Dr. Lopita Nath will deliver a photo presentation on Bhutanese Refugee Camps in Nepal at 7 p.m. on Monday, October 26, in the Foundation Hall of the Reynolds Center at Southern Arkansas University.
Nath’s presentation is titled “Is This My Shangri-La? Life in a Bhutanese Refugee Camp.” The lecture is free and open to the public. The audience is also welcomed to attend a reception in Brinson Hall following the lecture. The lecture is sponsored by the College of Liberal and Performing Arts and the Department of Art and Design at Southern Arkansas University.
Her photo presentation explores life in the Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal, where many of the refugees lived for more than twenty years after being evicted from Bhutan. The refugees were forced out of their homes and lost nearly everything – their homeland, their livelihood, and often their families and loved ones. The images Dr. Nath captured in these camps offer a glimpse of life as a refugee, as well as insight into how a people reconstructed their community, with essential services, education, businesses and entertainment, and preserved their culture in the face of life-changing events.
The photos Nath will show at SAU on October 26 were part of a larger exhibit at the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio. They will be on display in Brinson Hall from January 18 to February 28, 2016.
Dr. Lopita Nath is an Associate Professor, the Chair of the History Department, and the Coordinator of the Asian Studies Program at the University of The Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Her teaching and research interests include World and Asian History, in particular issues of migration, displacement, human rights, and refugees. She is presently working on a book about the Bhutanese refugee resettlement in the United States.
