Understanding Gendered and Colonial Narratives of COVID-19 in Nepal: Perspectives of Global Media, Nurses and Local Journalists

Abstract

This thesis examines the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal as experienced by Nepali nurses and journalists, and as reported by international news agencies. Written as a series of standalone but interconnected articles, it employs overlapping theoretical frameworks that draw on postcolonial theory, feminist postcolonial theory and/or feminist media studies. Using critical discourse analysis and feminist narrative analysis as methods, I studied news coverage by three global news agencies: Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse, as well as primary data obtained through in-depth interviews with nurses and journalists in Nepal. My findings reveal that colonial legacies of global health inequities marginalized Nepali nurses and journalists during the pandemic, and exposed them to risks of exploitation and harm, particularly women. My core argument is that gendered colonial relations of power ultimately affected the realities and perceptions of COVID-19 in Nepal. These power relations determined which lives were seen as worthy of protecting from the virus, and which were regarded as expendable. International news media played an important role in reproducing those relations of power in its coverage of the pandemic in Nepal. This thesis makes important contributions to postcolonial, feminist and media studies by bringing in perspectives from Nepal, a region that has been overlooked and undertheorized in all three disciplines. Most importantly, it disrupts and challenges the dominant discourses of COVID-19 by introducing new knowledge that centres the experiences of Nepali people, particularly Nepali women.