Ensuring sustainable livelihoods, equity and well-being – Forest Peoples Programme

Around 300 million people, made up of local communities and indigenous peoples, traditionally live in forests and primarily depend on them for their livelihoods Customary lands of indigenous peoples and local communities encompass 65% of the world’s land area, and 80% of the global biodiversity Protecting forests is often a deadly risk for indigenous peoples … Read more

“I feel that you are a part of me and I will never forget you”: Tribal elder in a travel account by historian Runoko Rashidi – Looking at India through African Eyes

As I am now in the process of completing the finishing touches on a French language collection of my essays on the African presence in Asia I find myself reviewing and evaluating the body of work that I have been compiling on the subject over the past quarter century. During this process I realize that … Read more

Video | Ekalavya discussed in an interview with noted Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Writers Talk Politics | Ngugi wa Thiong’o in conversation with Sudhanva Deshpande Commenting on Ekalavya “who ends up being disabled despite that Dhrona never really taught him – he taught himself – but even with that he is disabled so he cannot compete with the sons and daughters of the powerful. So that theme of … Read more

Adivasi art “A Disappearing World” – Gandhi Foundation (London)

The exhibition, “A Disappearing World: Ancient Traditions Under Threat in Tribal India” [held at the Brunei Gallery at SOAS from April 13 to June 25, 2011]. Seminars are also being held to discuss the suffering of the tribals. The photographs have been taken by an American, Robert Wallis, who said: “The adivasi artists are using … Read more

Use of the body to communicate, sing and tell stories: Challenges to the imposition of an allegedly modern culture on formerly or currently colonised regions

In many formerly or currently colonised regions like South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the American South and Native America, there has always existed a rich, vibrant tradition of oral storytelling, one that was marginalised, often violently, through an imposition of an allegedly modern, white Western language and culture. […] Having grown up within the largely … Read more