BEING A NATURALIST GUIDE IN BARDIYA, NEPAL: A PROFESSION IN THE IN-BETWEEN

This ethnographic article is based on a series of more than fifteen semi-directive interviews conducted with guides working in Bardiya National Park (BNP, Nepal), as part of a three- month field study (from June to September 2019). The naturalist guides, also known as tour guides, earn their living by taking tourists from all over the world into the Park's "jungle". Armed with a single stick, their practical knowledge and their senses, these guides walk for whole days on the lookout for the rarest animals. They are mostly men, they are about thirty years old, and they have to acquire more and more skills (e.g. speaking english, managing social networks, etc.) in order to stand out, as this profession has become so common and obtaining a license is easy. Caught between their daily life, the discourse of their parents and grandparents on the one hand and the unbridled globalization, tourism and NGOs on the other, being a guide appears to be a clever nonetheless destabilizing adaptation.