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`So: Ragged Woman'

The Aesthetics and Ethics of Skilled Action Among Nepal's Yolmo Buddhists

Sarah Lawrence College, USA rdesjarl{at}slc.edu

This article inquires into the aesthetics and ethics of skilled talk and action among Nepal's Yolmo people, especially as they related to life history research I conducted in the late 1990s with Kisang Omu, an elderly Yolmo woman who resided then in Kathmandu, Nepal. In talking with Kisang about various aspects of her life, it became clear to me that she was greatly concerned about the quality of her talk, whether it was `good' or `not good'. Other Yolmo people, she well knew, might hear and evaluate her words as recorded by me, and convey thoughts on how `skillful' their speaker was. At work here was a set of politically charged cultural discourses that helped to determine what this elderly woman thought of her words and her social and moral worth in general. These same discourses have shaped my own actions as well, for I too was expected to act in skillful, morally responsible ways when putting her words into print. Such reflections point to the ways in which life history research is an ethical act, with few easy answers to the issues they raise.

Key Words: subjectivity • aesthetics • ethics • senses • speech form • life history • Buddhism • Nepal

Ethnography, Vol. 3, No. 2, 149-175 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/1466138102003002002


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