“The hearth … is the center of family life and the central structural feature of the house” (p. 36).
In her acknowledgments, Judith Pettigrew tells us that a friend refers to her as “the lady with the war stories,” as the University of Limerick–based scholar has conducted ethnographic research in Nepal for more than twenty years, the last fifteen dedicated to understanding the effects of the Maoist conflict. Her book Maoists at the Hearth reads like a memoir, drawing us in, encouraging us to sit with her at a figurative hearth as she vividly recounts the experiences of rural families affected by war. Pettigrew presents stories of life before, during, and after Nepal's “People's War” (1996–2006) through an everyday lens: a group of politically nonaligned, mostly middle-aged and elderly, middle-income women in a predominately Tamu village in central Nepal. She focuses on how the war reshaped social relationships and cultural practices. To frame her stories in the proper context, Pettigrew provides an excellent summary of Nepal's complicated political history, including the development of the Maoist Movement.
In the foreword to the book, anthropologist David Gellner praises the power of personal narratives, and I fully agree. Pettigrew's immersion into the world(s) of her subjects is the defining strength of this text. Of particular value for other scholars of conflict zones are Pettigrew's meditations on conducting fieldwork and writing about these spaces.
In the first chapter, we learn about Tamu society and Pettigrew's field site through Dhan Kumari's family stories. The hearth serves as a vantage point from which life (and the unfolding of the war) is observed. The war began in 1996, but initially had little effect on the village; however, by 2001, a Maoist training camp had appeared less than a day's walk from the village.
In chapter 2, Pettigrew describes the rising sense of fear regarding the Maoists' increasingly palpable presence: “[They] were just the latest addition to the pantheon of intimidating human and spirit-based forest beings. ‘Maoists' were an ever-expanding category.… [C]omments [made] were expressions of fear rather than descriptions of actual occurrences … [and] reflected the new uncertainties and people's concerns that the changed political realities could become entangled with preexisting conflicts” (p. 55). Yet, Pettigrew's ongoing conversations with Nepalis throughout the country reveal that people feared the Maoists and the national army alike. Pettigrew worked closely with the Center for Victims of Torture, interviewing people affected by the conflict, and in this chapter, she recounts stories of the Army's acts of torture, intimidation, and murder.
Aware of Pettigrew's research, her close friend Dhan Kumari grew concerned about her safety. “They are secret things. It is very dangerous to talk about what the army does. Do you not know that the Maoists are here nearly every day? They come and force villagers to feed them. There is no choice. And then the army comes and they blame people because they fed the Maoists. It is a very dangerous time now” (pp. 76–77). To cope with this mounting fear and uncertainty, Pettigrew found that maintaining daily routines took on especial importance for feelings of solidarity and general comfort. In chapter 3, she documents, among many quotidian events, the evenings after eating rice, when neighbors would gather around the hearth to catch up on each other's news and to chat “about everyday things” (p. 79).
Chapters 4 and 5 examine daily life lived alongside the Maoists who had taken up residence in the village. Pettigrew invokes Michael Taussig's concept of “normality of the abnormal” to explain how people came to accept this new form of living with the insurgents: “[T]he revolutionaries warmed themselves by the fire.… [T]hey participated in the social life of the village, albeit one that had been significantly reconfigured by their presence” (pp. 124–25).Footnote 20
In November 2006, the Maoists declared a formal end to the ten-year insurgency. And chapter 6 describes the slow process of dismantling fear after the signed peace agreement. “Forgetting fear,” Pettigrew writes, both acknowledged an emotional state and reflected a choice: “After years of conflict people desperately wanted peace, and by forgetting, they actively engaged with the peace process” (p. 151). At the end of the book, I wished to know more about what that process of forgetting entailed.
In her epilogue, Pettigrew writes, “The deepening of structural violence that accompanied the conflict—for example, the closure of development projects, the lack of staff at the health post … [and] the humiliations and violation of forced entry into homes—had a much greater impact than violence per se. Although people had to negotiate and navigate survival paths through the conflict, their imaginings, aspirations, and activities went well beyond it” (p. 163). These passages aptly summarize the complex wash of forces that overcame villages consumed by the conflict. With her undeniable knack for narrative and keen insights, Pettigrew makes an important contribution to ongoing analyses of the People's War in Nepal. While her themes provide plenty of ideas to consider in future research on this topic, the book's true strength comes through in the personal narratives that offer a compelling and human glimpse into the conflicting and all-consuming emotions that accompany war.
