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The authors have been working among two Tamang populations for the previous ten years and they have been engaged in research in a single Tamang community for over 15 years
. As anthropologists, they have worked in many areas, including behaviours surrounding childbirth. Their orientation is toward community based research in which the principal investigators are in close contact with the people they study.
Their data is largely from two widely separated Tamang communities, one in the northernmost Village Development Committee (VDC) of Dhading Districtand the other just up the road from Kathmandu in the area surrounding Budanilakantha
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To any long term resident of the country, the fact of striking social change, both planned and unplanned, in Nepal is as obvious as a drive through the Kathmandu Valley or a walk through nearly any village
. New roads, the extension of electric power, the building of factories and schools are the concrete manifestations of the Nepali government's development efforts since the end of the Rana era. Striking as these changes are, equally pervasive transformations have come to characterise the lives of Nepali people and these too, are easy to discover with a minimum of questioning. One finds increasing participation in wage labour work and in the mobility of village residents as they take advantage of new opportunities in the labour market for example. All of these trends have been widely documented for Nepal at both community and national levels.
Less evident are the implications of these kinds of change for the relations between people and the social networks by which Nepalis have historically organised their lives. Increased schooling, certain forms of wage labour participation, and physical mobility are sometimes uncritically taken to be universal social goods. Yet these new activities are likely to have profound impacts on the historical practices which have proved adaptive for Nepali communities located in some of the world's toughest environments. Identifying and understanding these impacts are an essential element of sound development planning.
In this paper, the authors try to analyse change in family-organised cooperative behaviours among the Tamang of a single Nepali village. They focus on the practice of husbands providing labour services to their wives' families after marriage. Such services have historically characterised a wide range of distinct ethnic groups in the Himalaya, notably but not solely those classified as Tibeto-Burman. As important components of social support networks, their transformation in response to the social changes mentioned above is an element of the future well-being of Nepal's people. The authors' analysis begins with the social theory that draws attention to these processes and relationships, but quickly moves into the empirical case of Timling in the upper Ankhu Khola. They discuss some of the implications of this analysis in their concluding remarks
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Classless societies have a special place in the anthropological imagination
. Whether the result of inherent sympathy for tribal societies falling victim to colonial expansion or an attempt to grapple with the effects of empire back home, anthropological writing has been concerned with the nature of egalitarian social formations. The issue is not momentary existence of hierarchies or differentials in wealth and power during the given year of fieldwork. Rather it has to do with the maintenance and reproduction of an egalitarian ethic in populations where sex, age, household wealth, and a number of other characteristics can create differentials in power and status. How is it that some differences remain temporary? What processes sweep aside potential status markers and prevent "the hardening of firm and enduring social strata"? What timescale and which cycles must we isolate to examine these issues?
This paper examines the maintenance of equality among an agro-pastoral people of north central Nepal. It does so by first showing how the household processes are a function of demographic processes and culturally structured behaviours. The possibilities for ramifying differentials across generations are then examined, by showing how marriage timing is itself a strategic decision with consequences for women's fertility and their household developmental cycles. Finally the larger context of these decisions is looked at through some patriline histories and the pattern of marriages and household development these engendered
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Analysis of fertility is critical to any discussion on a community's environmental adaptation
. Fertility and mortality schedules together determine the major characteristics of a population closed to migration - such as age distribution and growth rate - that have a direct bearing on household economy and the balance between community size and available resources. In addition, community level fertility data is lacking in Nepal and, although the situation is improving, it is still necessary to accumulate studies from a range of districts.
The article discusses fertility and its determinants within a single village population in Nepal. The author takes a formal demographic look at data from a Tamang village in northern Dhading District. The application of the models indicates that procedures developed for larger population aggregates can be used at the community level, while important suggestions for future research arise from the discussion. The author's procedure is to establish the lack of trends in fertility within this population by examining the fertility of women over the age of 45. This is followed by an analysis of fertility information from all women and an examination of the proximate determinants
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