by 75.33.15.116 on 11/01/09. For personal use only. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2009.38:99-114. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2009. 38:99-114 First published online as a Review in Advance on June 23, 2009 The Annual Review of Anthropology is online at anthro.annualreviews.org This article's doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-091908-164345 Copyright C 2009 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved 0084-6570/09/1021-0099$20.00 The Ethnography of South Asian Foragers Jana Fortier Department of Anthropology #0532, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0532; email: jfortier@ucsd.edu Key Words contemporary hunter-gatherers, egalitarian societies, subsistence foraging, human ecology, cultural resilience, indigenous peoples Abstract Forty contemporary South Asian societies continue to carry out hunt- ing and gathering as their primary subsistence strategy, but who are these societies? In which ways are they similar or dissimilar? Are they like contemporary foragers in other world areas? This article reviews ethnographic research concerning contemporary South Asian foragers with a focus on subsistence, cosmologies, and social organization. Major conclusions are that evolutionary/devolutionary theories about foragers during the documented ethnographic period lack reliable data and that theories of trade between farmers and foragers ignore the paramount importance of subsistence foraging practices. Currently, theories based on interpretations of foragers' own cultural categories and standpoints constitute the most reliable ethnographic studies, and notable contri- butions are highlighted. Contemporary foragers themselves advocate that their best chances for cultural survival depend on state govern- ments that maintain environmentally diverse, healthy forests, provide contemporary foraging communities access to their traditional natural resources, and implement projects that foster cultural survival rather than assimilation. 99
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2009.38:99-114. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by 75.33.15.116 on 11/01/09. For personal use only. SA: South Asian Forager: Used interchangeably with "hunter-gatherer" in this essay, one who carries out food collecting; one who hunts, gathers, and fishes for resources South Asian geographic region: A geographical area bounded by the Indus River watershed; Brahmaputra River watershed; Andaman Sea; Sri Lanka; and Maldivian Islands Contemporary foragers: People who carry out food collection activities presently or within the last generation INTRODUCTION The ethnography of South Asian (SA) foragers has played an important part in the theory and historical imagination of contemporary anthro- pology, although specific contributions have not always been apparent. Who exactly consti- tutes a forager in the South Asian geographic re- gion remains a product of particular intellectual histories and colonial projects shaping cultural identity. Foraging societies historically have been defined by subsistence practices, in the manner of Sandhwar (1978, p. 157), who dis- tinguished foraging Korwas, whose "economy depends on food collection," from agricultural Korwas, whose "economy depends on food pro- duction." The distinction between contempo- rary foragers and agriculturalists nevertheless involves more than the exploitation of wild ver- sus domesticated resources. For this review, the foraging lifestyle is modeled as a particular set of economic and social structures, which are but- tressed by a variable yet characteristic cosmo- logical worldview (Ingold 1999; Lee 1999, p. 4). It is the trio of work, sociality, and cosmology that forms the fundamental criteria distinguish- ing foraging from other forms