Pasang Yangjee Sherpa

Wall Scholar

Title

Assistant Professor

Department/School

Asian Studies, Critical Indigenous Studies

Faculty

Arts

University

UBC
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Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is a Sharwa anthropologist from Nepal. Her research, writing and pedagogy focuses on climate change and Indigeneity among Himalayan communities, guided by the question: How do we live in the midst of dying?

She is currently involved in two collaborative projects. The first project, titled “Transnational Sherpas” investigates what it means to be a Sherpa today. The second seeks just pathways for sustainable futures in the Anthropocene, along with geographers Ritodhi Chakraborty and Costanza Rampini, and includes critical reflections on how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can open up space for Indigenous peoples and local communities.

Dr. Sherpa is jointly appointed to the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies (home department) and the Department of Asian Studies.

Primary Recipient Awards

Pasang Yangjee Sherpa – Wall Scholars – 2022

As part of the 2022-23 Wall Scholars cohort focused on collaborations related to the Climate and Nature Emergency, Dr. Sherpa will engage with the question: How do you live in the midst of dying? Dr. Sherpa considers living and dying as essential processes for a wholesome existence that is intentionally active and emotionally aware. Foregrounding the latest scientific and media reports about climate and nature emergency, she will organize two sets of discussions with the PWIAS cohort. Firstly, how do we process the information about what is dying (glaciers, languages, relatives, modernity etc.)? Secondly, how do we continue to keep ourselves, in the human form or not, alive (through kinship, food, language, love, songs etc.)? These discussions are expected to enrich her research project that explores sustainability of Indigenous Himalayan communities, and just pathways for desirable futures.