In Asia, the majority of the people practicing shifting cultivation belong to
ethnic groups that are generally subsumed under categories like ethnic
minorities, tribal people, hill tribes or aboriginal people. Today, however,
many of these peoples prefer to be called indigenous peoples.
The popular
prejudices against shifting cultivation common in these countries are
conflated with other negative attributes ascribed to indigenous peoples
throughout the region: that they are backward, primitive, a hindrance to
national progress, disloyal to and a security problem for the state etc.