Gendered livelihoods and social change in post-apartheid South Africa

This article employs gendered livelihoods analysis and participatory methods to examine the politics of development among small-scale rooibos tea farmers in a rural coloured area of southwestern South Africa. Differentiating between sources of conflict and cohesion, I discuss how communities navigated resource scarcity, unstable markets, and shifting relations. While patriarchal dynamics informed livelihoods, with males and elders enjoying greater access than females and young adults, women took advantage of relatively fluid female roles to enter into agriculture and commerce. In contrast, rigid male roles and unattainable expectations of manhood isolated men, engendering destructive behaviors among young men in particular. Communities maintained social cohesion through democratic arrangements, and a politics of identification enabled research participants to relate to differential interests. In addition to providing situated and relational insight into the identitarian aspects of rural development, participatory gendered livelihoods analysis offers a critical means for deconstructing power and decolonizing knowledge.     

Religion,Modernity, and the State in South and Southeast Asia

Given current global concerns over religion and violence, the anthropology of religion will continue to benefit from discussions of power in colonial and post-colonial states in addition to its discourse on religions as systems of beliefs and practices. This article demonstrates the continuing relevance of religion and religious institutions in the modern world through an examination of religion and power in both local and global contexts. Specifically, I focus on the complex relationships of Hinduism and Buddhism with power through discussions of colonialism, governmentality, modernity, globalization, and cultural representations in Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.     

Sustaining the Forests: The Community-based Approach in South and South-East Asia

The concept of sustainability emphasizes four basic principles when applied to rural communities: that basic needs must be met; that resources should be subject to local control; that local communities must have a decisive voice in planning; and that they should represent themselves through their own institutions. These principles have been notionally accepted by development planners and conservationists at all levels. Yet, throughout the tropical forest belt, they are being systematically overridden by international and national policies and development programmes, leading to increasing poverty, social conflict and rapid deforestation. Traditional knowledge and systems of land use have proved far more environmentally appropriate, resilient and complex than initially supposed by outsiders. Forest peoples have successfully opposed many socially and environmentally destructive development schemes proposed for their lands. However, these societies are not resisting all change: population increase and the internal dynamic for development have also created social and environmental problems. A review of community-based initiatives in South and South-East Asia shows that in some countries, positive initiatives have been taken by local and national governments to promote a community-based approach. Notable successes have been achieved but many other initiatives have failed. The examples show that, besides the four principles noted above, environmentally successful management also depends on innovative political organization at the community level.     

Hard times for culture theory in South Asia

Khare, R. S. The Untouchable as Himself. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xv + 189 pp. including bibliography and index. $34.50 cloth.

Fox, Richard G. Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making. Berkeley: University of California Press, xv + 259 pp. including appendix, reference notes, and index. $29.95 cloth.

Barth, Fredrik and Miangul Jahanzeb. The Last Wali of Swat: an Autobiography as Told to Fredrik Barth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. 199 pp. including photographs, references and index. $30.00 cloth.

Moore, Erin. Conflict and Compromise: Justice in an Indian Village. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1985. xviii + 137 pp. including glossary, bibliography, and index. $23.25 cloth, $11.25 paper.     

Communal Discourses,Marriage, and the Politics of Gendered Social Boundaries among South Asian Immigrants in Tanzania

Focusing on communal discourses among South Asian groups in Tanzania, the author highlights the manner in which discourses around religion, caste and race shape gendered patterns of migration and marriage and the everyday politics of social boundaries in an immigrant community. The article demonstrates how discursive processes operating at the community level mediate between the household and the broader political economic processes. It also illustrates that although discourses, boundaries and social relations are easily modified in response to changing circumstances, new narratives and ideologies frequently emerge to ensure that the predominant balance of power in a community is not disturbed significantly.     

Factors affecting female age at marriage in South Asia

In contrast to East and South-east Asia, changes in marriage patterns have played a small role in reducing fertility in South Asia. While age at marriage for women has risen, it remains early, with the exception of Sri Lanka, and change has been slow. Except in Sri Lanka, the region has shown few signs that there will be a sizable population that will never marry. South Asia's marriage patterns reflect its cultural context and lesser socio-economic change but their precise effect is not simple or always predictable. The paper examines these issues in Bangladesh, where age at marriage is very early, and Sri Lanka, where it is much later. The study areas, Dhaka city and south-western Sri Lanka, are ones of great economic and social change. A particular examination is made of the way in which changes in the arrangement of marriage affect age at marriage.