Precarity and indigenous tourism work in Nepal

Abstract

This study explores how Indigenous tourism workers navigate precarious tourism work during a polycrisis by constructing meaning through identity work shaped by existential anxiety and spiritual resilience. Drawing on Butler's view of precarity, it employs a multi-modal qualitative approach across four mountainous regions in Nepal. Underpinned by interpretive phenomenological approach, insights from field visits conducted between February 2022 and December 2024 reveal a three-stage process, involving the pursuit of selfhood while navigating the burdens of freedom and responsibility. The findings demonstrate the salience of Indigenous spiritual resilience, enabling culturally empowered approaches to alternative organising during polycrisis and precarity. Practically, the findings underscore the need for tourism stakeholders to acknowledge the affective and psychological dimensions of precarity in Indigenous tourism work.