This four week summer abroad will take place in the Himalayas of Nepal, where it will examine the unfolding realities of climate crisis in the small village of Lubrak. In Lubrak lives are transformed in the village as the village’s river, swollen by unusually heavy monsoon rains and glacial melt, washes away fields and buries homes in layers of thick sediment. We will see how this slow disaster is tied to environmental justice, development, conservation, indigenous rights, and demographic and cultural changes.
What are the lived realities of climate change in places where people still depend on the land to live? How do people adapt? How is dramatic change shifting the ways that people live in and with the land? Do these changes perpetuate injustice, or reduce it? These are some of the primary questions we’ll examine during the abroad. We’ll do this through coursework which includes drawing (no previous experience needed) and examinations of environmental justice. At the same time, we’ll explore the village, walk across its territory, and talk to its people–not just to learn about the difficulties facing the village, but also about how the community is already doing the work of making a new future.
This isn’t just about Lubrak: knowing the realities of this change elsewhere can help us to ask how we can engage with climate change in our own society, now.