Emily Amburgey is a socio-cultural anthropologist and visual ethnographer committed to research on migration and climate change in Nepal’s Himalaya. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology and part of the Liu Scholar Program and Public Scholars Initiative at UBC.

In addition to this, Emily assisted Dr. Sara Shneiderman (Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and School of Public Policy & Global Affairs at UBC) with the SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, Expertise, Labour, and Mobility in Nepal’s Post-Conflict, Post-Disaster Reconstruction: Construction, Finance and Law as Domains of Social Transformation, a multi-disciplinary project addressing Nepal’s ongoing state restructuring and catastrophic earthquakes of 2015.

Emily earned a Research MSc in International Development Studies from the University of Amsterdam, and a BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Research Summary: Emily’s work focuses on transnational labour migration, climate change, and state restructuring processes in the Himalayas of Nepal. She is currently exploring different streams of migration from Mustang, Nepal to Northeast India and New York City. She also looks at how climate change and infrastructural projects in high altitude mountain communities connect to patterns of mobility and transform local livelihoods.

Emily engages with documentary filmmaking and photography to highlight environmental and social change.

PhD Supervisor: Dr. Sara Shneiderman (UBC Anthropology & the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs)

Committee Members: Dr. Geraldine Pratt (UBC Geography); Dr. Gastón Gordillo (UBC Anthropology); Dr. Sienna Craig (Dartmouth College)

Forthcoming. “Kyidug Manyom: Transnational Migration, Belonging, and Social Change in Mustang, Nepal.” HIMALAYA Journal.

Forthcoming. “Unsettling the American Dream: Mobility, Migration, and Precarity among Translocal Himalayan Communities.” Development and Change.

2021. “The Ethnography of Collaboration: Navigating Power Relationships in Joint Research.” Journal of Collaborative Anthropologies, Vol. 13, No. 2.

2020. Himalayan Borders and Borderlands: Mobility, State Building and Identity.” UBC cIRcle.

2019. Photo Essay: “Belonging and Transformation in Mustang, Nepal.” HIMALAYA Journal: www.himalayajournal.org/photo-gallery/belonging-transformation-mustang-nepal/