The tribesfolk in the State numbering more than three lakh is distributed mostly in four districts: Wayanad, Idukki, Palakkad, and Kasargod. Kasargod has about 29,000 tribesfolk, about 25,000 Naiks, and about 1400 Koragas. The study by A. Ashokan under the title Socio-economic characteristics of Scheduled Tribes: a case study of the Koragas and Naiks of Kasargod will examine the socio-economic conditions of these two tribal groups in terms of income, activity patterns, land holding, literacy rate, housing conditions, indebtedness, and expenditure patterns. The researcher will probe into the social, cultural, and historical reasons for their present condition and attempt to understand the structure of the tribal economy in the region. Two more issues that he will deal with in the context of the tribal economy are health care practices and indigenous medicines. The study will adopt a two-stage sampling frame, with the village or the tribal hamlet as the first stage of inquiry and the household as the second. Cluster sampling will be used in the first stage to select clusters and in the second stage, 200 households (120 Naik and 80 Koraga) will be selected randomly.
Wayanad district accounts for more than one-third of the tribal population of the State. There are a number of development programmes that address specifically the tribal communities; yet these groups have not been able to break out of the vicious circle of poverty. The study by S. Sasikumar entitled Development in socio-cultural contexts: an evaluative study of the tribal development programmes in Wayanad district, Kerala constitutes an effort to find out in the micro context of the tribal areas of Wayanad, what development has meant for the tribesfolk apart from a growing sense of dependency. Why are these groups still in the grip of malnutrition, disease, illiteracy, and debt? The researcher posits that it is lack of understanding of the specific local cultural context of the tribesfolk that has led to development failures, an important determinant of success being the acceptability of such programmes to the tribal groups. In order to establish this, he will make an evaluation of the development and welfare programmes. Findings from such an evaluation, it is hoped, will help assess the potential of decentralised planning in developing appropriate strategies. Information is being collected by participant and non-participant observation, case studies, interviews, and survey.
The 'crisis of development' is perhaps most acutely evident in the context of tribal society. This comprehensive failure, viewed against the special mandate of the state for tribal development, is also an indication of a total misconception by the state of the 'problem' of the tribal groups. The study on Culture, performance, and development: a study of the Kurumba tribe of Attappady by Ramachandran Mokeri is located at the heart of this crisis and seeks to examine the process of alienation of Kurumba society in Attappady, in relation to their culture, performance, and development. The researcher also attempts to provide an alternative action-oriented model of sustainable local-level initiative to work towards Kurumba renaissance. All the 15 Kurumba hamlets in Attappady were brought under the ambit of this study, though four hamlets were selected for more detailed study, on the basis of the greater degree of manifestation of economic and political alienation among the Kurumba people. Two of these hamlets were chosen as they were far removed from the mainstream economic and cultural centre controlled and manipulated by non-adivasis. The third could be reached by road only during the summer months and were under the direct influence of abkari and narcotic traders who employed Kurumbas for clandestine cultivation of narcotic plants and for brewing illicit liquor. The fourth hamlet is a 'model' of extreme deprivation. Far removed from other Kurumba settlements and on the brink of collapse, the people here retained a collective memory of an adivasi past; of fantasies, dreams, and fragmented cultural expression.
The researcher collected information using what he terms the 'performative methodology', where the researcher-performer in association with a performance group inter-subjectively generated empirically real and unreal ideograms. The process of performative interaction helped generate insights into the latent development urges of the community in a language of aesthetic violence. The ethnological performance ideograms were also video-documented. Traditional potters are among the most backward artisanal communities in Kerala. Though they live in colonies they are scattered all over the State and remain unorganised. Their technology is still tradition-bound, their raw materials highly variable in quality, and their products fast becoming obsolescent. The traditional artisans have hardly benefited though there are advances in ceramics and studio pottery.
The study A techno-economic study on living and working conditions of traditional pottery communities in Kerala by Lalithambika is an attempt to suggest remedial interventions, which can be taken up by local self-government bodies as part of their development plans. It is planned to be conducted in three phases, where during Phase I, a techno-socio-economic survey of the traditional potter communities will be held. In the second phase, suitable training modules will be formulated to address the problems of traditional potters. The modules contain programmes that focus on enhancement of the value addition to their finished products. Once the modules are formulated, training programmes will be organised through the local self-government bodies. In the third phase, a few working groups will be supported in organising themselves into co-operative units. These units will receive constant technical support and follow-up from the involved institutions to ensure sustainability of the skills developed and their proper utility. Technical support will also be ensured to produce special items such as figurines and artefacts.
Conservation and consumption: a study on the crude drug trade in rare endemic, endangered, and threatened plants in Thiruvananthapuram district is the project undertaken by Parvathy Menon. The recent past has witnessed the emergence of a new popularity and visibility for local health traditions, most prominently Ayurveda. However, this growing interest has had some negative implications. It has led to greater demand for the plants and herbs that form the basis of medicines in this system. Many of the plants that are the source of crude drugs used in medicines are of rare, endemic, endangered, and threatened status. Enmeshed with other factors, increasing demand has been associated with (i) the erosion of the natural resource base of medicinal plants; (ii) widespread adulteration of drugs owing to scarcity of the required plant; (iii) inequitable sharing of income among the different rungs of persons involved in the drug trade, including exploitation of people at the base level.
This study has been taken up in the context of an emerging crisis in the availability of crude drugs. The researcher will investigate the channels of the crude drug trade i.e., from the retailer through suppliers to the collectors and to the sources of extraction of these plants. Through this process, she hopes to chart out the REET plants that are collected, the extent and kind of drug adulteration taking place and the relations of trade involved. Initial information will come from a market survey in seven centres of Thiruvananthapuram district. At the next stage, she will identify five major traders including drug manufacturers in plant-based crude drugs for closer study. E. Unnikrishnan is interested in preparing a Materia Medica for Payyanur through a survey of herbal and non-herbal materials collected for local raw drug markets and pharmaceutical industries from non-forest lands. Kerala has a rich tradition of indigenous medicine and health care practices. This tradition made use of many medicinal plants, which are endemic to the region. However, this stream of health care is on the verge of a major breakdown.
The root of the crisis is the loss of knowledge base related to raw drugs. In this background, the present study attempts to prepare a materia medica of traditional health care sector in the Payyannur region of Kerala.
The materia medica is a compendium of information on the herbal and non-herbal drugs, their collection, procurement, processing, and administering in traditional system of health care. A checklist of traditionally used medicinal plants, drugs of animal origin, and minerals used in drugs will be prepared. Apart from researching ayurvedic texts, ayurvedic practitioners and the people of the area will be contacted for information on medicinal properties of plants. An open-ended questionnaire is being used for interviews during field trips. The local drug market is another source of information being tapped. Traditional forms of theatre in Kerala are at a critical juncture today. Developed and patronised under a feudal system, they represent a complex of social, ritualistic, and aesthetic aspects. Their conventional mode has been affected by several factors including the growth and popularity of modern theatre, cinema, and television with acute livelihood implications for traditional theatre artists and other functionaries. The study by Jose George on Promotion of traditional theatre arts: problems and possibilities seeks to understand the conventional function of traditional forms of theatre, the reasons for The researcher will also assess the promotional measures taken by different agencies, including the government, to sustain these forms of art. He will focus on Kathakali and Krishnattam and collect information from personal observation, interviews with artists and related persons and from media reports and reviews, besides developing and canvassing a questionnaire among people involved with these art forms in different capacities. The study will include examination of the text, texture, and performance of this traditional theatre.
The project by Sasidharan titled Welfare in Kalarividya - a search for contemporary adaptations, is aimed at identifying the latent potentialities of Kalarividya as a welfare agent. Kalarividya is essentially a martial art, which is also a system of body-oriented knowledge and cultural practices. The investigator proposes to examine the fundamental principles of Kalarividya and find its place in contemporary society and more importantly its alternative perspectives. The aspects that were explored in the first phase through semi-structured interviews are: (i) nature of Kalari as an institution; (ii) reasons for promotion of Kalari; and (iii) the socio-political and ideological factors in the contribution of different traditions of Kalarividya. Mapping of the theme is currently undertaken through extensive field investigations at the regional level artists.
Villages in India have been undergoing slow but continuous and visible socio-economic changes in response to inter-play among a number of internal and external factors. The main contours of this socio-economic dynamics in progress may be broadly summarised as follows: (i) Life and activities in rural areas have been undergoing large-scale changes leading to the broadening of horizons of perception of their inhabitants.
Though land-based activities continue to be an important source of livelihood for the rural people, their importance has declined over the time. The expansion of the other, non-land-based sectors of the economy has resulted in the absorption by them of increasing numbers and proportions of the labour force. (ii) The degree of interaction of villagers with the outside world has been continuously on the rise due to expansion of transport and communications and the growth of the print and audio-visual media.
Their lifestyles have by now moved rapidly towards the urban and global patterns. (iii) Development policies and programmes over the past few decades have made decisive and significant impact on the course of socio-economic changes in villages. However, the distribution of gains from development has been uneven across different segments of the society. Those who are in command of productive resources have succeeded in making maximum use of the opportunities available in the public and private domains. (iv) Because of the tardy trickling-down effect of the growth process, the state has had to intervene directly by designing and implementing special policies and programmes for helping the poor. (v) The frequently aired impression that changes within the village domain are due to interventions of institutions and agencies belonging to the macro and the micro levels ignore the fact that such dynamics also act in the reverse direction. (vi) The village provides the natural setting for study of discrepancies between promises and practices of micro level policies. It is also possible that changes have been of different magnitudes in different areas. In the context of the recent emphasis on decentralisation of planning and development at the local level, an understanding of the dynamics of change at the local level has become essential. Studies on villages have thus acquired special significance.
It is against this background that the Programme has decided to initiate a series of studies to document and analyse socio-economic changes at the village level. An agenda-setting workshop held at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), Chennai suggested that the geographical coverage of the study may be broadened to include all the four south Indian States (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh) and that the study may be done in four parts: (i) analysis of village data from the censuses of 1971, 1981, and 1991; (ii) preparation of status reports on village studies; (iii) restudy of selected villages to understand long-term socio-economic changes; and (iv) thematic village studies.