Fieldwork / Liju, Ethnography & Oral History

Voices from Liju

An edited oral-history archive built from field conversations with people who live with, work in, study, or care for the mountain.

The Archive

Fifteen Conversations
in One Village

Our fieldwork focused on Sanchahe, a 49-household group within Liju Village, where we conducted 15 interviews with people who experience the mountain from different positions, including herders, medicinal-plant growers, guesthouse owners, bird guides, conservation practitioners, elders, young people, and children.

Rather than presenting a single “community perspective,” these voices reveal how the same mountain can be habitat, livelihood, workplace, home, and protected space. Together, they connect ecological change to income, migration, care, knowledge, tourism, and labor.

The People Behind the Archive

Fifteen Conversations, Placed on the Mountain

Hover a portrait to read what that person said, then open the interview. On a phone, tap once to read and again to open. Positions are approximate.

Cloth-textured field map of Sanchahe and Liju, showing the route from the valley up to the high pasture
Environmental Portraits

Scenes from the Conversations

Photographs made around the same homes, fields, and paths where the conversations took place.

A household crop
Household hearth
Church at Sanchahe
Rest stop above the valley
Carrying the day's load
Resting on the trail
Working on the roof
A house in the village
New building
At the trailhead
A household at work
Visitors on the ridge
A planted slope above the village
An exchange with volunteers
The village road
House and garden
A medicinal field
A village signpost at the turnoff
Pausing on the path
A neighbour at work
The house pig
Bringing fuel home
Village lane
In the forest
Returning to the garden
Seedlings in the alpine garden
Volunteers tending the planted beds
The garden fence and hillside
Walking up to the garden
A planted slope above the village
Alpine plants under cultivation
The garden sign
A plot being prepared
Working the soil
A day in the garden
Garden volunteers at work
A field record from the archive
Field notes and specimens
Recording in the village
A page from the archive
A working field conversation in Liju
A working field conversation, LijuFig. 01
From Voices to Arguments

What the Voices Argue

Connected across households, the conversations form the evidence behind the Plants, People & Justice Atlas, six arguments about livelihood, biodiversity, knowledge, value, labor, and power.

LivelihoodBiodiversityKnowledgeValueLaborPower
Read the six arguments →