Book Discussion │ Market and Monastery: Capitalism in Manangi Trade Diaspora
- Prista Ratanapruck, Ria GyawaliDetails
5 December 2025 (Friday, 3 pm)/१९ मंसिर २०८२ (शुक्रबार, दिउँसो ३ बजे)
Book Discussion
Market and Monastery: Capitalism in Manangi Trade Diaspora
(Berghahn Books, 2025)
with author Prista Ratanapruck, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Integrated Development Studies and Ria Gyawali, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
About the Book:
In this transregional ethnographic history of a Buddhist trading community from northern Nepal, Prista Ratanapruck elucidates how kinship, social, and religious institutions have facilitated the expansion of Manangi trade across South and Southeast Asia. Exploring how social and moral values shape capital production, accumulation, and redistribution, at the intersection of kinship and religion, Market and Monastery illuminates an intriguing form of capitalism.
About the Author:
Prista Ratanapruck received her B.A. in Economics and PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University. She has previously taught History at Rutgers University, as well as Anthropology at the University of Virginia, Chiangmai University in Thailand, and the Nepa School of Sciences and Humanities in Nepal. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies. She also teaches at Chiangmai University, Thailand and at Singapore University of Social Sciences.
About the Discussant:
Ria Gyawali is currently a PhD candidate in Anthropology with a secondary in Critical Media Practice at Harvard University. Her dissertation research examines the contemporary Nepali state via its governance of labor as mediated by the development sector. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from the University of Toronto and her M.A. in South Asian Studies from Columbia University.