Post-Disaster Economies at the Margins

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the making of development zones in Nepal’s northern borderlands. Focusing on the shifting economic geographies of traders and businessmen, I demonstrate that the current revival of border markets and informal economies is inseparable from the combined processes of state restructuring and infrastructural reconstruction that ensued after the 2015 earthquakes devastated large parts of the country. I seek to develop the category of “informal development zones” to attend to the ways in which state power is enacted to control and discipline the margins in the post-disaster moment, while also foregrounding how rural inhabitants engage with, resist, or support the formalities of state laws and regulations. Looking closely at local narratives of social differences and insecurities, I show how people navigate the complex space between competition and choice to carve out investment strategies and entrepreneurial opportunities. Informal development zones are transforming life in borderlands and offer an urgent reminder of the uncertain and uneven outcomes of market economies following moments of rupture.