Adivasi Communities Research Articles

Mapping the Questions of Resources, Livelihoods and Development Interventions: A Case Study of Adivasi Community from South India

The Adivasi question in south India has become one of the predominant sociological engagements, especially after the onslaught of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG) in India and its effects are even more in the areas predominantly inhabited by the of Adivasis. It is because of natural wealth located in these Adivasi areas. To plunder this wealth, the State has been clandestinely allowing MNCs to establish their companies in the name of development of these regions. This has paved the way for large scale exploitation of natural resources in Adivasi-inhabited areas across India. Are these attempts of the state and MNCs sustainable and what should be the role of social scientists to address these questions in the larger realms of developmental discourse? Taking a lead from the above scenario the present paper will look at the Adivasis questions in relation to the development interventions, livelihoods and sustainability of resources in a drought prone region of south India. Some scholars view that there is a direct link between livelihoods and development interventions and sustainability of the resources. The link between them is crucial to raise and address the questions pertaining to sustainability of resources and livelihoods. These questions, further, lead one to ponder over the conditions of Adivasis and their depleting natural resources and sustainability of the existing resources. To enhance the livelihoods base, both, the donor agencies and the State, must take cognisance of and balance the existing local resources. This paper will seek to address the interface between the livelihoods and sustainable development of natural resource base among the Adivasis of south India. Further, it will also try to address the role of donor agencies in bridging the gap between the haves and have nots, which is drastically increasing year by year without any change.

Development Experience of Adivasis: Case Studies from Kerala

Two different cases of conflicts over natural resources from the Indian state Kerala such is analyzed in this paper- Kadar Adivasis and Wayanad. Reasons, causes of migration and changed gender relations due to development and policy interventions are the focus of the first case, the second case is policies in conflict with rights to resource access. Both these cases tell us some insightful stories about the Adivasi experience with the idea of development. This paper largely argues for inclusivity in terms of the cultural heterogeneity of the Adivasi communities in the whole development scenario. And also, the sustainability of the communities would only be sustainable by giving rights on the resources they possess.

Mental Health Problems in Culturally Changing Adivasi Communities

Adivasi communities represent a section of the Indian society, which suffers from many disadvantages, including social exclusion. Changes in the lives of Adivasi people taking place through development programmes have not succeeded in their integration with the mainstream society. In this paper we examine mental health problems of Adivasi people with reference to a series of studies carried out with groups whose economic activities range from hunting-gathering through agriculture to wage employment, and who experience different degrees of acculturation. Studies generally indicate that Adivasi people show strong attitude towards ‘integration’ with the mainstream society, but there are also individuals and groups who display some degrees of ‘marginalisation’. A relatively complex relationship of mental health with acculturation experiences of groups is brought out due to the interplay of a set of factors, which moderate this relationship. It is argued that the life of Adivasi people can be less stressful and relatively free from mental health problem if development programmes can facilitate their integration with and participation in the cultural life of other groups.

The Poetics and Politics of Practical Reason: Indigenous Identity, Ritual Discourse, and the Postcolonial State in the Northern Nilgiris (South India)

This article explores how in the northern Nilgiris of South India the postcolonial state and indigenous adivasi communities imagine, perform, and negotiate ideas of a good life in ritual and political discourse, that is, how they articulate practical reason. I analyze the politics of ethics and how indigenous Jenu Kurumba and Sholega adivasi groups on the one hand and the state of Tamil Nadu on the other construct and perform their identity with respect to moral ontologies and ideas of a good life. The postcolonial Nilgiris thus appear as a political field where various articulations of ethical worlds compete with and challenge one another, while at the same time the collective actors seek to gain hegemony over other imaginations of a good life.

Street Theatre as Democratic Politics in Ahmedabad

This work examines the politicized use of street theatre by an adivasi (indigenous) community in the city of Ahmedabad, India. We consider Chharas’ deployment of theatre as a socio-spatial tactic in two interlocking registers: first, as a means through which to enact a re-scripting of criminalized subjectivity in the post-colonial moment; second and equally, to advance the practice and potential for democratic politics—a space for constructive encounter and dialogue across difference. We argue that performance furthers the staging of affirmative subjectivities, while providing a mechanism to challenge who has the right to be seen and heard within a public sphere. This article draws on ongoing collaborative research in Gujarat.

Can aquaculture benefit the extreme poor? A case study of landless and socially marginalized Adivasi (ethnic) communities in Bangladesh

The Adivasi Fisheries Project, aimed at diversifying livelihood options for resource-poor Adivasi (ethnic) communities in the North and Northwest of Bangladesh, was implemented during 2007–9. Aquaculture and related technologies were introduced to a total of 3594 resource-poor Adivasi households. Baseline and end-line surveys were applied to assess the changes in their livelihoods following intervention. Household incomes of project participants rose significantly (p≤0.01), which was attributed to the increased share of aquaculture and related enterprises from 15% in 2007 to nearly 30% in 2009 in terms of annual household incomes. By contrast, the contribution of aquaculture to household incomes remained virtually unchanged (p>0.05) among non-project participants. The monthly frequency of fish, meat and egg consumption increased between 2007 and 2009 (p≤0.01), confirming improved food and nutrition security among project participants. Although non-project participants also slightly increased their fish consumption, it remained significantly lower (p≤0.01) than that of the project participants. The results from the present study contradict the prevailing view that aquaculture is inappropriate for landless, socially marginalized and extremely poor communities by demonstrating its relevance to improving livelihoods, provided that a diversified approach is followed and interventions are tailored to needs and capabilities of target households.

Politics in the Informalizing Metropolis: Displacement, Resettlement and Unstable Negotiations in Uncivil Ahmedabad

AbstractThis article documents the displacement of Baoris, an adivasi (indigenous) community living in the city of Ahmedabad, India, and their subsequent resettlement along the city's precarious urban–rural frontier. I argue that this process signals the informalization of rights and territories, representing a political regime of governing in the remaking of the contemporary Indian metropolis. Recent actions taken by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to evict Baoris from the inner city are situated within the entangled processes and politics of urban restructuring, liberalization and Hindu nationalism. The absence and erosion of democratic protections, however, has not precluded the possibility of political negotiations with the local agents of state and capital, and this article assesses the tactics that community residents have deployed in their bid to maintain claims to territory, labour and services. I end by tempering enthusiasm for the informalizing city as a site for realizing alternative forms of justice and possible democratization.

Ethnobotanical studies on the wild edible plants of Irula tribes of Pillur Valley, Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, India

ObjectiveTo conduct an ethnobotanical studies and collect information about the wild edible plants collected and utilized by the Irula tribes of Pillur valley, Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu, India. MethodsThe study was conducted among the Irula peoples of Pillur valley through survey, interview and field work along with the knowledgeable individuals during January 2009 – September 2010. All the traditional and other knowledge related to the collection and consumption of wild edible plants on which the communities depend was documented. ResultsA total of 74 plant species have been recorded as wild edible in the study areas, of which, fruits yielding plants ranked first with 42 species, green leaves, tubers, young shoots and flowers ranked next with 26, 7, 4 and 2 species respectively. ConclusionsOur study revealed that the adivasi community in the Pillur Valley continues to have and use the knowledge about the wild edible plants, including their habitat, collection period, sustainable collection, mode of preparation and consumption. To date, this knowledge appear to be fairly well conserved and used as a result of continued reliance of local community on the wild uncultivated foods.

An Epidemiological Study of the Appraisal of the Emerging Issues and Challenges in Globalisation, Higher Education and the Changing Status of Indian Women

Globalization has brought in a number of changes in the world today changing it into a global market. The direct nexus between the industry, corporate world and higher education has brought a transformation in the skills required for various jobs. Natural and Pure Sciences are not considered supreme anymore. Applied Sciences and professional skills are much more in demand now. The new developments have led to the de-evaluation of the subjects in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences. Women used to take admission in the Colleges in General Education, Arts or in Humanities in the early 1990’s. The trend is very much different now. They are now entering into the Professional courses offered by Public and self-financing Private Institutions for pursuing higher education in masculine dominated disciplines. The impact of these changes draws attention to the social change and gender equity. Feminist perspectives on women’s educational qualifications have expressed their concern on their under participation, underachievement and under-representation. This paper deals with the appraisal of the changes in choice of subjects available to them and the reasons for this change. The impact of social, cultural and economic disparities across various states in India on the enrollment of women varies from state to state. It is a well known fact that the proportion of women from the dalit and adivasi community is negligible. It is thus imperative to create a broad based database on higher education which is gender sensitive. It is high time that the Government evolved a framework on the appraisal of the role and functions of higher education, both public and private. For this, a focused vision is required which will reach out to more women by encompassing the issues of access to and equity with respect to education of women in the higher education sector.

Conservation-induced displacement: A comparative study of two Indian protected areas

Attempts at 'preservation via displacement' are an extreme manifestation of the 'fortress' or an exclusionary conservation paradigm, support for which has increased lately due to escalating conservation threats. While the policies and processes emanating from this paradigm have produced positive conservation outcomes for some Protected Areas, livelihood outcomes for the displaced people have seldom been as positive. This article examines whether the impoverishment risks arising from conservation-induced displacement tend to vary with the degree of marginalisation of the displaced community. In this light, this article examines in detail the impact on livelihood of conservation-induced displacement in two Protected Areas (PAs) of India. The article posits that understanding the dynamic livelihood context of displaced communities, especially the ecological base of their livelihoods, is critical to any assessment of their pre- and post-displacement livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes (such as income, poverty, food security and health). A variety of livelihood parameters, including compensation received, consumption flows, agricultural production, monetary income, food security, headcount ratio of poverty and overall poverty indices have been studied, to understand the extent to which key livelihood risks arising out of displacement are addressed by the rehabilitation package and process in the two PAs. The Sahariya is a forest-dependent Adivasi community living in and around the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in the semi-arid tropical region of Madhya Pradesh. The Sahariya Adivasis of the Kuno Sanctuary were a socially, politically and economically marginalised community, whose lives and livelihoods were intricately linked to their ecological base. We found that inadequate attention was paid to this factor while designing and implementing a suitable rehabilitation package for the 1650 Sahariya households displaced from this PA. As a result, their material condition deteriorated after displacement, due to loss of livelihood diversification opportunities and alienation from their natural resource base. Displacement thus resulted in rapid proletarianisation and pauperisation of these households, and their 'integration' into the national 'mainstream' occurred at highly disadvantageous terms. The 430 odd households displaced from the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats (a biodiversity hotspot in the Southern Indian state of Karnataka) consisted of relatively less marginalised social groups like the Gowdas and the Shettys, both of whom occupy a prominent place in the local politics and economy of this state. The share of agriculture in the pre-displacement livelihood of these households was relatively higher, and dependence on forest-based livelihoods was relatively lower than in the case of the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary. I argue that this was an important factor that enabled these households to negotiate a better post-displacement deal for themselves. Consequently, the relocation package and process was far more effective in mitigating the potential impoverishment risks of these households. It appears, then, that the livelihood outcomes of conservation-induced displacement are generally biased against the poor. Further, the more marginalised a displaced community (or household) is, the less likely it is to obtain benign or positive livelihood outcomes after displacement. This has important implications for poverty and social justice, especially for Adivasi communities, which constitute a large proportion of those threatened with conservation-induced displacement, in India, in the coming years.

Poor choices: de-alignment, development and Dalit/Adivasi voting patterns in Indian states

The surprising loss of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led national government in India's 2004 general elections has been generally understood as a rejection of the National Democratic Alliance's campaign that celebrated a ‘Shining India’ among voters who had not shared in the wealth produced by India's recent growth boom—especially Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe electorates. A close look at the empirical evidence demonstrates that Dalit and Adivasi communities were by no means the homogeneous voting block portrayed in many post-election analyses. Nor did the BJP consistently lose in these constituencies. Both findings undermine the currently popular conceptualization of Indian electoral and party behavior as identity-based or ethnic. Instead, the 2004 results confirmed a growing trend for these disadvantaged populations to vote for radically dissimilar parties across different states—from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), to the Congress, to the Bahujan Samaj Party, or indeed to the BJP itself—driven by plausible calculation of interests. Using national election data from the 1999 and 2004 elections, this paper examines the theoretical puzzle this divergent electoral behavior presents to both the comparative literature on cleavage-based party systems and the scholarship on caste and identity politics in India. We argue that at least some of this variance can be explained by the fact that differences in state-level conditions influence which of the array of strategies used by Indian parties to recruit Dalit and Adivasi voters is likely to be successful. We then analyze the specific puzzle of differential BJP success among Adivasi/Dalit communities. We conclude that the embedded nature of the BJP as a party with social movement characteristics, combined with the poor developmental performance of many Indian states for their most disadvantaged populations, opens a spatially and politically differentiated niche for a social-provisioning electoral strategy. Developing this strategy has aided the BJP in overcoming at least partially its legacy as a Brahmin-Bania party.

Between Decentralized Planning and Neo‐liberalism: Challenges for the Survival of the Indigenous People of Kerala, India

Abstract This paper examines the experiences of decentralization under successive political regimes in Kerala in the context of neo‐liberal policies, with reference to the impact on the lives of adivasi (indigenous) communities. The Communist Party‐led government had been implementing a home‐grown programme of decentralized planning since 1996 until it lost power to the Congress Party‐led conservative coalition in 2001. In the context of the accelerated structural adjustment and liberalization of the national government, the new government amended its predecessor's programme with a reduced role for the state bureaucratic and political actors in mobilizing people for planning and implementing projects at the local level. Based on a comparative analysis, the authors argue that the new programme has so far not been successful as regards enabling marginalized groups such as the indigenous communities to resist exclusion and move out of their states of deprivation. The study also shows that the withdrawal of the state from the social and economic sectors has adversely affected these groups.

Some Reflections on Culture and Health: a Response to Prof. Bernard Ugeux

International Review of MissionVolume 95, Issue 376-377 p. 143-150 Some Reflections on Culture and Health: a Response to Prof. Bernard Ugeux John Oommen, John Oommen Dr John Oommen u head of the Community Health Department at the Christian Hospital in Bissamcuttack, Orissa, IndiaSearch for more papers by this author John Oommen, John Oommen Dr John Oommen u head of the Community Health Department at the Christian Hospital in Bissamcuttack, Orissa, IndiaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2006.tb00549.x AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume95, Issue376-377January‐April 2006Pages 143-150 RelatedInformation

Engendering Mining Communities: Examining the Missing Gender Concerns in Coal Mining Displacement and Rehabilitation in India

Forced displacement by development projects seriously affects the well-being of communities, revealing mixed and varied outcomes. Although scholars and policymakers have recognized the need for new forms of interventions, gender aspects of displacement and rehabilitation remain mostly unexamined in the empirical literature, which largely assumes that women’s and men’s experiences of displacement and rehabilitation processes are similar. Consequently, rehabilitation policy remains largely gender-blind, insensitive to the differential impacts upon and diverse concerns of women and men affected by development projects. Seeking to fill this knowledge gap, this article brings into focus how the restructuring of state-controlled coal mining in the regions of Jharkhand in Eastern India and the resulting displacement of local communities, including adivasi (indigenous) communities, affect women in gender-specific ways. Displacement from the original habitations often means not only the physical relocation but also the loss of livelihoods derived from the subsistence resources offered by the local environment. For women in these communities, the value of these resources cannot be overstated. This article argues for a refocus of policy debates on displacement and rehabilitation in ways that can engender the meaning of ‘the community’ and offer a gender-specific appreciation of issues regarding resource control and livelihood.

Challenging traditional authority

This article is an examination of the relationship between traditional authority and the state, using a leadership dispute in a rural adivasi village as the ethnographic backdrop. The primary objective of the article is to examine how traditional authority continues to be reproduced in the context of local notions of political and cosmological legitimacy. It shows how the state can simultaneously buttress and transform traditional authority. By looking at the processes by which the state is experienced by local people, the article also illuminates the relationship that people have with lower–level state officials. Finally, the article sheds light on one way in which Hindu nationalism is making inroads into this particular adivasi community, and addresses the implications of how the RSS, acting as an extra–state power, is used to enforce accountability at a lower level.

Developing compliance and resistance: the state, transnational social movements and tribal peoples contesting India's Narmada project

AbstractIn this article I conceptualize a conflict over the Narmada damming project in central India by highlighting particular spatial fields and larger trajectories of political interaction. The Narmada project's maintenance and destabilization is evinced in a range of processes, including conflict over afforestation in tribal villages, protest narratives over resettlement in regional centres, and transnational lobbying of donor agencies. The interpenetration of social practices by different scales, and the mobility of discourses are emphasized. Further, I examine how organizational and social decisions such as implementing a rehabilitation programme, accepting state compensation and participating in public protest point to the contingent nature of power, revealing both complicity and disarticulation between involved parties. Descriptive points and commentary focus on the Indian riparian states implementing the project; the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement); and affected adivasi (tribal) communities in the Narmada Valley.

Exploitation of Forests through Forest Labour Co-Operatives in Maharashtra

The forests in India are being exploited mainly through use of the (aboriginal) Adivasi labour. The Adivasi communities dwell within and on the outskirts of forest areas and provide labour for the exploitation of forests. Till Independence the Adivasis were being exploited by the forest contractors by employing them on very meagre wages and advancing credits to them in the agricultural season at very high rates of interest against surety of their labour.