THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

Yakha, I have produced a text which may serve more than one function.
It is hopefully a useful contribution to the ethnographic record,
especially since it deals with an ethnic group never before studied
anthropologically, In addition, it attempts to incorporate some
theoret ical issues current in soci~l anthropology within its
description. It also, perhaps quite inadvertently, addresses questions
which a development worker might find useful,
Smoke!ess stoves which do not warm winter homes, slippery paths on
which people (not just the anthropolog!st, regularly fall and break
limbs, an impending road development with a! its incumbent risks and
benefits: these are all examples of concerns relevant to the study of
culture, environment and development presented in this thesis which
would, in an ideal world, lead to constructive change. Other 'social'
and 'cultural' components discussed which have direct implications for
development efforts include people's perceptions of agricultura! inputs
such as fertilizer, their beliefs about health and disease, and the
presence and absence of different types of formal and informal
organisations at vi!!age !evel.
Above all, there is the call to consider the environment as a
cultural construct, intimately enmeshed with not only local but our own
'religious and ethnic attitudes', This may require more of a leap of
the imagination on the part of the development worker, but if an
ultimate aim of development is to promote acceptable, sustainable and
beneficial Inltlatiaos at tne iocei level, then the mental effort
perhaps worth making.
There are two types of interface (amongst others) between 'academic
an thr-opology' and ' development ' which can be dist inguished here. One