Understanding 20 Years of Change in West-Central Nepal: Continuity and Change in Lives and Ideas

World Development Vol. 30, No. 7, pp. 1255–1270, 2002 Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0305-750X/02/$ - see front matter

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Understanding 20 Years of Change in West-Central Nepal: Continuity and Change in Lives and Ideas PIERS BLAIKIE, JOHN CAMERON and DAVID SEDDON * University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Summary. — Research into the political economy of agrarian change was undertaken in 1974–75 in West-Central Nepal, as part of a wider study of the effects of road construction in the region. The field research centered on a comprehensive income and expenditure survey of 667 rural households. An explanatory framework was developed in which class analysis was combined with dependency theory. Few signs were found of a dynamic which might lead to capitalist development in the rural (or urban areas) of the region. In a book, Nepal in Crisis, based on this fieldwork, this analysis was generalized to Nepal as a whole. A re-survey of rural households in the same region in 1997–98 confirmed that, indeed, very little capitalist development had taken place, and that the disposition of rural households within the social classes and forms of production identified 20 years before had remained remarkably stable. The paper examines the significance of continuity and change both in theoretical approaches and in the dynamics of change affecting the lives of local people. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words — development theory, Marxism, agrarian change, peasants, Asia, Nepal

1. STUDYING THE FUTURE, RE-STUDYING THE PAST This paper is about the analysis of continuity and change in the rural economy and society of Western (formerly West Central) Nepal––a region of mountains, hills and plains (terai) with a current population of about four million–– based on two studies 20 years apart. The original study was completed in 1975 and the re-study in 1998. The authors of this paper were involved in both research projects. The original study was commissioned by the Economic and Social Committee for Overseas Research (ESCOR) of the UK Overseas Development Administration to assess the effects and possible future impact of motorable roads in the region (one of which had been financed by British development assistance). A wide variety of data collection techniques were employed, but the lynch-pin was a survey of 667 rural households. This was supported by a number of other substantial studies, both quantitative and qualitative, of particular issues such as commerce, migration, a traffic survey of motor vehicles and porters, livelihoods of caste-based artisans and porters, and village-level investi-

gations. The survey, however, provided a crucial body of data which served as the foundation for the analysis of the political economy of agrarian change in the region. The publications based on this research (Blaikie, Cameron, & Seddon, 1980, 2000, both re-published recently; Seddon, Blaikie, & Cameron, 1979, also recently republished) explicitly adopted a theoretical approach which combined a class analysis, founded on the identification of ‘‘forms’’ of production and exchange, with dependency theory. Generalizing from the analysis of the political economy of agrarian change in WestCentral Nepal, based on the household survey

* The

authors wish to thank the team of people from Actionaid Nepal and the Lutheran World Federation who collected much of the 1997–98 data, especially Navaraj Gyawali who led the team. The 1997–98 research was also facilitated by the Women’s Development Division of HMG Nepal, special thanks to Bishnu Puri for his leadership in this. Also we would like to thank the many Nepalese workers who worked with us in collecting the 1974–75 data. Dan Coppard provided excellent service in data processing and preparing the data for presentation. Final revision accepted: 6 February 2002.

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and other field studies, and drawing on additional secondary material, the most comprehensive of these publications, Nepal in Crisis, argued that the development of capitalism in Nepal was effectively precluded by Nepal’s specific relationship with India, its own class structures and the nature of the Nepalese state (reinforced by foreign aid). The essentially underdeveloped and unprogressive character of the political economy of Nepal was associated with the virtual absence of a national bourgeoisie capable of creating an agenda for change and development. The specific characteristics of underdevelopment in Nepal were: ––the developmental inadequacy of the Nepalese state, and its inability to transcend its feudal character mainly because of the absence of a national bourgeoisie, and the limitations of the technocratic reformist cadre in government; ––the compounding of the incapacity of the state by foreign aid, which encouraged incoherent, corrupt and authoritarian decisionmaking; ––the underdeveloping role of Indian capitalism (undermining and replacing local artisan production), and of its agents flooding the Nepalese market with Indian industrial commodities; ––the failure of the Nepalese ruling classes to invest in the manufacturing sector, partially due to the dominance of the landowning classes and partially due to the manipulation of trade and transit agreements by the Indian state; ––the absence of a capitalist dynamism in Nepalese agriculture and the absence of any decisive movement toward production for sale, investment in new inputs and the expansion of capitalist social relations of production; and, finally––in the context of a study focused initially on the effects of road construction; ––the failure of motorable road provision, as the major form of infrastructural development funded by external investment, to generate a significant or systematic response in terms of agricultural output or diversifcation, in a context where processes in the wider political economy were not conducive to a capitalist transformation of agriculture. The future was seen as one of slow but inexorable economic decline, increasing poverty and the systematic failure of policies that as-

sumed an inherent tendency toward capitalist development in Nepal. The introduction of roads, it was concluded, would not deliver the benefits of increased agricultural production, increased commercialization, and trade as forecast in the economic appraisal documents. The roads would have effects, but these would essentially serve to deepen dependency and underdevelopment rather than alleviate it. The methodology adopted for the rural household survey that informed much of Nepal in Crisis was heavily structuralist, deterministic, economistic and largely quantitative; this affected the wider analysis of agrarian change and of the political economy of Nepal. The research led to two other academic publications (see Blaikie et al., 1980, 2000 and Seddon, Blaikie, & Cameron, 1979, 2002) which examined The Struggle for Basic Needs and the lives of Peasants and Workers in Nepal respectively, but the role of human agency and ‘‘emic’’ interpretations of people’s own lives and futures were not given much epistemological space in the relatively better-known Nepal in Crisis. The second round of research was undertaken in 1997–98, funded again by ESCOR (now in DfID) with the purpose of understanding how livelihoods had changed in the intervening 20 years. Since this project was a restudy, the direction of attention was to the past, rather than the future. It focused on the construction of ‘‘livelihood trajectories’’ (or the course of individuals and households through time in terms of occupation, income, investment and consumption decisions and other key social and economic variables) and the implications for class composition and agrarian change. The re-study essentially employed a method of comparative statics (the comparison of two ‘‘still snapshots’’ of a sample of households as a starting point for imputing processes of aggregate social change) with the intervening period interpolated and dynamized by an overall theory of social change. The research funding for the re-study was less than a quarter of that of the 1974–75 study, therefore the sample for the household survey was smaller (155 instead of 667). It was complemented by village level studies that drew heavily upon PRA and RRA. These were carried out by staff seconded from ActionAid, Nepal, the Lutheran World Federation, and by the authors. These studies included timelines, wealth ranking, seasonal calendars, mobility maps as well as household and life histories. Once again, how-

CHANGE IN WEST-CENTRAL NEPAL

ever, these were secondary to the household survey. The re-study essentially compared the socioeconomic circumstances and class position of households in the two samples and the processes of earning a livelihood in which they were involved in 1974–75 and 1997–98. The changes over the 20 years or so for each individual and household were seen to come about partly through agency (voluntary but constrained choice) and contingency, but were also shaped by broader processes more usually understood through structural analysis. The structural analysis adopted in 1975 was, as has been said, a framework in which households were aggregated into social classes within three ‘‘forms of production’’ and the wider context or political economy was underdeveloped and dependent. The impact of this original conceptual framework on the re-study requires reflection. 2. RE-STUDIES AS PRISONERS OF PAST IDEAS While re-studies spanning a generation or more offer the important opportunity of insights into longer-term social change, they also present some formidable challenges. First, they tend to be imprisoned in the theories, epistemologies, methodologies and (particularly) data sets of the original study. If the re-study is freed from its intellectual and methodological genealogy, is it a re-study? Moreover 20 years later, there are new people and new landscapes (objects), as well as new theories and authors (subjects). Our sampling frame for the re-study (essentially re-survey) meant that some locations of the parent study had to be re-selected. Sometimes, in the terai particularly, the sample location of 20 years ago was unrecognizable in 1997––a new squatter settlement with a population six times the original hamlet which was sampled in 1975, or peri-urban development which had transformed a small village (with a weekly market and six tea stalls under three large banyan trees), into a town (with 60 shops and five banks). While locations can be replicated, however, the original sample of households cannot be simply re-selected if it is to ‘‘represent’’ the wider contemporary population. Although re-visits to original respondent households may be useful, they cannot form part of the re-study, unless

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strictly a ‘‘follow-up’’ or longitudinal study of that particular cohort, as those households would not receive the same probability of being sampled as the rest of the contemporary population. In a broader analysis of change, the household level survey legacy of the parent study can be little more than a map grid reference––a point for comparison. These methodological issues have been explored at more length in Bagchi et al. (1998) and are not explored further here. Suffice it to say that, while none of them place impassable barriers to quantitatively comparable re-studies, all of them imply constraints and compromises. Perhaps more significantly, the continued focus on the methodology of the re-survey ensures that other methodological (and substantive) issues, such as those associated with the collection of qualitative and even of subjective information at two different periods, become of secondary concern and fade into the background. More important still is the fact that the theoretical perspectives dominating the research agenda over the two decades between studies have also changed. Since 1975, there are new post-structuralist agendas in social science as a whole, and in development studies in particular, leading to an emphasis on agency rather than structure, complexity rather than simplicity, human poverty rather than material poverty, diverse and contested narratives, plurality, uncertainty and social constructivism rather than meta-narratives, ‘‘truth claims’’ and clearly determined explanations (Blaikie, 2000; Cooper & Packard, 1997; Corbridge, 1997). How can the ‘‘validity’’ of a broadly Marxist approach, drawing on the literature on modes of production and dependency theory that illuminated much of development studies at the time (e.g., Frank, 1968, 1969; Laclau, 1971; Palma, 1978; Taylor, 1979), as adopted in Nepal in Crisis (1980), be judged not only in retrospect (as in Booth, 1985; Kay, 1989; Seers, 1981) but after the collapse of state socialism and the subsequent ‘‘devaluation’’ of Marxism both as theory and practice––the passage of an era (as in Booth, 1994a,b; Corbridge, 1986, 1990; Harriss, 1994)? There are two main criteria––empirical and theoretical––but, as we shall see, their application is far from straightforward. Turning first to the empirical basis for judging the main claims made from the 1974–75 data and in our subsequent books based upon this work, mainly Nepal in Crisis (Blaikie, Cameron, & Seddon, 1980, 2001), one can ask

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whether these claims are borne out in reality today. We think it is worthwhile (though problematic) to test the main claims of our approach in this way. After all, one of the tests of a theory is the extent to which it predicts successfully. On this criterion, as we shall show below, the combination of meta-narrative (Marxism––modes of production and neoMarxism––dependency) and detailed empirical work appears to have produced a plausible understanding of the states of rural lives in the study area in 1974–75 and 1997–98. Empirical confirmation of the predictions does not of itself ‘‘prove’’ the implicit logic of the development meta-narrative. Let us take the case of the present incapacity of the Nepalese state. While there is clear evidence of increasing corruption, impotence and the failure of multiparty democracy to transform civil society today (as was identified and predicted in 1980), a contemporary analysis of the reasons why, may be rather different from that suggested in the original study. Nepal in Crisis maintained that it was largely linked to the lack of capitalist development, and of a national bourgeoisie in Nepal capable of ensuring a ‘‘developmentalist’’ government and state structure. It claimed that, had such a class existed, it would have insisted upon, and through political means ensured, an broadly efficient, tolerably noncorrupt bureaucracy, and would have successfully promoted the interests of independent Nepalese capital in the face of both Indian and international control––a claim with a strong ‘‘class and dependency’’ flavor. A counterexplanation of the contemporary condition of the Nepalese state could also be made. A glance at many of the north Indian states, for example, indicates little evidence of improved state efficiency and governance, even where the ascendancy of a capitalist class in both agriculture and manufacturing can be identified. Furthermore, it could be argued that the defining role of the state in economic and social development has been eroded over the past 20 years by globalizing forces, such as international trade agreements, international environmental treaties, the power of transnational companies, and an enforced global economic policy which reduces public expenditure on social programs and the public sector wage bill. None of these were incorporated, nor even foreseen, by an analytical framework developed in the mid-1970s. Another criterion by which a theoretical framework can be judged is the contemporary

appropriateness of the theory and method that originally informed the analysis. Since, as the post-structural turn in the social sciences reminds us (but Marxists will also appreciate), all theories are historically contingent––a view supported by variations in the discourse on development in Nepal itself (Cameron, 1995). From a contemporary viewpoint, both modes of production and dependency are now very much out of fashion for a variety of reasons. First, neo-Marxist theories, including dependency theory, failed to deliver either an adequate account of the different historical trajectories of ‘‘peripheral’’ Third World states or an effective guide to political practice, in the 1970s and 1980s, even in Latin America, where dependency theory ‘‘originated.’’ The original study in Nepal used a class analysis combined with dependency theory to understand the dynamics of Nepalese society. Caste, nationality, ethnicity and gender were given some attention (but not much) and the economic analysis of the social relations of production remained dominant. Local voices were not given much space to construct their own subjective (‘‘emic’’), realities. Some of the criticisms of Marxist and neoMarxist studies made some years later by Corbridge (1989, 1994) among others, could retrospectively be made of the 1975 study and of Nepal in Crisis (1980). Charges of overdetermination, economistic reductionism and a tendency to ‘‘read off’’ events from the ‘‘logic’’ of different modes of production can be reasonably made. In the household survey and our analysis of agrarian change, there is a strong sense of economic determinism (of underdevelopment), and our argument in this paper is that, while, the predictive qualities of the analysis performed well, it now looks less convincing as a basis for a comprehensive account and explanation of livelihood trajectories and social change. Even accepting many of the above criticisms, the authors believe that there is an enduring need to keep in touch with a purposive and radical agenda, which can analyze and explain the pervasive structural forces which generate exploitation, oppression and disenfranchisement, as well as demonstrate sensitivity to the diverse and subjective understandings of others. This statement may hide more than it reveals, but is very concerned to avoid the pitfalls of more extreme post-structural positions, which, it might be argued, include political vacuousness, a surrender of any universal values, and a

CHANGE IN WEST-CENTRAL NEPAL

refusal to admit any meaningful possibility of purposive, collective action. We are not claiming privileged epistemological status for class analysis and dependency as the basis for a universal development theory. We are, however, claiming that this theoretical approach has survived a test in the particular circumstances of the study area from 1974–75 to 1997–98. The limitations introduced by basing the re-study on the original study’s conceptual framework are not, the authors believe, sufficiently large as to invalidate comparison. It is on the basis of these reflections on ‘‘theory and change’’ that we offer the following empirical comparisons between the patterns of rural lives in the study area in 1974–75 and 1997–98. 3. FORMS OF PRODUCTION, RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION AND AGRARIAN CHANGE In Nepal in Crisis, the Nepalese agrarian economy is divided into three types of production system, or ‘‘forms of production.’’ These forms of production are (a) peasant or domestic; (b) ‘‘semi-feudal’’ (with landlords

1259

and their tied work force); and (c) capitalist (including not only employers but also wage laborers). These are presented in tabular form in Table 1 (from Blaikie et al., 1980, p. 230). The total sample population of households was initially classified according to four key socioeconomic characteristics: ––social relations of production; ––relations to the market; ––use of surpluses; ––receipts of non-agricultural income. Households were allocated to a ‘‘form of production’’ on the basis of these characteristics. All households were then distributed across these ‘‘forms of production,’’ using quantitative cut-off points which provided unambiguous quantitative criteria for the qualitative classification. These were as follows: ––A distinction was made between ‘‘laboring’’ households and households of ‘‘laborers and peasant producers’’ (marginal peasants) on the basis that where total cash income from laboring was more than half the cash value at local market prices of total consumed food grains, the household was

Table 1. Characteristics of forms of production Characteristic forms of production Peasant or domestic

Semi-feudal

Capitalist

Relations of production

Relations to market

Predominantly within Formal, non-market household and between kin. patronclient relations with Use of female and child occupational castes labor. Reciprocal exchange of (blacksmith, tailor, etc.). labor between households of Consumption requirements broadly comparable of items which cannot be economic standing. produced in the household purchased by small cash sales of surpluses. Something larger cash sales for anonymous markets. Production levels related to consumption targets through price mechanisms. Particularistic. Tendency to Sale of produce low per unit have more ‘‘permanent’’ of production because of labor than casual or wage characteristic use of surplus. labor. Tenants and Consumption standards sharecroppers. for owner of means of production often require considerable purchases of status-conferring goods. Casual labor for wages Sale of produce to anony(payment for work done), mous market. Production for or substitution by machinery exchange dissociated from under control of employer. consumption demands.

Use of surplus Surplus redistribution (gifts, un-recalled loans). Frequently households, current budgets balanced therefore no regularly produced surpluses and no continuous accumulations.

Large surpluses of some households are distributed to kin, household servants, and sometimes village. Conspicuous consumption.

Reinvestment in productive capacity with or without rise in consumption.

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

considered a ‘‘laboring’’ household; where it was less than half, the household was considered a ‘‘marginal peasant’’ (or ‘‘laboring and peasant’’) household. ––A distinction was made between ‘‘marginal peasants’’ and ‘‘peasants’’ on the basis that where earnings from laboring amounted to Rs. 200 or equivalent in kind (around 50 person-days), the household was classified as ‘‘marginal peasant.’’ ––Peasants (‘‘non-employers’’) and ‘‘employers’’ were distinguished on the basis of whether cash or kind equivalent spent on hiring labor of any sort was less or more than Rs. 200 respectively (around 50 persondays). ––‘‘Small’’ and ‘‘large’’ employers were distinguished on the basis of whether an employer spent less or more than Rs. 1,000 on any type of labor (equivalent to the annual cost of one permanent laborer). ––A distinction was made between those ‘‘with’’ and those ‘‘without’’ non-agricultural income, where those with less than Rs. 250 a year from non-agricultural income were considered to be ‘‘without.’’ Households were then allocated upon the basis of these categories and cut-off points to the three ‘‘forms of production.’’ Most of the laborers and marginal peasants could be identified with either the ‘‘semi-feudal’’ or capitalist form. Middle peasants, both with and without non-agricultural income, constituted the ‘‘peasant’’ or ‘‘domestic’’ form of production. The few larger employers either tended toward capitalist or semi-feudal forms. These categories of household and the forms of production of which they were a part were then used as analytical categories, each with a deduced set of contradictions and distinctive laws of motion of their own. These are summarized in Table 2 and in Figure 1. A number of comments may be made on the distribution of households in 1974–75. The first is the very limited extent of involvement in the market economy. A large proportion of households (almost half) sold less than Rs. 250 of agricultural produce per year and three-quarters (73%) of households marketed less than Rs. 1,000 of produce per year. But, if income from farm sales was so limited, half of the households had non-agricultural incomes of more than Rs. 250, and many (particularly the laboring and marginal peasant households, and also the peasant producers) depended heavily on non-agricultural sources of income. We ar-

gued then that it was only the prevalence and size of incomes outside agriculture which prevented many more households from falling into laboring categories. In particular, the potential for agricultural commodity production (production for the market) was examined through a series of parallel case studies of specific commodities, which might have been expected to provide opportunities for expansive production for the market and development of a class of progressive small and middle-sized capitalist farmers. It was concluded that although a wide range of possibilities appeared to exist (the production of cattle and small stock for sale, ginger (both fresh and dried), tangerines, paddy, ghee (clarified butter), cardamom, and other products which enjoyed a comparative advantage over plains areas), very few offered opportunities for sustained accumulation and re-investment. Instead, they amounted to little more than an opportunity for petty commodity production, and provided small amounts of income mostly for direct consumption purposes. Combinations of lack of labor, land, processing facilities, transportation options, new inputs (such as chemical fertilizer, and insecticides) and improved seed varieties constrained the great majority of producers. In addition, there was usually a crucial tradeoff in the allocation of land, labor and cash between the production of these commodities for sale and of food for home consumption, in which risk-averse strategies usually predominated. The importance of off-farm income for the continued survival of rural households was, even then, crucial for all social classes. Off-farm employment was socially selective by gender, class and/or ethnic group or caste. For those without the advantage of high caste (bringing with it access to superior education and being preferred in recruitment for government employment), or membership of certain ethnic groups for recruitment into the army, or not possessing artisanal skills which were in demand (e.g., stone mason, carpenter), agricultural laboring (under various contractual arrangements) offered the only, oversubscribed employment opportunity and a source of supplementary, limited off-farm income. As far as the vast majority of the rural population was concerned, almost all off-farm income opportunities were considered in terms of coping strategies, rather than as a basis for investment in agriculture or other forms of local

Table 2. Numbers and percentages of rural survey interviews 1974–75 cross-tabulated by total cash farm sales, relations in employment, and existence of non-agricultural income Laborers

Class position of households

Laborers and peasant producers

Peasant producers

Small employers

Large employers

With

Without

With

Without

With

Without

With

Without

With

Without

Row total and percentage

a b c d

44 14.1 91.7 6.6

68 21.9 75.6 10.2

24 7.7 63.2 3.6

39 12.5 48.1 5.8

108 34.7 56.5 16.2

12 3.9 11.7 1.8

9 2.9 23.1 1.3

1 0.3 2.6 0.1

6 1.9 33.3 0.9

0 0.0 0.0 0.0

311 46.6%

Rs. 250–499

a b c d

2 2.8 4.2 0.3

5 7.0 5.6 0.3

9 12.7 23.7 0.7

15 21.1 18.5 1.3

26 36.6 13.6 2.2

10 14.1 9.7 3.9

3 4.2 7.7 1.5

1 1.4 2.6 0.4

0 0.0 0.0 0.1

0 0.0 0.0 0.0

71 10.6%

Rs. 500–749

a b c d

0 0.0 0.0 0.0

7 14.6 7.8 1.0

2 4.2 5.3 0.3

8 16.7 9.9 1.2

14 29.2 7.3 2.1

12 25.0 11.7 1.8

3 6.3 7.7 0.4

1 2.1 2.6 0.1

1 2.1 5.6 0.0

0 0 0 0.0

48 7.2%

Rs. 750–999

a b c d

0 0.0 0.0 0.0

4 7.1 4.4 0.6

0 0.0 0.0 0.0

7 12.5 8.6 1.0

16 28.6 8.4 2.4

21 37.5 20.4 3.1

4 7.1 10.3 0.6

4 7.1 10.5 0.6

0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0 0.0 0.0 0.0

56 8.4%

Rs. 1,000–1,999 a b c d

2 2.4 4.2 0.3

5 6.0 5.6 0.7

3 3.6 7.9 0.4

7 8.4 8.6 1.0

19 22.9 9.9 2.8

29 34.9 28.2 4.3

7 8.4 17.9 1.0

7 8.4 18.4 1.0

3 3.6 16.7 0.4

1 1.2 4.8 0.1

83 12.4%

Rs. 2,000–4,999 a b c d Rs. above 5,000 a b c d

0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 0.0

1 1.4 0.0 0.1 0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0 0.0 1.1 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 0.0

5 6.8 0.0 0.7 0 0.0 0.0 0.0

8 11.0 6.2 1.2 0 0.0 0.0 0.0

17 23.3 4.2 2.5 2 8.0 1.9 0.3

9 12.3 16.5 1.3 4 1.6.0 10.3 0.6

20 27.4 23.1 3.0 4 16.0 10.6 0.6

4 5.5 52.6 0.6 4 16.0 22.2 0.6

9 12.3 22.2 1.3 11 44.0 52.4 1.6

73 10.9% 42.9

Column total Column percentage

48 7.2

90 13.5

38 5.7

81 12.1

191 28.6

103 15.4

39 5.8

38 5.7

18 2.7

21 3.3

667 100%

25 3.7

1261

a ¼ number in cell; b ¼ row percentage; c ¼ column percentage; d ¼ total percentage.

0.0

CHANGE IN WEST-CENTRAL NEPAL

Below Rs. 250

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Figure 1. Histogram of percentages of rural survey interviews 1974–75 cross-tabulated by total cash farm sales, relations in employment, and existence of non-agricultural income.

production. Well-paid and reliable employment was socially concentrated and rare. The impact of army pensions and remittances in those areas with a higher than average representation of Gurungs and Magars (the main ethnic groups that were recruited into the army) was found to be strongly supportive of a domestic form of production. It was argued by the authors at the time that non-agricultural income fulfilled an important role in postponing a general ‘‘crisis of production’’ in the hill areas; but, more pessimistically, it was also suggested that opportunities for off-farm earnings were more likely to decline than to increase. Controversially, it was also argued that the opportunities for capitalist production to flourish in the terai were also limited, as migration from the hills (and to some extent from India too) had already put increasing demographic pressure on the available land, with the result that average landholdings fell below a size sufficient for capitalist farming. The predominant forms of production in the terai were considered, in Nepal in Crisis to be ‘‘semi-feudal’’ or peasant forms (although there was debate within the original field research team around the extent which these forms obscured the development of agrarian capitalism––see Feldman & Fournier, 1976). The general conclusion of the field study was that there was little dynamic toward accumulation or capitalist class formation and that future prospects for all those dependent on non-agricultural income were likely to worsen.

In any case, such outside ‘‘support’’ would not be able to postpone the general crisis in the hills much longer. One result would be a process of pauperization, with the prospect of increasing inequality, landlessness and household disintegration.

4. 1974–75 AND 1997–98 CLASS PATTERNS COMPARED In the re-study, the authors utilized the same basic parameters as they had used in the mid1970s to identify the households in the survey in terms of social classes. An inflation depressor was used to offset the effects of inflation, so that the comparison of households according to the value of production and sales, non-agricultural incomes and wages between 1974–75 and 1997– 98 could be made. The result of the re-survey can be compared with that of 1975 (see Table 3 and in histogram form in Figure 2). The first and most striking conclusion is the remarkable lack of change in the class structure (the pattern of households’ classes) over a period of more than 20 years. As regards the anticipated differentiation of rural economy and society, the proportion of households in the sample from the laboring category or class in the 1970s was just over 20% of the total; in the 1990s, laboring households actually constituted slightly less than 10%. The biggest decrease was for the category of laborers

Table 3. Numbers and percentages of rural survey interviews 1997–98 cross-tabulated by total cash farm sales, relations in employment, and existence of non-agricultural income Laborers

Class position of households

Laborers and peasant producers

Peasant producers

Small employers

Large employers

With

Without

With

Without

With

Without

With

Without

With

Without

Row total and percentage

a b c d

6.00 6.06 85.71 3.87

7.00 7.07 87.50 4.52

5.00 5.05 83.33 3.23

14.00 14.14 93.33 9.03

33.00 33.33 68.75 21.29

15.00 15.15 50.00 9.68

11.00 11.11 52.38 7.10

4.00 4.04 44.44 2.58

4.00 4.04 80.00 2.58

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

99.00 63.87%

Rs. 2,500–4,999

a b c d

1.00 6.67 14.29 0.65

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

5.00 33.33 10.42 3.23

4.00 26.67 13.33 2.58

2.00 13.33 9.52 1.29

1.00 6.67 11.11 0.65

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

2.00 13.33 33.33 1.29

15.00 9.68%

Rs. 5,000–7,499

a b c d

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

1.00 9.09 16.67 0.65

1.00 9.09 6.67 0.65

5.00 45.45 10.42 3.23

3.00 27.27 10.00 1.94

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

1.00 9.09 11.11 0.65

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

11.00 7.10%

Rs. 7,500–9,999

a b c d

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

1.00 16.67 12.50 0.65

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

2.00 33.33 4.17 1.29

1.00 16.67 3.33 0.65

1.00 16.67 4.76 0.65

1.00 16.67 11.11 0.65

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

6.00 3.87%

Rs. 10,000–19,999

a b c d

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

2.00 10.53 4.17 1.29

7.00 36.84 23.33 4.52

6.00 31.58 28.57 3.87

1.00 5.26 11.11 0.65

1.00 5.26 20.00 0.65

2.00 10.53 33.33 1.29

19.00 12.26%

Rs. 20,000–49,999

a b c d

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

1.00 20.00 2.08 0.65

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

1.00 20.00 4.76 0.65

1.00 20.00 11.11 0.65

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

2.00 40.00 33.33 1.29

5.00 3.23%

Rs. above 50,000

a b c d

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 0.00%

7.00 4.52

8.00 5.16

6.00 3.87

15.00 9.68

48.00 30.97

30.00 19.35

21.00 13.55

9.00 5.81

5.00 3.23

6.00 3.87

155.00 100.00%

Column total Column percentage

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a ¼ number in cell; b ¼ row percentage; c ¼ column percentage; d ¼ total percentage.

CHANGE IN WEST-CENTRAL NEPAL

Below Rs. 2,500

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Figure 2. Histogram of percentages of rural survey interviews 1997–98 cross-tabulated by total cash farm sales, relations in employment, and existence of non-agricultural income.

without non-agricultural income. As will be discussed later, there are significant clusterings of very poor households (without significant access to land and to non-agricultural income), but as a whole this category had significantly shrunk over two decades. Furthermore, the proportion of laboring and marginal/poor peasant households, which accounted for nearly 18% in the mid-1970s, in the mid-1990s constituted only 14%. The ‘‘middle peasantry’’ by contrast, which in the mid-1970s accounted for 44% of the total, by the mid-1990s accounted for just over half (51%) of all households. There seems to be a tendency for agricultural laborers and marginal or small peasant households to decline as a proportion of the population, and for ‘‘middle’’ peasants (what we previously called ‘‘domestic producers’’) to increase as a proportion of the whole, to around half of all households. At the other ‘‘end’’ of the spectrum of wealth, large employers, who in the mid-1970s constituted 6% of the total, in the mid-1990s accounted for just over 7% (not a significant change given likely measurement and sampling errors). Small employers, which in the mid-1970s constituted 12% of the total, constituted nearly 20% in the mid-1990s. This latter increase is quite significant, with most of the new enterprises either in agricultural processing or services.

The overall impression is of a rural economy and society with, if anything, less differentiation than 20 years previously and with an apparent general ‘‘improvement’’ in class status, with laboring and marginal peasants constituting a smaller proportion, and middle peasants, small employers and large employers a significantly larger proportion of the total than before. This is in striking contrast with many other recent studies of rural inequality and rural poverty in Nepal as a whole, which suggest, if anything, an increase in poverty and inequality (see The World Bank’s Poverty Assessment––World Bank, 1998). Non-farm income appears to play a greater role in supporting households and in providing an income than 20 years previously. Of the ‘‘laboring households’’ in the mid-1990s, 53% had non-farm income, whereas in the mid-1970s, only 35% had non-farm income, suggesting reliance by a greater proportion of households in this category on non-farm income today. In the ‘‘laborers and peasants’’ category, 38% had outside income, whereas previously only 32% had non-farm incomes. In both these categories, therefore, the proportion of households with non-farm income is greater in the 1990s than in the 1970s. For peasant producers the ratio of those with non-farm income to those without is much the same in the 1990s and 20 years before––64%

CHANGE IN WEST-CENTRAL NEPAL

with outside income in the 1990s as compared with 65% in the 1970s. But for small employers (rich peasants), the ratio of ‘‘with’’ to ‘‘without’’ non-agricultural income has changed considerably (from 51% in the 1970s to 73% in the 1990s). There appears to be a positive correlation between agricultural and non-agricultural incomes. As regards agricultural commodity production, in the mid-1970s roughly 47% of all households in the sample (of 667) sold less than Rs. 250 worth a year. In the mid-1990s (a sample of 155) the proportion of those selling less than Rs. 2,500 (the equivalent given a rate of inflation which has resulted in a tenfold increase) was nearly 64%. In the mid-1970s, 73% of households sold less than Rs. 1,000 worth of agricultural produce, in the mid-1990s the equivalent proportion, of those selling less than Rs. 10,000 was over 87%. These data imply, if anything, a ‘‘retreat’’ from the market. The overall comparison bears out the predictions of the 1970s about the likely situation 20 years on (based on household simulations undertaken in 1977 (Blaikie, Cameron, & Seddon, 1983) in so-far-as rural capitalism has failed to develop in either the forces of production or relations of production. There also seems to be less poverty and ‘‘desperate’’ migration of the whole household than implied in the original predictions. Conditions for individual migration have proven considerably more positive than anticipated and the resulting remittances have allowed the ‘‘preservation,’’ even strengthening, of the ‘‘middle peasant’’ as a typical rural household in the study area. But this apparent preservation of largely ‘‘domestic’’ form of production (non-market economy and society) in fact depends upon an active engagement with labor markets, usually away from the immediate locality. ‘‘Dependency’’ has taken on a new dimension––arguably more positive for sustainable rural life than the aspects of dependency emphasized in the original models, but nevertheless creating a ‘‘backwater’’ dependent on labor migration and employment away from home, with all the concomitant personal, social and economic tensions to which this gives rise. 5. ARE THESE DATA RELIABLE? It could be argued (rightly) that the sample size of the re-visit household survey is very

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small, and that the data might therefore prove unreliable. To check our conclusions on the state of rural livelihoods in the 1990s, we can make a comparison with the results of a ‘‘stateof-the-art’’ Nepal National Living Standards Survey (NLSMS), supported by the World Bank and conducted in Nepal at around the same time as our own fieldwork. A comparative discussion of the results of both the 1990s surveys can also be found in Cameron, Blaikie, Seddon, & Gyawali (1998). The Nepal Living Standards Survey Report (Central Bureau of Statistics, various years) was based upon an intensive survey of 3,345 households randomly chosen in a two tier sampling frame in which there was no reason to suspect sampling bias, where problems of substitution were minimized by the interviewers staying at the cluster location for one week. Discussions with those involved suggested that the interviewing teams were highly qualified, small, and well trained and supervised. The data collection method used was an extensive questionnaire conducted over several visits and involving all relevant household members. Data entry was actually done in the field onto personal computers by the interviewers themselves. The interpretation here concentrates on the rural population. This has the advantage of avoiding the strong influence of imputed accommodation rents on incomes in the urban livelihood data, especially the Katmandu data. Taking household size, per capita income, and economic activity statistics together from both surveys, the following robust conclusions can be drawn: ––Households are generally of sufficient size and resource base to provide an element of social security and significant amounts of employment for many of the people residing in rural Nepal. ––But the level of per capita income generated by these activities is very low by global standards. High rates of economic activity, agricultural self-employment, and relatively long hours of work for more than half those employed suggest that the primary problem is low income productivity per hour worked on family-controlled land. Our own 1997–98 and the NLSMS figures for landholding and crop production suggest access to land for basic food production is still widespread in both the hills and the terai. The NLSMS survey data and our own data suggest that a majority of households grow more than

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one of the staple crops and keep more than one form of livestock. Patterns of cropping and livestock holding differ considerably from location to location but this probably owes more to ecological (more maize and millet in the hills, more paddy and wheat in the terai) and cultural (more pigs in the eastern hills and western terai) factors than commercial calculation. Use of improved seed for staple crops is low. For seven staple crops across farms by the regions, the only recorded use of greater than 10% on farms are wheat in the eastern terai, winter potato in the eastern terai, and winter vegetables in the eastern and western terai. Ownership of machinery is also very limited. Tractors are owned by less than 1% of all farms and pump sets on less than 3%, although almost 10% of farms in the western terai own pump sets. Hiring of machinery may mean more farms actually use machinery but no data are given in the NLSMS report. Fertilizer use on staple crops is much more common. Two-thirds of terai growers were using fertilizer on paddy and wheat. More than 40% of eastern (in NLSMS terms) hill growers were using fertilizer on paddy, wheat and maize. The western hills witnessed the least use, with about one-third of paddy growers and one-quarter of wheat growers putting fertilizer on their crop. In our own survey, of the 87 cases in the terai in 1997–98, 57 households were using chemical fertilizer. Of the 70 households in the hills, 39 were using chemical fertilizer. But whereas in the terai the average quantity used per household was 155 kg, in the hills it was only 22 kg. In 1974–75 in the terai only 57 households out of 330 used chemical fertilizer. In the hills 30 households out of 337 used chemical fertilizer. Chemical fertilizer appears to have become much more widely used in both the terai and the hills, but not in such quantities as to be having a major impact, either positive (achieving maximum yields) or negative (risking ecological damage). As with fertilizer and improved seed use, investment in irrigation is increasing at a slow rate from a very low base 20 years ago. In the hills, commercialization in terms of outputs may actually have decreased. It is possible that increased use of fertilizer and improved seeds is not being financed by own-farm cash incomes but by remittances, and is being directed not at increased sales but at improved food security. Moreover, livestock does not appear to be developing into a strongly com-

mercial component of livelihoods, though the number of households selling milk has probably increased considerably. Ownership of large livestock is widespread, apparently more a product of the need for draught power than commercial motivation. The NLSMS suggests agricultural waged employment was 58% of all those wage employed, with the terai proportion of around two-thirds being considerably higher than the hills. Construction was the largest non-agricultural wage employing sector, accounting for about onethird of the workers, but manufacturing and personal services were roughly equal second with about one-fifth each. It seems possible from surveys that agricultural wage laboring may actually be decreasing as a livelihoods option in the hills, while remaining roughly constant in the terai. Changes in agriculture, despite little mechanization, do not appear to have increased the demand for local wage labor. In terms of payment systems, only 2% of agricultural wage workers stated they were not daily paid, suggesting that tied labor is a very minor phenomenon outside the western terai, where the figure was 7.5%. But those receiving some payment in kind constituted almost 20% of the total. In the non-agricultural sector, almost 30% were not daily paid and some in kind payments were received by 27% of these wage workers. The NLSMS results suggest entrepreneurship in non-agricultural activities is increasing but appears not to have developed as a widespread option for rural households, compared to growth in public service and professional occupations. The contribution of local activities off own farm are significant in terms of proportions of households involved. But they are still marginal on average in terms of contribution to overall livelihoods. Diversification into local non-agricultural incomes is at an early stage and experience as non-agricultural employers and full-wage employees is very limited. In the NLSMS, around 60% of households have an average of 1.5 loans outstanding. About 15% of loans are with banks and around 40% were contracted in the preceding year (over 90% in the preceding two years). The overall rural and urban data suggest that about threequarters of the loans involved no collateral. About 30% of loans were for investment, varying substantially between regions, with the terai around 35% and the hills under 25%. But

CHANGE IN WEST-CENTRAL NEPAL

to what extent such investment was in productive farm assets is not clear. The data suggest widespread taking of loans/ exposure to debt. But the debt appears generally recent, informal, and not secured against collateral. The proportion used for investment is low, with serious implications for further accumulation. This pattern of debt might produce vulnerability in the event of widespread income failure due to a poor monsoon. But more information is needed to understand to what extent the current pattern of debt is a result of processes which are leading to structural change, and to what extent simply a continuation of long-established ways of coping with seasonal cash flow fluctuations. Our own 1997– 98 survey also suggests an active credit market with growth in the number of households involved in borrowing. But there is no sign that the credit market is a force for radical change in terms of investment or radical asset redistribution. In the NLSMS survey, remittances were reportedly received by 24% of rural households ranging from 14% in the eastern hills to 31% in the western hills, with both terai regions around 25%. Multiple sources of remittances were common, giving an average of 1.24 sources per remittance receiving household. In terms of amounts received, households receiving remittances benefited very significantly with an overall average of 27% in terms of proportion of income. The proportions of income received from remittances ranged from 19% in the western terai to 31% in the western hills. Overall, our own surveys indicate widespread migration by individual members of households, mainly of younger men retaining strong attachments to a rural household in Nepal but leaving to work elsewhere in Nepal (in rural or urban areas) or abroad (mainly in India, but also in the Far East and, most recently, in the Gulf). This seems to be a strongly increasing phenomenon, perhaps tripling over the past 20 years (this is supported by recent research on labor migration, see Acharya, 2000; Seddon, Gurung, & Adhikari, 1998, 2000, 2001; Seddon & Subedi, 2000). The NLSMS results tend to confirm the impression gained from our own survey data of a rural economy and society in West Nepal centered on a large core of households who have coped tolerably well on the whole over the past 20 years. Coming from a production base involving the ownership of very small plots of land they have prudently bought and sold small

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parcels of land, experimented with fertilizer and improved seed, increased irrigation, borrowed or lent moderate amounts of money for investment and consumption, put more children (including some daughters) into formal education, and maintained basic consumption patterns based on self-provisioning food-security. But most important, rural households in western Nepal have been active in encouraging individual migration and securing remittances from those migrants (Seddon et al., 1998, 2000, 2001). These results suggest there is a solid block of households in our study area of western Nepal who are neither particularly policy ‘‘hungry’’ nor particularly policy ‘‘accessible.’’ This does not mean such households are not poor, or that they do not face severe tests and trials, or do not merit access to greater resources in terms of global justice, but rather that there is little urgency in the overall processes of change. It is also worth noting that such households are not in a position to provide great resources (whether through taxation or other mechanisms) for policy implementation, but neither are they falling rapidly into extreme poverty or suffering extreme deprivation. One is tempted to see, in the data recovered from the rural household surveys, a sturdy and substantial independent yeomanry. In this context, it is relevant to note that our study area has been, until recently, an area relatively untouched by the widespread Maoist insurrection in Nepal. 6. CONCLUSION The most important empirical conclusion about social change in rural western Nepal over the past 20 years is the degree of continuity. There has not been a slide into deepening poverty for the majority of the population as the radical pessimist conclusions of Nepal in Crisis predicted. But, as Nepal in Crisis did predict, there has been hardly any significant development of commercialized agriculture, little investment in modern inputs, aggressive forcing down the cost of hired labor, or appropriation of poor peasants’ land by an expansive class of capitalist farmers. Nor has there been any rapid economic differentiation leading to more individualistic accumulation and a consequent deterioration of safety nets and familial responsibilities (e.g. to remit money and/or to look after the destitute). In terms of the forms of production discussed

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT

earlier, there has been a slow demise of ‘‘semifeudalism’’ without a transformation into a capitalist agriculture. Insofar as class analysis and dependency theory predicted at all, they predicted stasis, and this is what the re-study revealed to be the case. So much for prediction, but it could still be claimed that the class analysis and dependency model is too structuralist and generalized to allow for an appreciation of the underlying dynamics at the household level which have given rise, for example, to the growth in dependency on off-farm and particularly non-farm income from members of the rural household working away from home. The potential for urban growth in Nepal and for foreign labor migration was underestimated. The analysis was weak on ‘‘process,’’ both at the micro- and at the macro-level. Here, livelihoods analysis may prove more helpful, though in some ways this approach merely invents new bottles for some old (and not necessarily vintage) wine. The data presented here suggest that social, natural and produced capital have all remained more or less constant over 20 years. There may have been a decline in natural capital, especially in forest-derived nutrients and soil fertility in some localities, but it is possible that this may have been overestimated (Blaikie & Sadeque, 2000; Ives & Messerli, 1989). The stocks of these capitals have remained more or less constant, but it is human capital which has shown a profound upheaval and a high degree of mobility and adaptability. In the social and physical environment of Nepal at present, it is more paying, less risky and easier (in terms of the degree of re-negotiation of rights and obligations of neighbors and relatives), to prioritize food security and to release a member of the household to migrate and earn an income away from home, and even outside Nepal altogether, than to enter the market as a producer. While labor from Nepal may still be competitive in international markets, it is difficult to identify markets for other commodities produced in Nepal that could bring in the same returns; at least this appears to be the case from the ‘‘grassroots’’ perspective of the rural household. There are certainly adjustments to be made (and that undoubtedly have been made, although the survey data do not enable these adjustments to be easily identified) in the performance of agriculture by those left behind (labor allocation, gender divisions, fertilizer use, and agricultural technology, see Blaikie &

Coppard, 1998). But the option of investing in agriculture is evidently more uncertain, particularly where there is no irrigation than the available alternatives. Moreover, as has been shown, investments in agriculture can seldom come from the farm, since holdings are almost all too small (even in the terai) and do not generate sufficient surpluses. Supporting activities of the state in promoting capitalist agriculture have very limited potential, being likely to attract only the tiny proportion of the more advantaged farmers. The Nepal Agriculture Perspective Plan has proposed a commercial farmer-led transformation (APROSC, 1995; Cameron, 1998). But, building on our analysis we maintain some very pessimistic views about the potential for such a process (Cameron et al., 1998); nothing has happened in the last 20 years, as far as the household survey data indicate, to cause us to revise our pessimism in this regard. The model in Nepal in Crisis needs extension, however, in at least one important direction. The nature of the rural household itself (and possibly even ‘‘the village’’) has been transformed, if not fragmented, by the rise in individual migration. The household is also now, in structural ways (as opposed to visual), much less ‘‘rural.’’ Many rural households have become a sort of spatially disparate extended family. The results are: increasing feminization of rural life (with the potential for greater exploitation and oppression of women, but also holding out possibilities for women of significant improvements in their relative position), and the demographic re-structuring of households and villages (as the economically active men seek employment elsewhere and women are left with the children and the elderly). The risks for those ‘‘left behind’’ are great, if monetary remittances from younger, mainly male migrants decrease as the moral economy of the household and the village disintegrates. But while our original class analysis and dependency language termed this process as ‘‘postponing the coming crisis of production,’’ as stressed the risks and dangers, more recent livelihoods models may find some virtue in such livelihood diversification and ‘‘opening up’’ of choices for a sustainable future in rural Nepal (Cameron, 1999; Carney, 1998). We are struck by our findings, which suggest that the Marxist class analysis and dependency meta-narrative has proved surprisingly robust in describing both continuity and change in our study area of western Nepal. The original

CHANGE IN WEST-CENTRAL NEPAL

model underestimated the capacity of the global labor market to provide work and remittances to sustain rural life and to stave off a more generalized crisis––at least in this part of

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Nepal, but the basic vision (and prediction) of dependent underdevelopment in the rural study area itself has, we believe, been broadly confirmed.

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Cameron, J. (1999). Trivial pursuits?––reconciling sustainable rural development and the global economic institutions. London: IIED/DFID. Cameron, J., Blaikie, P. M., Seddon, J. D., & Gyawali, N. (1998). Patterns of change in Western Nepal: rural households of the 1970s and 1990s compared. Himalayan Research Bulletin, XVIII(2), 15–21. Carney, D. (Ed.) (1998). Sustainable rural livelihoods: what contribution can we make? London: DfID. Central Bureau of Statistics, (various years). Nepal living standards measurement survey: report. Kathmandu: Government of Nepal. Cooper, F., & Packard, R. (Eds.) (1997). International development and the social sciences: essays on the history and politics of knowledge. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Corbridge, S. (1986). Capitalist world development: a critique of radical development geography. London: Macmillan. Corbridge, S. (1989). Marxism, post-marxism and the geography of development. In R. Peet, & N. Thrift (Eds.), New models in geography (vol. 1). London: Unwin Hyman. Corbridge, S. (1990). Post-Marxism and development studies: beyond the impasse. World Development, 18. Corbridge, S. (1994). Post-marxism and post-colonialism: the needs and rights of distant strangers. In D. Booth (Ed.), Rethinking social development. London: Longman. Corbridge, S. (1997). Beneath the pavement only soil: the poverty of post-development. Journal of Development Studies, 33, 138–148. Feldman, D., & Fournier, A. (1976). Social relations and agricultural production in Nepal’s terai. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 3(4). Frank, A. G. (1968). Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America: historical studies of Chile and Brazil. New York and London: Monthly Review Press. Frank, A. G. (1969). Latin America: underdevelopment or revolution? New York and London: Monthly Review Press. Harriss, J. C. (1994). Between economism and postmodernism: reflections on research on ‘agrarian change’ in India. In D. Booth (Ed.), Rethinking social development. London: Longman. Ives, J. D., & Messerli, B. (1989). The Himalayan dilemma: reconciling development and conservation. New York: Wiley. Kay, C. (1989). Latin American theories of development and underdevelopment. London: Routledge. Laclau, E. (1971). Imperialism in Latin America. New Left Review, 67. Palma, G. (1978). Dependency: a formal theory of underdevelopment or a methodology for the analysis

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of concrete situations of dependency? World Development, 6(7–8). Seddon, D., & Subedi, B. P. (2000). Labour markets and the poor in Nepal. Report to DFID, Nepal. Norwich: Overseas Development Group. Seddon, D., Adhikari, J., & Gurung, G. (2000). Foreign labour migration and the remittance economy of Nepal: A report to DFID, Nepal. Norwich: Overseas Development Group. Seddon, D., Adhikari, J., & Gurung, G. (2001). The New Lahures: foreign labour migration and the remittance economy of Nepal. Kathmandu: IDS Publishers. Seddon, D., Gurung, G., & Adhikari, J. (1998). Foreign labour migration and the remittance econ-

omy of Nepal. Himalayan Research Bulletin, XVIII(2), 3–10. Seddon, D., Blaikie, P. M., & Cameron, J. (1979). Peasants and workers in Nepal. Warminster: Aris and Phillips [Reprinted by Adroit Pub., Delhi, 2002]. Seers, D. (Ed.) (1981). Dependency Theory: a Critical Assessment. London, Francis Pinter. Taylor, J. G. (1979). From Modernization to Modes of production: a critique of the sociologies of development and underdevelopment. London: Macmillan. World Bank (1998). Nepal: poverty at the turn of the twenty-first century. Washington, DC: World Bank.