Identity, Gender, and Poverty

Identity, Gender, and Poverty
Author: Maya Unnithan-Kumar
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1997
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781571819185

Most studies of the so-called tribal communities in India stress their social, economic, and political differences from communities that are organized on the basis of caste. It was this apparent contrast between tribal and caste lifestyle and, moreover, the paucity of material on tribal groups, that motivated the author to undertake this study of a poor "tribal" community, the Girasia, in northwestern India. While carrying out her fieldwork, the author soon became aware that the traditional tribe-caste categories needed to be revised; in fact, she found them more often than not to be constructs by outsiders, mostly academic. Of greater importance for an understanding of the Girasia was the wider and more complex issue of self-perception and identification by others that must be seen in the context of their poverty as well as in the strategic and shifting use of kinship, gender and class relations in the region.

Beyond Caste

Beyond Caste
Author: Sumit Guha
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004254854

'Caste' is today almost universally perceived as an ancient and unchanging Hindu institution preserved solely by a deep-seated religious ideology. Yet the word itself is an importation from sixteenth-century Europe. This book tracks the long history of the practices amalgamated under this label and shows their connection to changing patterns of social and political power down to the present. It frames caste as an involuted and complex form of ethnicity and explains why it persisted under non-Hindu rulers and in non-Hindu communities across South Asia.

Communities in Action

Communities in Action
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2017-04-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309452961

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Indigenous Peoples, Poverty, and Development

Indigenous Peoples, Poverty, and Development
Author: Gillette H. Hall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2012-04-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107020573

This is the first book that documents poverty systematically for the world's indigenous peoples in developing regions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The volume compiles results for roughly 85 percent of the world's indigenous peoples. It draws on nationally representative data to compare trends in countries' poverty rates and other social indicators with those for indigenous sub-populations and provides comparable data for a wide range of countries all over the world. It estimates global poverty numbers and analyzes other important development indicators, such as schooling, health, and social protection. Provocatively, the results show a marked difference in results across regions, with rapid poverty reduction among indigenous (and non-indigenous) populations in Asia contrasting with relative stagnation - and in some cases falling back - in Latin America and Africa. Two main factors motivate the book. First, there is a growing concern among poverty analysts worldwide that countries with significant vulnerable populations - such as indigenous peoples - may not meet the Millennium Development Goals, and thus there exists a consequent need for better data tracking conditions among these groups. Second, there is a growing call by indigenous organizations, including the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, for solid, disaggregated data analyzing the size and causes of the "development gap."