Discourses and Practices of the "Sherpa" : The Case of “P”-Village, Solukhumbu, Nepal

ショクギョウ　ト　シテ　ノ　シェルパ　ヲ　メグル　カタリ　ト　ジッセン　ネパール　ソルクンブ　グン　P　ムラ　ヲ　ジレイ　ニ

フルカワ, フカチ

Furukawa, Fukachi

オオサカ ダイガク ダイガクイン ニンゲン カガク ケンキュウカ シャカイガク ニンゲンガク ジンルイガク ケンキュウシツ

Sociology, Anthropology and Philosophy, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University

シェルパ

エベレスト

登山

トレッキング

Mt. Everest

Climbing

Trekking

Sherpa

Nepal

Solukhumbu District, located in Eastern Nepal, is the homeland of the Sherpa people. This area has Mt. Everest within its territory and has been developed into one of the most famous trekking/climbing places in the world. During the tourist season, more than 30,000 tourists come to the Solukhumbu District and Nepalese guides from various castes and ethnic groups escort them. Sometimes these Nepalese call themselves “Sherpa”. The purpose of this study is to analyze the occupational category “Sherpa”, and in particular, to show how this category is talked about, practiced and reproduced, on the basis of observational data from a climbing school in “P”- Village, Solukhumbu. At this climbing school, students from all over Nepal are taught the techniques of ice-climbing and other climbing/guiding skills, under the guidance of American instructors. Students from the Sherpa ethnic group, people who work as “Sherpa”, and foreign instructors manifest their own differing views and ideas of “Sherpa”, and these views are negotiated in the process of training. So, to become “Sherpa”, students need to objectify their mountainous life world and create ways sharable with their future customers. They will become molded into the occupational category “Sherpa” through notions of “Sherpa”, things like climbing gear and the practice of making roads.