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The Gotte Koya IDP Mystery: Tribal Identity and the IDP–Migrant Continuum in the Chhattisgarh–Andhra Pradesh Borderland (India)
Abstract
In this article the IDP realities in the borderland between two states in central India, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh,
are investigated. The conflict in Chhattisgarh between a Maoist insurgent movement, better known as the Naxalites, and a state-sponsored
vigilante group, the Salwa Judum, has created an IDP flow in the area. Starting from my own pre-fieldwork misconceptions about
the issue, this article shows the complex nature of the IDP question in Andhra Pradesh. First, the territorialization of tribal
identity since colonial times produces a problematic reproduction of a difference between outsider Gotte Koya and local Koya
by state agents. Secondly, a long history of migration between the two states not only makes this differentiation redundant,
it also makes a strict distinction between IDPs and migrants problematic. Rather, this article argues the usefulness of considering
an IDP–migrant continuum when studying this type of displacement.
... Dalton's (1872) classic study reaffirms the way tribal identity based on territory was constructed by the colonial British rulers. Its legacy continues in the processes of globalization in India, which construes tribal identity based on territoriality (Bert, 2011;Bhattacharyya, 2019). ...
This article develops a critical analysis of the colonial world of the postcolonial historians whose works inadvertently contribute to the process of reconstituting the colonial construction of tribal identities in neoliberal India. The monolithic and colonial construction of tribal identities in postcolonial India reinforces and preserves tribal identities along the lines of the colonial methods of identity formation based on territorialization. The article highlights the problematic features of the territorialization and deterritorialization of tribal identities and their reconstitution. Territorial-based identity formation is now being used and sustained by the neoliberal political and economic ruling and non-ruling elites in order to exploit tribal communities. The existence of upper-caste and class-based Hindu social order is concomitant with a social hierarchy based on the exploitation of tribal communities in India. This article locates the colonial and neoliberal capitalist logic of identity formation that serves elites, and helps to advance the neoliberal political-economic project of the Hindu right. A postmodern logic of identity formation facilitates the expansion of the neoliberal capitalist economy with the process of Hinduization. It contributes to identity formations that divide the people on territorial grounds. The article is divided into four parts. The first outlines the philosophical basis of identity formation and its links with neoliberalism; the second deals with identity formation based on territory; part three documents the debates on tribal identity formation in postcolonial India; and the final part elucidates the capitalist logic inherent in territorial-based identity formations.
... Classical studies of the Mexico -USA border generated important works like Andreas (2000) questioning the border's porosity through strategies of actors (Casey, 2011), but some tended to put aside the subsequent question of change of categorization that a crossing could imply. When migration studies incorporate border studies, they tend to raise such identity questions by putting the stress on the link between sovereignty and belonging through different type of fieldwork (Mountz, 2008;Suykens, 2011). ...
The Middle East is traditionally under-represented in border studies despite the salience of conflicts involving borders or along sectarian boundaries. The case of Lebanon is a good example of such dividing lines referring to identity building. It conveys the importance of thinking about social and political relations in terms of space, which requires thinking simultaneously about both physical (borders) and symbolic (boundaries) divisions. The six papers of this themed issue, originally presented at the 2012 Centre for Lebanese Studies Workshop, intended to explore the many dimensions of the articulation between collective identity building and border/boundary making. This set of papers participates in the debate on categories, limits and belongings by exploring three dimensions of the theme: space (Meier, Mermier), circulation (Puig, Chatty et al.) and representations (Bizri, Haugbolle) in a multi-disciplinary perspective. They all show how much borders/boundaries are arbitrary constructions but also evocative mental ones in the building of ‘otherness’.
The story is of IDP (internally displaced people), particularly of the Gothi-Koya communities, who were compelled to escape from the forests of Chhattisgarh, and are now arbitrarily residing in the deep forests of Telangana State. Their arrival took place specifically during the period of Salva–Judum. Following the debates and demands of human rights activists and intellectuals in connection with the over-violence and illegitimacy of the armed-squad, the Supreme Court of India outlawed it later. The article is based on around a month visit, in the year 2019, to these regions namely Kornapalli, Kristadampadu village of Cherla Block and Pushkunta village of Dammapet Block of Bhadradri Kothagudem District in Telangana. These regions are flanked by dense forests and have been highly sensitive because of their connection with Naxalite movements, and the settlements of the Koyas are scattered, so the researchers had to face various challenges in investigating the issues on a wider scale over there. Researchers made conversation with the displaced people along with the government officials to probe the issue and experienced their plight in their observation.
This chapter develops a critical analysis of the colonial lens of the postcolonial historians whose works inadvertently contribute to the process of reconstituting the colonial construction of tribal identities in neoliberal India. The monolithic and colonial construction of tribal identities in postcolonial India reinforces and preserves tribal identities along the lines of the colonial methods of identity formation based on territorialisation. The chapter highlights the problematic features of the territorialisation and deterritorialisation of tribal identities and their reconstitution. Territorial-based identity formation is now being used and sustained by the neoliberal political and economic ruling and non-ruling elites in order to exploit tribal communities. The existence of upper-caste and class-based Hindu social order is concomitant with a social hierarchy based on the exploitation of tribal communities in India. This chapter locates the colonial and neoliberal capitalist logic of identity formation that serves elites and helps to advance the neoliberal political-economic project of the Hindu right. A postmodern logic of identity formation facilitates the expansion of the neoliberal capitalist economy with the process of Hinduisation. It contributes to identity formations that divide the people on territorial grounds. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first outlines the philosophical basis of identity formation and its links with neoliberalism; the second deals with identity formation based on territory; part three documents the debates on tribal identity formation in postcolonial India; and the final part elucidates the capitalist logic inherent in territorial-based identity formations.
This thesis investigates indigenous adivasi experiences of livelihood transitions and policies of affirmative action in the Southeast Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted with people from across the Koya adivasi group, this research shows how the benefits of affirmative action policies filter unevenly through communities and households. Koyas are categorised by the Indian government as a Scheduled Tribe (ST), and on this basis are eligible for affirmative action measures such as land protections, subsidised grain, and reserved seats in schools and state employment. Unequal access to such policies, which are broadly intended to integrate adivasis into the regional economy and society, exacerbates class distinctions within the Koya community. Through the process of transition away from small-scale shifting cultivation towards greater dependency on the state, Koyas’ sense of having a “distinctive culture” is reified, as their inclusion is premised on the reiteration of their “backwardness”. The thesis charts an objectification of community identity as the logic of state recognition becomes intertwined with emic understandings of cultural differences and affinities. To investigate these processes the thesis moves through ethnography at various scales of social life: the household, the village, and the wider region. By exploring how interlocutors differentiate themselves from others within these spaces, I show how particular notions of ethnic, gendered and generational difference are produced, experienced and reiterated, through social reproduction, social interactions, and engagement with state discourses. This argument is grounded in fine-grained ethnography of social relations and informed by a historical perspective on entrenched forms of ethnic, and caste/tribe difference in South Asia. The empirical material stretches from the differences in aspirations between siblings and closely related families within a village of shifting cultivators, to the differences felt to be deeply ingrained between caste and tribe communities across the wider region.
This article examines an incident of tax-avoidance migration by the adivasis in the Central Provinces during the colonial period. Using this incident, the article reflects on two interrelated questions: the colonial attitude towards adivasis and adivasi engagement with the colonial state. The reflection on these questions centres on the notion of belonging. By exploring ‘belonging’ as a concept on the register of sedentary-nomadic metaphysics, the article offers insights into the idea of being adivasi. Ultimately, by navigating the ontological and historical–political grounds, this article attempts to recover a history from the colonial period that is often seen to be marginal, both in terms of the social group involved and the nature of the event. Whether it would yield a non-violent history of adivasis or not is a question that is left open for further debate and discussion.
Refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) are not always safe where they resettle in ethnic civil wars, in which civilians’ identities overlap with the ethnic profile of armed combatants. This article argues that IDPs are also vulnerable in non-ethnic civil wars, through two related mechanisms that indicate civilians’ loyalties: (1) where the displaced are from and when they left; and (2) resettlement patterns. The first can suggest loyalties when the displacement is associated with territorial conquest and expulsion of suspected sympathizers. In turn, the displaced would be considered disloyal by the armed group responsible for the expulsion, and could be subject to further violence where they resettle. The second mechanism relates to the first: if displaced civilians are considered disloyal, then resettling with other, similarly stigmatized civilians can improve their security by reducing the household’s risk of discovery. However, clustering together with other IDPs can have a perverse effect: even though living in an enclave may reduce a particular household’s likelihood of suffering violence, the group itself is endangered because it is more easily detected. Armed groups can collectively target IDPs who resettle in clusters, either for strategic or retributive reasons. Implications of the argument are tested with detailed subnational panel data on IDP arrivals and massacres in Colombia, and the analyses provide support for the argument. The findings indicate that collective targeting of IDPs occurs even in civil wars without an ethnic cleavage, following voluntary resettlement patterns, and reinforces IDP security as a policy priority.
Internal migration is thought to have substantial benefits for migrants and for the development of migrant-sending and migrant-receiving areas. In order to facilitate such migration, central governments may need to use fiscal transfers to ensure services to migrants, address infrastructure shortfalls, and ameliorate labor market displacement of natives. In fact, an extensive, mostly normative “fiscal federalism” literature has argued that central governments ought to use transfers to reduce interjurisdictional externalities such as those due to population displacements. We extend this literature empirically by examining the degree to which exogenous, longterm migration prompts the redirection of central fiscal resources in India. Following the literature on distributive politics, we argue that transfers in decentralized systems addressing the costs of population movements are influenced by partisan politics. Using monsoon shocks to migration, we show that increases in migration are met with greater central transfers but that these flows are at least 50% greater if the state-level executive is in the Prime Minister’s political party. Consistent with the theory, the influence of politics is greatest on parts of the budget subject to greater executive control. This politicization may explain why Indian states maintain barriers to internal migration despite the development costs of doing so.
This article examines the concepts of 'jointness' in India's Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, understood as an engagement between the state (in this case the Forest Department) and people organized into 'communities', with NGOs, where available, acting as the interface. By examining the commonalities between older examples of joint or co-management of resources and current practices of joint forest management, the article challenges the notion that 'jointness' is a new feature of forest policy, or that it represents a resurgence of civil society against the state. Further, insofar as the basic agenda of the programme is pre-determined, it cannot be considered very participatory in nature. None the less, within the limited degree of choice that JFM allows, there is a new and joint construction of needs.
This paper shows how successfully integrated refugees are often made invisible to institutions, academics and within social
contexts. It argues that certain elements of social and institutional categorization processes—including partiality, functionality,
conflation, immutability, self-confirmation and negotiability—tend to obscure people who are integrated. The paper presents
a case study which juxtaposes the ways in which three different kinds of categorization have been applied to people of Mozambican
birth who settled in a rural South African border area after fleeing the Mozambican civil war in the 1980s. The three cases
of categorization come from the South African government for the purpose of legal regularization; from an academic unit of
the University of the Witwatersrand for the purpose of demographic and public health research; and from residents of Bushbuckridge
District to describe and manage their relationships with each other. The paper demonstrates how each of these different perspectives
obscures the experiences of integrated Mozambican refugees.
This article examines the concept of ‘jointness’ in India’s Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, understood as an engagement between the state (in this case the Forest Department) and people organized into ‘communities’, with NGOs, where available, acting as the interface. By examining the commonalities between older examples of joint or co-management of resources and current practices of joint forest management, the article challenges the notion that ‘jointness’ is a new feature of forest policy, or that it represents a resurgence of civil society against the state. Further, insofar as the basic agenda of the programme is pre-determined, it cannot be considered very participatory in nature. None the less, within the limited degree of choice that JFM allows, there is a new and joint construction of needs.
The past 15 years have brought an upsurge of "autochthony." It has become an incendiary political slogan in many parts of the African continent as an unexpected corollary of democratization and the new style of development policies ("by-passing the state" and decentral-ization). The main agenda of the new autochthony movements is the exclusion of supposed "strangers" and the unmasking of "fake" autochthons, who are often citizens of the same nation-state. How-ever, Africa is no exception in this respect. Intensified processes of globalization worldwide seem to go together with a true "conjunc-ture of belonging" (T.M. Li 2000) and increasingly violent attempts to exclude "allochthons." This article compares studies of the up-surge of autochthony in Africa with interpretations of the rallying power of a similar discourse in Western Europe. How can the same discourse appear "natural" in such disparate circumstances? Recent studies highlight the extreme malleability of the apparently self-evident claims of autochthony. These discourses promise the cer-tainty of belonging, but in practice, they raise basic uncertainties because autochthony is subject to constant redefinition against new "others" and at ever-closer range.
This paper investigates the complex security and economic dynamics that influence the lives and opportunities of self-settled
refugees living in Uganda. It focuses on the opportunities and problems faced by self-settled refugees, and questions the
assumption that Uganda's current local settlement policy is best suited to the country's social, economic and political realities.
It suggests that far from being passive victims, self-settled refugees are taking control of their lives without any additional
external assistance and are planning for the day they can return to their homeland. Consequently, the paper argues that there
is reason to believe that local integration is likely to succeed where other models have failed.
This paper explores the meanings of return and repatriation among Guatemalan refugees who are now returning from a decade
of exile in Mexico. The analysis applies a transnational perspective which does not take the attachment of people to certain
places and territories as a natural given. Rather, it is argued, the dynamics of flight and return should be explored in terms
of the 'politics of space' of the nation state, that is, the development and application of techniques of power for the control
of territories and populations.
Borders, Histories, Existences: Gender and Beyond contends that borders are, by definition, lines of inclusion and exclusion established by the state. It analyses how states construct borders and try to make them static and rigid and how bordered existences, such as women, migrant workers and victims of human trafficking, destabilise the rigid constructs. It explores the political conditions that have made borders problematic in post-colonial South Asia and how these borders have become regions of extreme control or violence.
In recent years anthropology has rediscovered its interest in politics. Building on the findings of this research, this book, first published in 2007, analyses the relationship between culture and politics, with special attention to democracy, nationalism, the state and political violence. Beginning with scenes from an unruly early 1980s election campaign in Sri Lanka, it covers issues from rural policing in north India to slum housing in Delhi, presenting arguments about secularism and pluralism, and the ambiguous energies released by electoral democracy across the subcontinent. It ends by discussing feminist peace activists in Sri Lanka, struggling to sustain a window of shared humanity after two decades of war. Bringing together and linking the themes of democracy, identity and conflict, this important new study shows how anthropology can take a central role in understanding other people's politics, especially the issues that seem to have divided the world since 9/11.
This article explores the relationship between internal migration and economic growth and development in Asia, concentrating on four countries: China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Levels of internal migration in Asia are high and rising. Despite being negatively regarded by many policy makers, internal migration can contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction. For example, remittances sent home by internal migrants can reduce poverty at the household level, stimulate economic growth in both the receiving and sending areas and reduce social inequalities. Until now, the potential of internal migration has been severely limited by policies designed to discourage it. However, policy makers are now beginning to recognise the benefits. In order to maximise these benefits, the article argues, effective partnerships between governments, civil society, the private sector and donors will have to be formed. Better data on the various factors stimulating and affecting internal migration will also be needed.
By directing our gaze, we also avert our eyes. It is widely recognized—though the implications are rarely consistently analysed—that all perspectives are partial, and that therefore by seeing, describing and categorizing social reality, we also make people and processes invisible. This special edition discusses the many aspects of invisibility in refugee and forced migration studies: at the conceptual level, from the perspective of forced migrants, in relation to policy, and from the perspective of academic knowledge production.
A critical look at invisibility begs a series of questions. It asks not only who or what is invisible, but invisible to whom, in what ways, and why. The ‘who or what’ refers to various groups and processes that have long been part of the experience of displacement, but which were only ‘discovered’ by academics and policy makers as a new area of concern at a particular point in time. A well known example is the category of internally displaced persons, but there are many others. The question ‘invisible to whom’ reminds us of the range of actors in displacement situations, where a group, such as IDPs, may have been invisible to the United Nations and to ‘refugee studies’ academics, but very visible to the International Committee of the Red Cross, local governments and residents of the areas into which people were forced to move. Invisibility is therefore fundamentally relational; its impacts depend on the power relations and interests connecting those who see and those who are to be seen (or not). Invisible ‘in what way’ asks us to consider the categories we apply to people and situations and the functions those categories fulfil. What has been the impact of categorizing IDPs as displaced persons rather than citizens, thereby making the same individuals visible and actionable to different institutions, under different rules and with different outcomes?
This article explores why in India's Jharkhand, Mundas, often depicted as poor tribals, participate in elections to keep the state away, seeing it as foreign, dangerous, and juxtaposing its self-interested and divisive politics with a sacral polity, the parha. Munda disengagement with the state results from a complex combination of their contrasting the state with the sacral polity, historical experience of exploitation by state officers, and social relations with rural elites who, seeking to maintain dominance, reproduce Munda imaginings. The article thus draws attention to multiple co-existing notions of politics and the importance of a local political economy in the social production of cultural imaginings of the state.
People who seek refuge from conflict, but do not cross an internationally recognized border, have attracted increased attention from the international humanitarian community since the end of the Cold War. While refugees who flee the country may obtain a legal status and protection under the Refugee Convention, IDPs are still under the jurisdiction of their own state, and should in principle have the same rights as other citizens of the country. The article aims at analysing local consequences of people being designated as IDPs, exemplified by Sri Lanka's protracted crisis of internal displacement. Locally, 'internally displaced persons' becomes a social category and the meaning of the category is modified from the original definition made by the humanitarian regime. War and the forced and voluntary movement of people within Sri Lanka create unequal access to citizenship rights. The IDP status is often regarded as essential in order to secure special needs for assistance and protection. However, the article shows that the IDP status in Sri Lanka also separates IDPs from other citizens, and may restrict rather than secure rights.
Given that research into forced migration is looking at processes of enormous human suffering and often involves working with people who are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and physical harm, it seems difficult to justify if it has no relevance for policy. This article argues that the search for policy relevance has encouraged researchers to take the categories, concepts and priorities of policy makers and practitioners as their initial frame of reference for identifying their areas of study and formulating research questions. This privileges the worldview of the policy makers in constructing the research, constraining the questions asked, the objects of study and the methodologies and analysis adopted. In particular, it leaves large groups of forced migrants invisible in both research and policy. Drawing on a case study of self-settled refugees, the article explores how these limitations affect the research process, despite the efforts of the researcher to move beyond policy categories. In order to bring such 'invisible' forced migrants into view, the conclusion calls for more oblique approaches to research, which recognize the 'normality' within their situation rather than privileging their position as forced migrants as the primary explanatory factor. Such studies may help to bridge the gap between refugee studies and broader social scientific theories of social transformation and human mobility. By breaking away from policy relevance, it will be possible to challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions that underpins much practice and in due course bring much more significant changes to the lives of forced migrants. © The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Since the 1990s, the upsurge of multiple “sons-of-the-soil” conflicts all over the world has reopened academic debate about the rise of nativism, the role of ethnicity, and the alleged crisis of citizenship within the postcolonial state. Often the renewed claim for belonging versus exclusion under the vernacular of “autochthony” is seen as a reactionary attempt to counter the de-rooting of identity within the neoliberal globalizing context. This article makes the case that at the base of many homeland disputes lie too powerfully territorialized (ethnic) identities and the enduring but highly selective reaffirmation of such “natural” geo-cultural links —by both local political agents and state. In the Indian state of Assam, the struggle over indigenous homelands has not been a cry for closure within the engulfing globalizing world, but the result of sustained, yet ambivalent politics of identification, classification, and ethnographic mapping through which the colony and post-colony have sought to reshape the political landscape of India's Northeast. This selective but highly mobilizing politics of autochthony has not only extolled fierce struggle between “indigenous” and “fake autochthon” communities over the protection and demarcation of indigenous homeland, it has also engendered fierce conflict amongst autochthon groups about the degree of indigeneity required to claim a separate homeland of their own.
This study of two seemingly counter-intuitive phenomena - 'involuntary immobility' and 'socially fortuitous wartime migration - 'seeks to reveal important limitations in the theoretical framing of the interdisciplinary field of forced migration/refugee studies. In the Mozambican context, I demonstrate that the forms of disruption and disempowerment usually attributed to wartime movement were more often produced by involuntary immobility than by migration per seeven while wartime migration paradoxically resulted in forms of empowerment for at least some social actors. I argue that the implicit conflation of migration with displacement that currently serves as the definitional point of departure in forced migration/refugee studies, not only renders invisible an entire category of people who suffer a form of 'displacement in place' through involuntary immobilization, but also distorts our analysis of the experience of wartime migrants themselves. © The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
The recent wars in the DR Congo have led to a marked upsurge in both elite and popular discourse and violence around belonging and exclusion, expressed through the vernacular of “autochthony.” Dangerously flexible in its politics, nervous and paranoid in its language, unmoored from geographic or ethno-cultural specificity, borrowing energy both from present conflicts and deep-seated mythologies of the past, the idea of autochthony has permitted comparatively localized instances of violence in the DRC to inscribe themselves upward into regional, and even continental logics, with dangerous implications for the future. This article analyzes how the “local”/“stranger” duality of autochthony/allochthony expresses itself in the DRC through rumors, political tracts, and speeches and how it draws energy from imprecise overlaps with other powerful, preexisting identity polarities at particular scales of identity and difference: local, provincial, national, regional. Across each, autochthony operates as a loose qualifier, a binary operator: autochthony is adjectival, relational rather than absolute, policing a distinction between in and out, and yet not indicating, in itself, which in/ou t distinction is intended. Thus many speak of “Sons of the Soil,” but of which soil, precisely? The slipperiness between different scales of meaning permits the speaker to leave open multiple interpretations. This indefiniteness is a paradoxical source of the discourse's strength and weakness, suppleness and nervousness, its declarative mood and attendant paranoia.
This review offers a critical mappingo f the construction-in-progress of refugees and displacement as an anthropological domain of knowledge. It situates the emergence of “the refugee” and of “refugee studies” in two ways: first, historically, by looking at the management of displacement in Europe in the wake of World War II; and second, by tracing an array of different discursive and institutional domains within which “the refugee” and/or “being in exile” have been constituted. These domains include international law, international studies, documentary production by the United Nations and other international refugee agencies, development studies, and literary studies. The last part of the review briefly discusses recent work on displacement, diaspora, and deterritorialization in the context of studies of cultural identity, nationalism, transnational cultural forms—work that helps to conceptualize the anthropological study of displacement in new ways.
Since the 1990s, the upsurge of multiple “sons-of-the-soil” conflicts all over the world has reopened academic debate about the rise of nativism, the role of ethnicity, and the alleged crisis of citizenship within the postcolonial state. Often the renewed claim for belonging versus exclusion under the vernacular of “autochthony” is seen as a reactionary attempt to counter the de-rooting of identity within the neoliberal globalizing context. This article makes the case that at the base of many homeland disputes lie too powerfully territorialized (ethnic) identities and the enduring but highly selective reaffirmation of such “natural” geo-cultural links —by both local political agents and state. In the Indian state of Assam, the struggle over indigenous homelands has not been a cry for closure within the engulfing globalizing world, but the result of sustained, yet ambivalent politics of identification, classification, and ethnographic mapping through which the colony and post-colony have sought to reshape the political landscape of India's Northeast. This selective but highly mobilizing politics of autochthony has not only extolled fierce struggle between “indigenous” and “fake autochthon” communities over the protection and demarcation of indigenous homeland, it has also engendered fierce conflict amongst autochthon groups about the degree of indigeneity required to claim a separate homeland of their own.
It is not always remembered that under British rule some 150,000 Punjabis were notified under the Criminal Tribes Act as belonging to tribes and castes whose hereditary occupation was deemed to be crime. More than any other class these criminal tribes felt the harsh impact of the colonial state, which sought to control, punish and reform them. This paper traces the evolution of a Punjab criminal tribes policy and argues that the British—assisted by the indigenous elite—achieved only partial success in assimilating these people into the wider community by 1947.
In the last two decades transnational concerns over indigenous people, indigenous rights and indigenous development has reignited a history of heated debate shrouding indigeneity. This article analyses these debates in the context of the anthropology and historiography of indigeneity in India. From the production of ‘tribes of mind’ to the policies that have encouraged people to identify themselves as ‘Scheduled Tribes’, or ‘adivasis’, the article reviews the context that gave rise to the tensions between claims for protection and assimilation of India's indigenous peoples. Today these debates are shown to persist through the arguments of those that seek to build a support base from an adivasi constituency and are most acute with on the one hand, the work of the Marxists and indigenous activists, and on the other hand, the Hindu right-wing. Inviting serious scholarly examination of the unintended effects of well meaning indigenous protection and development measures, the article seeks to move the debate beyond both the arguments that consider the concept of indigenous people anthropologically and historically problematic and those that consider indigeneity a useful political tool. In so doing, the article warns against a ‘dark side of indigeneity’ which might reveal how local appropriation and experiences of global discourses can maintain a class system that further marginalises the poorest.
This article explores the relationship between internal migration and economic growth and development in Asia, concentrating on four countries: China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Levels of internal migration in Asia are high and rising. Despite being negatively regarded by many policy makers, internal migration can contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction. For example, remittances sent home by internal migrants can reduce poverty at the household level, stimulate economic growth in both the receiving and sending areas and reduce social inequalities. Until now, the potential of internal migration has been severely limited by policies designed to discourage it. However, policy makers are now beginning to recognise the benefits. In order to maximise these benefits, the article argues, effective partnerships between governments, civil society, the private sector and donors will have to be formed. Better data on the various factors stimulating and affecting internal migration will also be needed.
This path-breaking work on the social and economic history of colonial India traces the evolution of north Indian towns and merchant communities from the decline of Mughal dominion to the consolidation of British empire following the 1857 'mutiny'. C.A. Bayly analyses the response of the inhabitants of the Ganges Valley to the upheavals in the eighteenth century that paved the way for the incoming British. He shows how the colonial enterprise was built on an existing resilient network of towns, rural bazaars, and merchant communities; and how in turn, colonial trade and administration were moulded by indigenous forms of commerce and politics. This edition comes with a new introduction. This book is an important reading for students, scholars, and teachers of modern Indian history, economic history, and sociology.
The Everyday State and Society in Modern India focuses on how the large, amorphous and impersonal Indian state affects the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. All the eight essays in this book are original contributions and are based on empirical research. They dwell on a variety of issues, such as riot control, the Emergency, corruption, irrigation, rural activism and education and cut across academic disciplines.
In this study of Hutu refugees from Burundi, driven into exile in Tanzania after their 1972 insurrection against the dominant Tutsi was brutally quashed, Liisa Malkki shows how experiences of dispossession and violence are remembered and turned into narratives, and how this process helps to construct identities such as "Hutu" and "Tutsi." Through extensive fieldwork in two refugee communities, Malkki finds that the refugees' current circumstances significantly influence these constructions. Those living in organized camps created an elaborate "mythico-history" of the Hutu people, which gave significance to exile, and envisioned a collective return to the homeland of Burundi. Other refugees, who had assimilated in a more urban setting, crafted identities in response to the practical circumstances of their day to day lives. Malkki reveals how such things as national identity, historical consciousness, and the social imagination of "enemies" get constructed in the process of everyday life. The book closes with an epilogue looking at the recent violence between Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi, and showing how the movement of large refugee populations across national borders has shaped patterns of violence in the region.
In the literature there is a wide gulf between refugee studies and migration studies which can give rise to very different understandings of the needs and interests of the people who are moving. A case study of Angolans in Zambia examines how the movement of rural people across the border into Angola is perceived by villagers and the government and international community. It finds that most of those perceived as repatriating refugees by the government and UN bodies actually see themselves as villagers moving in search of better livelihoods in resource rich Angola. The wide gap in understanding is a reflection of very different interests in the processes of integrating newcomers and controlling nationality and refugees. It results in interventions which are inappropriate as they aim to solve refugee problems seen by outsiders rather than responding to the priorities of local people.
In 2001, there were estimated to be two million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. In the past six years, however, over 3.5 million refugees have returned, and recent census data show that nearly 2.5 million still remain in Pakistan. Three straightforward explanations for this monumental discrepancy have been posited: Afghans’ high birthrates, their history of cross-border migration, and increasing levels of urbanization in Pakistan. Yet the fact that none of these processes comes as a surprise to researchers familiar with the history of Afghan refugees begs a still deeper question: how and why were these processes so utterly overlooked in 2001? The answer, it is argued, is a fundamental confusion not only in how we count refugees but in how we conceptualize them. The dichotomous distinction between refugees and non-refugees, while possessing a certain legal clarity, does a poor job of describing the reality of individuals whose movements are influenced by numerous social, political, and economic factors.
Categories currently used to describe displaced people, such as internally displaced person, refugee and development-induced displaced person, are increasingly recognized as problematic; more in-depth research is needed on the complexity of displacement experiences and responses. This paper, arising out of an anthropological study of internally displaced Zimbabwean farm workers, seeks to provide more empirical data on the everyday lives of internally displaced people. Displaced Zimbabwean farm workers offer a complex insight into the different kinds of representations that have been applied to them both before and after displacement and the ways in which they have managed these representations. The often simplistic representations of farm workers have been a significant causal factor in their displacement since February 2000. Farm workers are still viewed, especially in nationalistic discourses, as foreigners who do not deserve the same rights and entitlements as other citizens of Zimbabwe. They have also been portrayed as supporting the interests of their white bosses and the opposition party in opposing the land invasions, have thus often been the main targets of violence and have largely been ignored as recipients of land. This paper shows how, through local responses to displacement, displaced workers are able to counter the discourses of the powerful by subverting global, national and local representations, using local agency to create their own practical discourse of displacement. It also shows the importance of anthropology in highlighting an alternative and locally grounded discourse, arising out of the interplay of agency and dependency on the part of the actors involved.
STUART CORBRIDGE continues the focus on ethnic politics and the changing political scene in India by looking at Scheduled Tribes who are concentrated in the southern part of the North Indian state of Bihar. Based on fieldwork and statistical data, the author finds that the Scheduled Tribes have considerably improved their economic and political standing by reaping the benefits of affirmative action and democratic politics. In fact, growing political awareness among tribal communities has led to the establishment of a tribal-based political party whose objective is to establish a new Indian state of Jharkand where the tribal population would comprise a majority.
Seasonal casual labour migration in India has conventionally been understood as the result of extreme poverty whereby villagers are forced to become migrants for the dry six months to subsist or merely survive. This article draws on fieldwork in a village in Jharkhand and a brick kiln in West Bengal to argue that migrants do not understand their movement in economic terms alone. Many see the brick kilns as a temporary space of freedom to escape problems back home, explore a new country, gain independence from parents or live out prohibited amorous relationships. It is suggested that Jharkhandi activists and policy-makers’ construction of such migration as a ‘problem’ is as much about their vision of how the new tribal state ought to be as about exploitation. Migration to the kilns is seen by them as a threat to the purity and regulation of the social and sexual tribal citizen. This moralising perspective creates a climate that paradoxically encourages many young people to flee to the brick kilns where they can live ‘freely’. In this way, the new puritanism at home helps to reproduce the conditions for capitalist exploitation and the extraction of surplus value.
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