housing
Development Proposal Threatens the Amish
The lush green and brown farmlands of central Lancaster County and the lives of the Amish and Old Order Mennonite farming families who live there are seriously threatened by a proposed development. Opponents of the development claim that the horse and buggy culture of the Plain People will be disrupted if not destroyed by all […]
Yanadi Houses
The reporter was clearly impressed with some aspects of a small Yanadi crab-fishing community located along the banks of an irrigation channel in coastal Andhra Pradesh. The community, consisting of just 13 houses, is near Vadapalem hamlet in the Machilipatnam Mandal of Krishna District. In a news report published by The Hindu on December 22, […]
New Semai Houses
A number of Malaysian volunteers, guided by a team of researchers, built a group of four prototype houses for some Semai families that combined traditional forest products with modern construction materials and techniques. A journalist, accompanied by several of the university researchers guiding the project, took a trip by motorcycle along rough forest paths to […]
Birhor Cope with Changes [journal article review]
The formerly nomadic Birhor are struggling to cope with their forced resettlement into permanent communities, which has had a serious impact on their cultural values. A recent journal article by Deborah Nadal examines these changes in Birhor settlement patterns over the past 50 years and their impact on the people. Nadal did fieldwork in Dingura […]
Paliyans Obtain Better Housing
A news story in July 2013 described how a Paliyan man had used Facebook as a way of complaining about problems in his colony, and how government officials had quickly responded. A brief report last week provides an update on the situation. V. Thangaraj, at the Alagammalpuram Colony near Madurai, a city in Tamil Nadu, […]
Corruption in Constructing Yanadi Housing
A representative of the Nellore District of the Yanadis Welfare Association charged last week that officials cheated the government when they started building some houses for Yanadi families. These alleged irregularities occurred in Allur Mandal, a village in the Nellore District of India’s Andhra Pradesh state. The Yanadi advocate, T. Venkateswarlu, told the press that […]
