The specific themes covered in this volume are modernisation and the victimisation of the disadvantaged; nomadic pastoralism and tribal organisation as separate from the state; the rise of chiefships or states in regions where it was pastoralism rather than agriculture that produced wealth; artisanal mobility and the kinds of crafts produced by pastoralists; the desertions of agrarian settled regions in the past; the forms of incorporation of tribal society into feudal states; shifting cultivation and its relationships with peasantry and local markets; and the gradual changes effected in pastoral society in early Tamilakam. This volume is based on a symposium sponsored by the Social Science Centre, which is engaged in action-oriented participatory research on issues of current concern. Its publications include Tribal Education for Community Development (1989); and Tribal Identity and Minority Status: The Katkari Nomads in Transition (1994).