The rhythms of life in the Himalaya: seasonality and sociality among the Gurung people of the Nhāson Valley.

The paper explores the linkage between ecological and social systems of the Gurung people in the Nhāson Valley of Nepal, accounting for the interconnectedness of social life and seasons. The main themes of the paper are the local people's understanding and experience of seasons, and the ways in which their social life moves according to those seasons. The paper is based on 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken from 2012 to 2018 in Nhāson, a small mountain valley located in the central Himalayan region of Nepal. Informal interaction and conversation with the local people were the key sources of understanding the seasonality and sociality. The findings reveal that a single cultural group has multiple frameworks for marking and counting the year which are contextual and culturally specific. Likewise, seasons and social life in the mountain region are closely interlinked to each other. Local people see that the transformation of seasons from one to the next is related to socio-cultural changes that reflect the rhythm of life. The social and ecological systems in this Himalayan region of Nepal are gradually being affected by climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]