Globalization and Indigenous Peoples in Asia

'[This book offers] interesting empirical data to support or question a number of gender and women-related assumptions...This book will provide evidence, if need be, to those protagonists of a "natural" determination of gender roles' - Development and Change Globalization has profoundly affected both the ways of life and the livelihoods of indigenous peoples worldwide. The 12 original essays in this book are based on fieldwork conducted in India, China, Nepal and parts of the Himalaya-Hindukush region. In the first section the contributors explore the possibility of devising a more democratic and equitable alternative for indigenous peoples within the process of globalization. The essays in the second section discuss the changes in the social and economic systems of the indigenous peoples that have resulted from the transition to a market economy. The contributors to this volume demonstrate how new forms of community and continued non-market access to critical productive resources--for example, land and forests--would allow for a greater and more equitable spread of the benefits of globalization and simultaneously address some of its negative features including increased male domination.