ABSTRACT
As a strategy to maintain tourism, Nepalis in tourist locations and businesses largely downplayed the extent of the People’s War between the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) and the state security forces (1996-2006) in conversations with tourists, concealing local and personal knowledge. The front and back stages of the tourist encounter shared much with the culture of silence that came to bear in encounters between the “hosts” and other Nepalis (of various sorts, including members of the warring parties, non-aligned citizens, and anyone who might be within earshot). Based on ethnographic fieldwork during the war, this chapter argues that although tourists generally experienced their encounters with Maoists as authentic back stage experiences, it is in the silences, where much is concealed, that the tourist encounters—though elusively—the interpersonal practices and reality of the war.
