1 - Vitality of Sherpa Home-making in the Context of Climate and Nature Emergency

This paper examines the vitality of Sherpa home-making through careful consideration of ecological and relational tipping points (Whyte 2021) in the context of climate and nature emergency (CNE). Based on ethnography of the Sherpa diaspora in South Asia and North America, it focuses on the dramatic reconfiguration of the Sherpa social and environmental worlds to explore Sherpa experiences of home and the relational work that goes into making them. I show that Sherpas work towards achieving a relational claim of belonging in the diaspora through kyidug (Sherpa: joy and sorrow). This practice of keeping the community intact by being together in times of joy and sorrow extends to neighbors whether or not they identify as Sherpa. The stories of founding kyidug, a formal community-based organization in New York and Seattle, help us understand what is at stake for this small subset of immigrant population in North America, the foresight of community members about what could be possible, and the sense of responsibility that critics deem overly ambitious. I note that if home-making is about sustaining life with dignity and nourishment for our community, then the existential homelessness of our members is a failure to do exactly that. Are the challenges we face so big that it is beyond our capacity to take responsibility for the relational fractures? Do we silence our homeless community members out of existence? These questions are relevant not just to Sherpas but to broader contexts of Indigenous endurance and human survival in the context of CNE.