The demise of swidden in Southeast Asia? Local realities and regional ambiguities.

The demise of swidden in Southeast Asia? Local realities and regional ambiguities. Swidden swid��den?n.An area cleared for temporary cultivation by cutting and burning the vegetation.[Dialectal alteration of obsolete swithen, from Old Norse svidhna, to be burned.] farmers throughout Southeast Asia Southeast Asia,region of Asia (1990 est. pop. 442,500,000), c.1,740,000 sq mi (4,506,600 sq km), bounded roughly by the Indian subcontinent on the west, China on the north, and the Pacific Ocean on the east. are rapidly abandoningtraditional land use practices. While these changes have been quantifiedin numerous local areas, no reliable region-wide data have beenproduced. In this article we discuss three linked issues that accountfor at least some of this knowledge gap. First, swidden is a diverse,complex, and dynamic land use that data gatherers find difficult to see,define and measure, and therefore often relegate rel��e��gate?tr.v. rel��e��gat��ed, rel��e��gat��ing, rel��e��gates1. To assign to an obscure place, position, or condition.2. To assign to a particular class or category; classify. See Synonyms at commit. to a "residualcategory" of land use. Second, swidden is a smallholder Noun 1. smallholder - a person owning or renting a smallholdingBritain, Great Britain, U.K., UK, United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and category,and government authorities find it difficult to quantify Quantify - A performance analysis tool from Pure Software. what ishappening in many dynamic and varied smallholdings. Third, nationalpolicies in all countries of Southeast Asia have tried to outlaw swiddenfarming and to encourage swiddeners to adopt permanent agriculture landuse practices. Drawing on specific, local examples from throughout theregion [including Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo] to illustrate thesepoints, we argue that an accurate assessment of the scale and pace ofchanges in swidden farming on a regional level is critically importantfor identifying the processes that account for these shifts, as well asevaluating their consequences, locally and regionally [Reed L. Wadley]. Danish Journal of Geography/Geografisk Tidsskrift 107(1): 29-41.