Rupak Shrestha

Education

PhD, Geography, University of Colorado Boulder (2022)
MA, Geography, Miami University (2015)
BA, Geography and Tourism, St. Cloud State University (2012)

Biography

As a political geographer, I focus on teaching and writing about borders, sovereignty, placemaking, memory, and Indigeneity. I employ qualitative and visual research methods and incorporate ethnographic sensibilities to understand how peoples and communities perceive, attribute meaning to, and contest place. My recent articles primarily delve into the Tibetan refugee experience and their interactions with geopolitics and development. Specifically, I highlight the diverse forms of belonging and memory in the Nepal-China borderlands, considering the heightened Chinese influence and practices of extra-territorial sovereignty in Nepal. In my ongoing research, I build upon my dissertation work to examine the experiences and challenges of citizenship and belonging for Tibetans and Himalayan Indigenous communities across interconnected sites, including the Himalayan borderlands and diasporic spaces in Turtle Island.

I have previously taught at Macalester College, Eckerd College, and the University of Colorado Boulder. As a settler, I am interested in developing a student-focused, community-engaged visual research project that studies placemaking and belonging for refugees and new immigrants in their “new homes” in the territories of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples.

Recent Publications

• Shrestha, Rupak. “Territorial Futures: On Belonging, Caste, and Pedagogy”. Dialogues in Human Geography (forthcoming)
• Shrestha, Rupak. 2022. “Affective Borderings: Sovereignty and Tibetan Refugee Placemaking at the Nepal/China Borderlands.” Political Geography 99 (November): 102764.
• Shrestha, Rupak, and Jennifer L Fluri. 2022. “Geopolitics of Security and Surveillance in Nepal and Afghanistan: A Comparative Analysis.” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 41 (1): 92–108.
• Shrestha, Rupak, and Jennifer Fluri. 2021. “Geopolitics of Humour and Development in Nepal and Afghanistan.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, edited by Elisabeth Vanderheiden and Claude-Hélène Mayer. Palgrave Macmillan. 189-203.
• Shrestha, Rupak. 2021. Book Review of Tim Winter’s “Geocultural Power: China’s Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty-First Century.” Eurasian Geography and Economics. 63 (6): 794–96.