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This collection of finely crafted essays challenge major assumptions about Naga society. It helps us move beyond 'tribal essentialism' as we learn about the gendered nature of customary law, rival visions of the future, and how territorial claims are reworked. But this is much more than a critical intervention in Naga studies. First, its ethnographic focus on social diversity provides a model for the study of identities and micropolitics across upland Asia. Second, it offers key theoretical insights, from a new understanding of feasts of merit to a cultural critique of global democracy studies. Willem van Schendel Professor Emeritus of Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam The author's investigation is thoroughly scholarly, and his dedication to understanding the Naga question, the earliest political struggle to take shape in the region, is praiseworthy. This collection of essays is thus a welcome contribution to the debate. The Nagas are justly proud of the facts of their struggle, and the clarity of independent scholarship in an age of misinformation is so important. The fact that many people still perceive the Naga struggle as 'secessionist' or anti-India, for example, is tragic. The Nagas made their position clear to the British long before they departed, and that message has not changed. But, as with most struggles, the truth is the first casualty, and facts are marred by misunderstanding and mistrust. Wouters reveals just how important local political culture and behaviour is in shaping the broader Naga political fabric. This kind of critical observation helps us to better understand where we are and how we got here. Indeed, Orwell's observation that 'the most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history' is as relevant as ever. Niketu Iralu Naga elder, peace activist and proponent of human rights and non-violence. This collection of 11 essays on Naga democracy, identity and political adaptations of Indian democratic principles and practices is like an 11 course dinner that one rarely, if at all, gets to partake of. Each of the eleven courses tells us something unique about the Naga society and polity and the author's unique style of presenting ethnographic insight provides the right kind of ambience and mood for partaking of such a lavish dinner. Having read the drafts of the essays included in this book and commented on them earlier I am really happy and contented that they are put together in the form of a book, which is an invaluable service to those who do not have easy access to libraries or to the journals where these essays were published. I heartily recommend this book to every anthropologist, sociologist, political scientist or historian interested in the study of upland societies in general and Nagas in particular. Tanka B. Subba Professor of Anthropology at North-Eastern Hill University and former Vice-Chancellor of Sikkim Central University

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"Jelle J P Wouters is a social anthropologist who has carried out long-term ethnographic and historical research among the upland and tribal Nagas in India's generally lesser known Northeastern Region, writing about insurgency, violence, vernacular politics, capitalism, resource-extraction, and social history. Main research area and focus today are environmental humanities, climate change, water, and human-animal-plant entanglements in Bhutan, and Highland Asia more widely. He teaches at the Royal University of Bhutan in the Department of Social Science. He holds an MPhil (Distinction) in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, and later completed a PhD in Anthropology from the North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong (India). Before joining Royal Thimphu College (Bhutan) as a lecturer he taught for two years at Sikkim Central University, where he was asked to establish the Anthropology Department, and was a visiting fellow (2014-2015) at Eberhard Karls University on a ""Teaching for Excellence"" award granted by the German Research Foundation. He currently also serves as the Chair of the Himalayan Centre for Environmental Humanities, Thimphu."

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