Mountain Tourism and the Encounters of the “Natures” in Himalaya:

A Case of a Climbing School in a Sherpa Village

Abstract

  In recent years, the assumption of nature as a realm detached from human activities has been collapsed, and the simple view of the world as nature/culture comes under question. This paper aims to examine how we should rethink about "nature", against the background of the "great nature" of the Himalayas. In this paper, I will scrutinize Tim Ingold's arguments on nature and the environment, and establish the position from which we can differently describe something that would be conventionally regarded as natural. I will take the viewpoint within the environment, existing before the singular nature and multiple cultures are imagined. Using a Sherpa climbing school as a case study, I will examine the ways in which multiple natures come into being and contact with each other, and discuss that how people live multiple natures by taking other’s perspectives.