Advances in Historical Ecology
Advances in Historical Ecology

Author: William L. Balée

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2012-09-18

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 9780231533577

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Ecology is an attempt to understand the reciprocal relationship between living and nonliving elements of the earth. For years, however, the discipline either neglected the human element entirely or presumed its effect on natural ecosystems to be invariably negative. Among social scientists, notably in geography and anthropology, efforts to address this human-environment interaction have been criticized as deterministic and mechanistic. Bridging the divide between social and natural sciences, the contributors to this book use a more holistic perspective to explore the relationships between humans and their environment. Exploring short- and long-term local and global change, eighteen specialists in anthropology, geography, history, ethnobiology, and related disciplines present new perspectives on historical ecology. A broad theoretical background on the material factors central to the field is presented, such as anthropogenic fire, soils, and pathogens. A series of regional applications of this knowledge base investigates landscape transformations over time in South America, the Mississippi Delta, the Great Basin, Thailand, and India. The contributors focus on traditional societies where lands are most at risk from the incursions of complex, state-level societies. This book lays the groundwork for a more meaningful understanding of humankind's interaction with its biosphere. Scholars and environmental policymakers alike will appreciate this new critical vocabulary for grasping biocultural phenomena.

Dispossession without Development
Dispossession without Development

Author: Michael Levien

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-03-05

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0190859172

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Since the mid-2000s, India has been beset by widespread farmer protests against land dispossession. Dispossession Without Development demonstrates that beneath these conflicts lay a profound shift in regimes of dispossession. While the postcolonial Indian state dispossessed land mostly for public-sector industry and infrastructure, since the 1990s state governments have become land brokers for private real estate capital. Using the case of a village in Rajasthan that was dispossessed for a private Special Economic Zone, the book ethnographically illustrates the exclusionary trajectory of capitalism driving dispossession in contemporary India. Taking us into the lives of diverse villagers in "Rajpura," the book meticulously documents the destruction of agricultural livelihoods, the marginalization of rural labor, the spatial uneveness of infrastructure provision, and the dramatic consequences of real estate speculation for social inequality and village politics. Illuminating the structural underpinnings of land struggles in contemporary India, this book will resonate in any place where "land grabs" have fueled conflict in recent years.

In Famine Land
In Famine Land

Author: J. E. Scott

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-11-09

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9780260641779

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Excerpt from In Famine Land: Observations and Experiences in India, During the Great Drought of 1899-1900 It IS written, too, by one who has spent the most of his life in India, and who, in the late famine, took a humble part in trying to save life and relieve distress. Others did more, but none could have had a deeper appreciation of existing need nor a greater desire to relieve it. It is essential to a clear understanding of the calamity to know something of the history of famines in India, of the conditions under which they arise, of the causes which produce them, and of the efforts put forth by the government and by private benevolence to save and relieve the stricken people. Hence, these subjects have been included. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The New Enclosures: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals
The New Enclosures: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals

Author: Ben White

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 615

ISBN-13: 1317976843

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This collection explores the complex dynamics of corporate land deals from a broad agrarian political economy perspective, with a special focus on the implications for property and labour regimes, labour processes and structures of accumulation. This involves looking at ways in which existing patterns of rural social differentiation – in terms of class, gender, ethnicity and generation – are being shaped by changes in land use and property relations, as well as by the re-organization of production and exchange as rural communities and resources are incorporated into global commodity chains. It goes further than the descriptive ‘what’ and ‘who’ questions, in order to understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of these patterns. It is empirically solid and theoretically sophisticated, making it a robust and boundary-changing work. Contributors come from various scholarly disciplines. Covering nearly all regions of the world, the collection will be of interest to researchers from various disciplines, policymakers and activists. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Possibility of Politics in India
Possibility of Politics in India

Author: Akshat Jain

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-01-15

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1000902633

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This book is an attempt to find new ways of inter-disciplinary theorisation about this moment when both the unitary idea of the Indian nation and the bureaucratic dream of a centralised Indian state are falling apart. At this juncture, the Indian state has two choices. Either it can recognise the political nature of the struggles confronting it and radically re-imagine itself or it can wage a losing war against the democratic aspirations of people. It is essential that political movements in the subcontinent let go of their differences and organise together to agitate for modernisation. By bringing these disparate struggles together, this book explores the possibility of an alliance between them such that they are able to inform each other against a colonial state. Taken together, this book is thus an experiment in politics, rather than being about specific events. The chapters in this book were originally published in various Taylor & Francis journals.

Pastoralism in Expansion
Pastoralism in Expansion

Author: Purnendu S. Kavoori

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13:

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In This Well-Grounded Study Of Pastoral Shepherds, The Author Works To Dispel Some Of The Myths Surrounding Pastoralism. This Book Is Remarkable For Its Wealth Of Empirical Detail.