Contested Belonging

"This study deals with the modern predicament of the Rabha 'or Kocha' people, their survival in the forest and their quest for identity. The Rabhas are one of India's indigenous or tribal people, traditionally practising shifting cultivation in the jungle tracts situated where the Himalayan mountains meet the plains of Bengal." "One of the central points of the book relates to the question of identity - the construction of identity as a form of resistance. Beppe Karlsson discusses the Rabha's ongoing conversion to Christianity and their ethnic mobilisation. The main theoretical issue of the book concerns the agency involved in the making of cultural or ethnic identities."--BOOK JACKET.