Home Village Research Articles

Livelihoods and Dwelling Security: The Challenges of Indigenous Karen People

The Indigenous Karen people living in the Kaeng Krachan National Park (KKNP) in Western Thailand were evicted from their traditional village home by armed Thai forces to an allocated area. These operations have led to the enormous change in the traditional way of life. They cannot fully continue with their traditional ways of life. The misunderstanding of the livelihood system of the Karen is the critical problems. This paper aims to examine the challenges of indigenous Banggloy Karen people under regulation of the national park. This study is framed within a phenomenological perspective and draws on specific empirical experience by employing participant observation, interview and focus group. Empirical evidence shows that one of the main obstacles facing the Karen are the political issues that impact on the traditional way of life. The critical problem is the struggle to maintain their way of life in the current settlements; for example, the policies to reclaim the forest and relocate people are also a problem for those inhabiting the forest, who might be evicted. Law and regulation are the obstructions of traditional practice. Land allocation is also a part of the policy that reduces the shifting cultivation. Thus, the state should provide clear guidance within a human right framework and ecological approach and respect for the traditional knowledge and rights of indigenous communities including sustainable livelihoods. Keywords: Indigenous Karen, Dwelling Security, Conflict, Development, Banggloy, Ethnographic Method

Visually impaired women on the move: the intersection of gender and disability in China

This paper draws on a qualitative case study of the experiences of visually impaired rural Chinese women migrating to Beijing. The aim is to understand the ways in which disability, intersecting with gender, prompts the migration of women with disabilities. By applying an intersectionality analytical framework, the present study argues that the migration decisions of visually impaired women are shaped by the ‘push factor’ of discrimination, the marginalisation of women and people with disabilities in the countryside, and the promise of improved life chances and marriage prospects in the city. However, women with disabilities are not just the victims of the intersection of gender and disability. Their rural-urban migration is also a form of agency; it is an attempt to maintain their autonomy and dignity, motivated by the opportunity to avoid the ‘othering’ to which they are subjected in their home villages. Points of interest The experience of visually impaired women who have migrated from rural China to urban China have been very much overlooked to date. Despite the disapproval from their families and the less possibility to remain in Beijing in the long term, many visually impaired women from rural China migrate to here and work as masseuses. The research found that the migration of visually impaired women was an escape of taking the gender roles. The migration decisions were forced by the marginalisation of women with disabilities in the countryside and motivated by the promise of improved life chances and marriage prospects in the large city. The rural-urban migration demonstrates the capacity of visually impaired women to act independently and to make their own free choices, at the same time, it is also an opportunity to develop a community of visually impaired people who work as massage therapists.

Миграция сельских жителей Калмыкии в районы Крайнего Севера и приравненные к ним местности

Introduction. A critical situation in the agricultural sector of Kalmykia, largely destroyed infrastructure, unemployment, and low wages are the factors that contribute to the increase of migration of the population in the rural areas of the Republic. One of the destinations for migrants, besides Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, is Far North and territories equated to it. The present article’s aim is to examine the character of this migration and the migrants’ life in the northern lands. Data and research methods. The study employs the method of structured in-depth interview; the respondents found by way of ”snow-balling”. There are 20 interviews in all, recorded in March-April 2021. Results. The analysis of the interviews indicates that the people migrate to the Far North to solve their financial problems, to get jobs, to make careers, and to earn their ”northern” pensions. Most of them are quite successful: flats are bought, houses are being built, and there is money to help their relatives. They may adapt well to the new environments but very often at the expense of their health. The interviewees often have plans to go back to Kalmykia but only when they are retired or after their work in the Far North they may move to Moscow and Podmoskov´e to live and work there. Importantly, the migrants from Kalmykia are usually those who have a good command of their mother tongue. Their complaints are that they have no opportunity to realize their professional ambitions and be useful to their home villages and places. Notably, migrants have Kalmyk associations that organize besides holiday feasts some educational activities (teaching mother tongue and Kalmyk dances), and support the elderly and the young.

Fortællerens fødsel ud af snestormen

In this article I analyze ‘Kirstens sidste Rejse’ [Kirsten’s Last Journey], one of Johannes V. Jensen’s stories from Himmerland, drawing on both the original version of the text published in 1901, and the version included in 1904 in Nye Himmerlandshistorier [New Stories from Himmerland]. At first sight, the story is realistic account of two men transporting a coffin with the corpse of an old woman from Aalborg to her home village in Himmerland where she is to be buried, and the violent snowstorm in which they are caught on the way. By the time they finally reach their destination, Christen Sørensen, who has been driving the horse-drawn carriage, has undergone a profound change. Earlier a silent person, he now recounts endlessly, with the same mechanical voice, the journey with the dead woman. In this article, I offer a reading of the story from the perspective of Maurice Blanchot’s literary theory, arguing that Johannes V. Jensen’s text can be read as an allegory of the becoming of the literary narration and its relation to the experience of death and nothingness.

COVID-19 and the plight of the migrant worker in India

ABSTRACT COVID-19 has affected the lives of entire populations across the globe. Different sections of the society have been impacted, some more than others. In the context of India, which has a sizeable number of people living in adversity, the impact of COVID-19 has been more pronounced in the sub-section of ‘migrant workers’. Due to the imposed lockdowns to contain the spread of the coronavirus, these workers have lost their jobs and the insecurity has led them to return to their home villages in arduous conditions. Their plight is showcased here which also exposes the role of the government which has been largely indifferent and reactionary at best. The article is based on secondary research and offers certain takeaways about how emergency situations need to be handled differently to ensure no particular section is neglected.

“Owned them like a Father": Labor Contractors, Port Workers, and the Makings of Ethnicity in Singapore

Despite the importance of ports to the Indian Ocean world, labor contracting systems in ports remain understudied. By focusing on ethnic divisions of labor among port workers in colonial Singapore from the 1930s to the 1950s, this article shows how labor contractors constructed these divisions and how social organization in modern Singapore is rooted in labor contracting at the port. Past scholarship has explained merchants’ propensity to form partnerships within the same kin or ethnic circles with the notion of trust: that those of the same kin or ethnicity could be trusted more easily. However, this article argues that labor contractors often recruited migrant workers from the contractors’ home villages and regions because shared kinship and ethnicity allowed contractors to better control workers’ laboring, social, and cultural life. Performances of shared kinship and ethnicity gave contractors power as both employers and community leaders. After World War II, port workers also solidified ethnic divisions by organizing into unions along the lines of ethnicity, and they secured benefits as ethnic blocs, rather than for all port workers. This post-war moment of organizing labor by ethnicity has shaped labor activism in Singapore today as migrant workers continue to strike in ethnic blocs to protest disparities in working conditions between workers of different ethnicities.

Vulnerabilities of Internal Returnee Migrants in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic in India

The study surveyed 227 returned labor migrants in four districts of western Odisha to comprehensively analyze the socio-economic vulnerabilities faced by internal returnee labor migrants caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The results show that the partial and complete lockdown caused factory and workplace closures in the entire country. Consequently, millions of migrants suffered a loss of income and faced an uncertain future which motivated migrant workers to return to their home villages. Upon arrival, they met socio-economic vulnerabilities, encountered social and economic discrimination, and were excluded by their family members and fellow villagers, which impacted their behavioral health.

A Celebrity from the Sky: ʿAbd al-Bāsiṭ ʿAbd al-Ṣamad’s Journey to National and International Fame in ʿAbd al-Nāṣir’s and al-Sādāt’s Egypt

Abstract ʿAbd al-Bāsiṭ ʿAbd al-Ṣamad (1927–88) is one of the most renowned Egyptian Qurʾān reciters of the mujawwad and murattal styles, admired nationally and internationally for his remarkable voice and improvisatory style. Starting from the 1950s, his national and international career was entwined with the emergence of Egyptian mass media, which contributed not only to the spread of his voice on the radio, followed by the distribution of cassettes, but also to the formation of his image through a variety of media texts. While avoiding explicit political engagement, he largely contributed to the religious legitimation of ʿAbd al-Nāṣir’s and al-Sādāt’s policies by his presence at iconic events, as well as to the growth of Egyptian soft power. This article sets ʿAbd al-Bāsiṭ ʿAbd al-Ṣamad’s career within the media and political landscape of his time, exploring his journey from his Upper Egyptian home village to transnational celebrity.

Navigating ethnicity, nationalism and Pan-Africanism – Kimbanguists, identity and colonial borders

The Kimbanguists, whose church is based on the healing and proclamation ministry of Simon Kimbangu in 1921 in the Belgian Congo, challenge colonially defined borders and identities in multiple ways. Anticolonialism is in the DNA of Kimbanguism, yet in a manner that contests the colonially inherited dichotomy between religion and politics. Kimbanguists draw from holistic Kongo traditions, where the spiritual and material/political are inherently interwoven. Kimbangu’s home village, Nkamba, is the centre of the world for them, and Kongo culture and the ancient kingdom form the backdrop of the Kimbanguist view of the new eschatological order to come. The reunification of the kingdom from the two Congo states and Angola will mark the inauguration of the new era. This will not, however, mean a splintering of the Democratic Republic of Congo but rather a removal of the colonial borders. That hints towards a Pan-African vision of a united Africa and even a universally united Black race that will play a central role in the eschatological salvation historical drama. The Kimbanguist vision also contains global dimensions, and their view of borders and identities is like Nkamba-centred ripples in water. This vision wipes away colonial borders and relativises ethnic, national and racial identities whilst strongly subscribing to a salvation historical narrative that places Africa and Africans in the centre.Contribution: This article contributes to the study of nationalism as well as of African Instituted Churches. The analysis of how the Kimbanguists relate to (Kinshasa) Congolese nationalism, Kongo ethnic identity and Pan-Africanism as well as of their global missional views reveals layers and complex patterns of relationship between all these. What facilitates the simultaneous subscribing to all these layers is an openness of identities (Kimbanguist national, ethnic, etc.), as well as a tendency to see the world as consisting of interdependent areas and human communities with their holy city, Nkamba, in the centre.

Across, Between, and Beyond Nation States: Overseas Chinese Private Remittance Networks, 1850s–1930s

Abstract This paper examines the development of private remittance networks that came into being in response to the practice of migrants sending financial resources back to their families in China from 1850 to 1930s and analyses them through the lens of transnational space. It discusses the transnational space between the diaspora and the homeland and the structures that link them. My research has shown that these networks contributed to a space transcending national borders. The material comprising the basis of this research project includes newspapers from the diaspora, remittance letters and receipts, and reports conducted by the Taiwanese governmental institutions and secondary material focused on both emigrant home villages in China and communities in destinations. In the diasporic context, space is created through shared experiences of migrants, who are physically separated from their families but remain linked through networks such as the remittance trade.

Archetypes of the pandemic.

This paper attempts to read the psychological and emotional impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic through the archetypal images contained in patients’ dreams. In these dreams, symbols related to the power of nature and to extreme danger are paired with feelings of detachment that seem to point to a traumatic dissociation, due to the archetypal experience that erupts in familiar surroundings. Through the humanization of the ineffable experience, dissociation, which in the beginning of the pandemic showed in high levels of anxiety, panic attacks and depersonalization, can be transformed into the overview needed for the search for meaning. The container for this process of transformation is the analyst, the real, virtual or imagined one, and his or her ability to relate and feel.

Indagaciones encarnadas sobre el deseo de irse de las mujeres rurales jóvenes

Este artículo trata de acercarse a la realidad de la Comarca de Sayago (Zamora), al objeto de investigar los elementos que contribuyen a la construcción del deseo de irse a través de la relación de las jóvenes con el espacio, pues se entiende como una dimensión significativa al centrarse en las construcciones discursivas, las imágenes y las percepciones acerca de su pueblo de origen. Así, los resultados muestran que la experiencia de las jóvenes rurales refleja una topología afectiva y un tempo rítmico que surge de la relación entre sus hexis corporales y los espacios geográficos en los que se sitúan. Estos procesos son intrínsecos a sus subjetividades y estructuran la forma en que navegan en su futuro, de tal manera que, cuando los ideales culturales de la vida en el pueblo dejan de ser deseables para ellas, el modelo de vida urbano se impone como válido en su imaginario.

Zabuti imena: Vasylʹ Tkachuk ochyma rodychiv y odnoselʹchan (na osnovi aktualʹnykh intervʺyu)

Vasyl Tkachuk (1916-1944) is a forgotten talent of the Ukrainian literature of the 1930s. Not so long ago this outstanding short-story writer was completely unknown to a wide range of readers. Today his memory is being laboriously restored. His artistic profile, personal features, and his surrounding’s attitude to the author may be described to readers thanks to the recent interviews with his close relatives and the residents of his home village and region. Memories of the people who met Vasyl Tkachuk or remember him from their relatives’ stories prove the writer’s exceptional nature and his writing career, which was stopped by his death.

Performing the Emperor: Sui Jingchen's “Han Gaozu Returns to His Home Village”

AbstractReading Sui Jingchen's song suite “Gaozu Returns to His Home Village” against early sources, this article explores how Sui's work selects and inverts the elements that ground definitive historical accounts of rulership to refashion a familiar narrative in a theatrical mode. The sanqu's use of performance tropes expands the scope of criticism in this humorous piece past concerns about Yuan rulership, or even the imperial institution, to broader questions of representational instability and uncertainty. These shifts implicate readers in a social and political critique and engage issues often associated with early modern fiction and drama, including authenticity, imposture, and interpolations of author, character, player, reader, and audience.

Feeling solastalgia: A study of the effects of changing climate in rural India

Rural communities are dependent on their native environment for supporting their customs, traditions, and other rural activities. This study attempts to understand the effects of the changing climate on rural individuals by investigating their feelings and experiences of perceived changes in the home environment and village life. Thirty‐four in‐depth interviews were conducted during the months of May–June 2019 in two districts—Gaya and Jehanabad of South Bihar, India. The findings reveal that the rural population have experienced changes in climate such as a rise in the incidence of heatwaves, erratic rainfall patterns, delay in monsoon onset, early drying of water resources, and loss of particular tree and bird species. Worries and uncertainties of the rural population have emerged from the experiences of involuntary separation from traditional farm activities, forced adaptation strategies, loss of cultural and religious practices, and reduced self‐worth in coping with the deteriorating environment. The changing climate instigates feelings of emotional distress, resulting in adverse mental health and psychological well‐being outcomes. It is concluded that the changing climate is responsible for the loss of traditional village customs and nature‐related cultural practices, subsequently inducing solastalgia among the rural population.

Scenario of Women Workforces at the Informal Sector in India

In the unorganised market, the trend of globalisation, export-oriented industrialisation, and the migration of factories from industrialised to emerging countries has contributed to a rise in women employees' number. The type of job in which women are predominantly engaged has been categorised into wage employment, self-employment, family work and work rated as a portion. There are no evident employer-employee partnerships in the unorganised market, and specific social security aspects are absent. They move from one position to another and use their talents and abilities to earn their livelihood, although these employees do not have any set employer. In the building industry, trained and unqualified employees operate at low salaries. In the unorganised market, the atmosphere of work and environmental standards is often dangerous. In pursuit of job prospects, people relocate from various regions and nations, abandoning their home villages, and this is one of the essential explanations for their exploitation.

A Culture-Centered Approach to Experiences of the Coronavirus Pandemic Lockdown Among Internal Migrants in India.

India’s coronavirus lockdown forced low-wage migrant workers to return from the city to the home towns and villages from which they came. Pre-pandemic living and working conditions were already stressful and difficult for these migrants. The lockdown became an additional burden, since it shut down sources of income with no assurance about when, or if, work and earning to support families could be resumed. This article draws on the lens of the Culture-Centered Approach (CCA) to understand how workers engaged with and navigated these difficult times. A total of 54 migrant workers locked-down at home across the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal were interviewed for this qualitative study. Financial worries were found to be endemic, with rising debt a major source of stress, and educational qualifications becoming an obstacle to earning. Returning migrants were suspected of bringing the virus from the city, and so stigmatized in their home towns and villages. However, the pandemic lockdown also showed some unexpected healthful consequences. It provided these marginalized, and always busy workers the time and space to stop working for a while, to stay home, eat home food, and take walks in the comparatively green and clean spaces of their home environments. In this, the pandemic lockdown may be seen to have enabled a measure of agency and health in the lives of these workers, an oasis albeit temporary, and ultimately subject to the demands of the globalized cities of India.

Pioneers of the plantation economy: militarism, dispossession and the limits of growth in the Wa State of Myanmar

The characteristic mobility of highland populations in Southeast Asia relied to a large extent on their particular adaption to an ecological environment: swidden cultivation of tubers on mountain slopes. This ecology corresponded to cosmologies in which potency was limitless, or at least had no fixed and delimited precinct (as did the rice paddies and Buddhist realms in the valleys). Military state building, modern transport, and new crops and agricultural technologies have effectively ended swidden cultivation. In this article, I follow the pioneers of the plantation economy in the Wa State of Myanmar, who dispossess local populations of their land and employ them as plantation labour. The limits of growth and potency they encounter are (a) in the natural environment and (b) in the resistance of local populations. Yet, even though there are such limits, the potency to which these pioneers aspire is still limitless. It is however channelled through a new economy of life, epitomised in the plantation, nourished in excessive feasting, and maintained by the kinship dynamics of capture and care.

Outbreak Investigation of Officially Reported and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N8 Subtype) in Iran During 2016.

On 14 November 2016, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPA) was reported from a commercial layer farm located in Malard, Tehran Province, Iran. This study aimed to investigate the HPAI H5N8 outbreaks in Iran. The questionnaire was prepared and completed through interviews with farm owners or field observations at the time of disease onset from November 2016 to February 2017. The HPAI H5N8 infection was confirmed in 30 different locations including 10 villages (33.3%), nine-layer farms (33%), two broiler breeder farms (6.67%), one layer breeder farm (3.3%), one turkey farm (3.3%), one partridge farm (3.3%), five national parks (16.7%), and one wetland (3.3%) in 12 provinces of Iran. The cumulative incidence rates of disease in villages, layer farms, broiler breeder farms, layer breeder farms, partridge farms, and turkey farms were 0.02%, 0.87%, 0.55%, 6.25%, 7.14%, and 0.69%, respectively. The findings reflect that among the investigated variables at infected locations, new birds entering the home in villages, live bird markets, inappropriate biosecurity conditions, transporting manure during the breeding period, close proximity of a common road to infected farms, and poultry movement inside (pullet) and outside were the most frequently observed possible risk factors for these outbreaks. In conclusion, attention should be focused on the study of the dynamics and movements of domestic poultry, investigation and modification of the structure of industrial poultry farms, training for all related people, enhancement of passive surveillance, an increase in biosecurity, raising the awareness of the authorities on the importance of the infection, and provision of the required credits and facilities.

The socio-economic impact of relocation policy to the communities affected by the mount sinabung eruption: a preliminary study

Mount Sinabung has long been dormant. Since 2010, the great giant has woken up from the big sleep and has periodically been erupting ever since. The series of eruption resulted in catastrophic damage to many of the surrounding area, resulted in inhabitable villages. Many of the relocated inhabitants returned to their home village for one or more reasons while some others never moved at all. This indicated that there are some problems in the relocation policy. As a part of the research project ‘The Socio-Economic Impact of Relocation Policy to the Communities Affected by Mount Sinabung Eruption’, this study aims to explore the underlying factors of the returning relocated inhabitants from the relocation area to their home village and those who chose to stay in the andger area. The results demonstrated that the loss of source of income and the lack of alternative livelihood strategy are the main reasons to leave the relocation area. The secondary reason is the difficult access to children’s education and the problematic policy. From the results we learned that housing quality and the supporting facility are not the only factor that needs to be considered in the relocation plan.