This wiki collects papers, projects, events, and collusions. It's still being ported across from an older CMS, so there may be missing links. Let me know if there's something you hoped to find here that is missing.

Will Tuladhar-Douglas is an applied anthropologist, Buddhist activist, Internet weaver, ethnobiologist, Indigenous advocate and parent. He has had three overlapping careers (at least): as a computer engineer, an academic, and a policy advocate. He is also a practioner, translator, and teacher of Himalayan Buddhism.

As a computer engineer, he helped build the internet in the before days. He learned the basics by working with Unix and Macintosh networks at Reed College and Farallon Computing. He then joined Peacenet and the Association for Progressive Communications, supporting UUCP and Fidonet networks in the developing world from 1989 onwards. He designed Oxfam UK/I's first global network in 1995, and built (some of?) the first modem links between Europe, Nepal, and Bangladesh. He also worked as a systems analyst at the University of Chicago and Oxford University. In 2008 he built a Buddhist monastery in the virtual world Second Life, and has developed tools for the study of ethnobiology and philology, hybrid training courses for disabled cyclists, and the occasional plugin for games.

As an academic, he began his masters studies at the University of Chicago in 1988, then moved to the University of Oxford, where he completed his DPhil in Asian Studies in 2003. As part of PhD research he worked with Newar Buddhist scholars and priests, looking at ancient texts and inscriptions as well as modern rituals, to determine the historical roots of Newar Buddhism as a distinct tradition. From 2004-17 he lectured in the anthropology of religions and environments at the University of Aberdeen, and founded the Scottish Centre for Himalayan Research. In 2010 he was the TLKY Distinguished Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. From 2011-3 he had a Wellcome Trust Fellowship to study local medical practices in the Himalayas, and from 2018-9 he was the first Professor of Anthropology at Asian University for Women.

As a policy advocate, he has worked with Indigenous communities, INGOs, governments, and charities. He has been a Commissioner at the World Conservation Union since 2010, serving as co-chair of the Mountain Connectivity working group and on the steering committee of the Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas working group. Since 2018, he has been an honorary member of the ICCA Consortium. From 2021-3 he was the founding board chair for Autism Understanding Scotland, an autistic led Disabled People's Organisation. Most recently, he was the New Scots policy officer at COSLA, and worked with colleagues in the third sector, Scottish government, and academia to develop the third New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy. In 2015 he was awarded the Matina prize for services to the Newar community.

SInce 2017, through Situgyan Consulting, Will has explored a range of projects that cross the social/ecological boundary. Examples include:

• From 2018-20, he supported the Fo Guang Shan University Consortium, developing critical Buddhist approaches to challenges in unviersity management.
• From 2020-22, he won funding for, developed, and delivered a training programme for autistic cyclists.
• In 2021, he collaborated with Bhavana Tuladhar-Douglas to create a programme for the Munich2051 climate conference that consisted of a live performance, a museum exhibit of future objects, and a critical paper framing their interventions.

At present he is a research fellow at the Numata Centre for Buddhist Studies at Hamburg University and a director at Situgyan Consulting, Ltd.

Will's Orcid ID is 0000-0001-8204-213X.

Will can be found on the Fediverse at https://todon.nl/@yetiinabox and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/wtuladhardouglas/

There's a personal blog at https://tending.to/blether and work-related entries at https://situgyan.com .

Here's a list of publications with hyperlinks, and here is a directory with key papers and presentations. The most recent publications include a chapter on vultures and biodiversity, and a chapter framing and explaining our performance at the Munich 2051 climate event/conference.

This is a summary CV.

There are a few films of Will's talks and conversations on the Internet.

• Medicine Mountains Along the Himalayas - a seminar for the anthropology and Tibetan studies groups at Oxford
• There _should_ be films from the Munich2051 Climate conference, but they seem to have disappeared.
• Will in conversation with Khenpo Sodargye of Larung Gar
• A lecture on Autism and Buddhism

Ongoing research projects include:

• Anthropogenic biodiversity, especially in Asia (e.g., sacred sites and Territories of Life)
• Migration and biodiversity - especially how the environmental crisis shapes refugee integration
• Ecological justice
• Subsidiarity and a commons-based approach to local-first governance
• Outlines of a rigorous Buddhist social science
• Newar Buddhism and other Indigenous Buddhisms
• Autistic methodology, theory, and advocacy
• …and specifically, research combining cognitive psychology and ethnography to explore how autistic people enjoy bicycling
• Supporting and developing Buddhist monastic universities

Writing projects include

• Writing up research done together with Bhāvanā Tulādhar-Douglas on the Bania and local medicinal systems
• Publishing a series of papers that use the species-led approach to explore ethnobiology
• A translation and edition of Dechen Lingpa's Wonderful Journey to Palri
• Short stories in speculative fiction

• Cycling and Society 2024, 9-10 September 2024. Will will present a paper on autistic cyclists, arguing that a disabled-first approach to planning active travel infrastructure creates the best facilities for all cyclists.
• Shaping Asia: Knowledge Networks, 27-9 September 2023. Will presented work from ethnography in Nepal for this workshop at the Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung at the University of Bielefeldt.
• IMISCOE Annual conference, Warsaw, 3-6 July 2023. Will presented a paper on how migrants categorize spices/flavourings and responded in the second panel of the 2-part panel on Food and Migration.
• ITAKOM (It Takes All Kinds of Minds), Edinburgh, January 2023. Poster presentation: “Revisiting the “Anthropologist on Mars”: Questioning the assumptions that support participant observation from the perspective of an autistic anthropologist”.

• I'm working with Farid Ahmed of Chittagong University on a study of the sacred turtles of Bayazed Bostami shrine
• I'm editing the Wonderful Journey to Palri of Dechen Lingpa_ for Khenpo Sodargye and the Larung Gar community
• Slowly, very slowly, I'm writing up the results of fieldwork with Bhavana Tuladhar-Douglas and Amrit Man Singh Baniya on medicinal knowledge among Newars

If you would like to support Will's work, you can buy them a coffee or donate through Liberapay.