively. The fourth is a publication of students in the Postgraduate Nepali Department at Mahendra Multiple Campus in Dharan.
In the premier issue of the Journal of SASS, the two editors, Tek N. Subedi and Milly Joshi, wrote, “This journal intends to inspire academic insights among students. It encompasses articles covering a wide gamut of sociological as well as anthropological perspective.”
As sociologist Chudamani Basnet has emphasized, there might be other linked motivations.
As more and more Nepali students seek avenues for further graduate education in Western universities, it is likely that the fact that such institutions look positively at applicants with previous history of publications might have motivated the founding of student journals.
It must be added that these student journals publish articles by both faculty members and students, and some of the articles by students are very good. For instance, Mahesh Raj Maharjan’s article – “Women’s participation: A study of two public events in Newar society” – published in the Journal of SASS in 2006 is one of the best criticisms of patriarchy among the Newars I have read anywhere.
Tenth, in the most recent years, as part of the Second Higher Education Project supported by the World Bank, some of TU’s constituent campuses have been encouraged to seek further autonomy from the university’s centralized form of bureaucratic control.
They have formulated multi-year strategic plans for this purpose. As part of this process, interested campuses are getting into the business of publishing journals as a marker of their enhanced autonomy.
As much is indicated in the publisher’s preface written by the Campus Chief Chintamani Dahal in 2010 in the inaugural issue of Adhyayan: Mechi Multiple Campus Journal published from Mechi Multiple Campus in Bhadrapur (Jhapa).
Finally, the two decades since the political transition of 1990 also coincided with an increase in the professional differentiation of the middle class in Nepal.
One of the ways in which academics have tried to mark their difference from literary writers, journalists and other producers of written texts and periodicals is through the publication of journals that embody the written output of their research enterprise, supposedly an integral marker of the academic practice.
In this endeavor, the growth of the Internet, the accessibility of layout and printing technologies, and at times, even some financial aid from donor agencies to cover research or publishing costs have facilitated this particular middle-class practice.
This is derived from a longer article published in Studies in Nepali History and Society Volume 15 No 2.
Related story
Global smoking deaths up by 5% since 1990: Study
