This project will document and analyse the cultural and political impacts of Nepal’s 2015 earthquakes. The physical impact of a natural disaster such as a major earthquake is immediately visible: lost lives, displaced people, destroyed houses and a shattered cultural heritage.

However, the longer-term impact and legacy of such an event is less apparent. The project is structured along three distinct but inter-related themes. It will examine public discourse to understand social and political change; it will study efforts to reclaim and reinvent material culture; and it will study archival material to identify the permanent marks left by previous disasters.

The electronic resources of this project – the project website, blog and database – will be preserved over the long term.  The SOAS Digital Library will archive the entire SWAY database (http://digital.soas.ac.uk/SWAY) of research materials. By the end of the project, all material except restricted file layers and copyright protected material will be made publicly accessible online, together with metadata of restricted files.

By ultimately giving other researchers and the public access to our extensive research database the project’s data as well as its methodology and findings will be disseminated not only among Nepal specialists but will also become accessible to researchers working on the political, cultural and social impact of natural disasters elsewhere.