New Faculty Colloquium - Outsourcing and the New Shape of Development Families in Nepal

Dr. Heather Hindman

Outsourcing and flexibility have become keywords to index changes in employment worldwide, but little attention is paid to the complex intersection of employment policy with private life, social forms, community and the public sphere.  Among development workers in Kathmandu, Nepal, the line between work and leisure becomes indistinct when one must move every three years.  This paper examines how changes in human resource policy and political tensions in Nepal have caused a radical transformation in the demography of expatriate aid professionals in Kathmandu.  What was once an anomalous world of “Father Knows Best” life in Shangri-la has become similarly strange environment of “Animal House” as a result of policies designed to rationalize the mediating tasks of aid workers and increase efficiency and expand audit culture.