The Politics of Human Reproduction in Rural Nepal

There were some factors that led me to choose the Durà community for a case study. One of the reasons was to determine with precision how communities were affected by cultural diffusion, Hindunisation, and their political setting as well as their physical environment. Three pieces of work influenced my study of the village of Sindure. One is by British Anthropologist Alan Macfarlane. who completed his Ph.D. in 1976. This research was based upon fieldwork conducted on an ethnic community in Nepal called 'the Gurungs! He applied both demographic and anthropological methodologies, stressing economic and demographic aspects of life. The other research by American Anthropologist Thomas Fricke was based on research among Tamangs to the northwest of Kathmandu. The pioneering work of David Seddon and his collaborators (Nepal in Crisis, 'Peasants and Workers in Nepal' and 'Nepal: A State of Poverty') assumes that history is the history of class struggle. These three studies drew my attention to the relevance of anthropological insight for explaining the community fertility behaviour in the Durà community of Nepal.

**Contents and Sample Pages**