Forager-Traders in South-East Asia
The numerous forager groups living across South-East Asia were largely absent from debates during the Man the hunter era. Much of this related to what Fortier regards as academic elitism associated with identifying and studying the last pure hunter-gatherers, such as those in the Kalahari. In contrast, it was clear from the outset that foragers in South-East Asia were in intense contact with outsiders. In fact, one of the major challenges for researchers working in South-East Asia is attempting to understand the enormous cultural variability that characterizes both these local foraging groups and their links and contacts with outsiders--they inhabit a strikingly wide range of different environments, yet all are tightly embedded into local interaction networks. The remarkable diversity of foraging groups is matched by a similar degree of diversity in regional languages, culture, and also local political and economic settings, of which the foragers form an enduring part.
These general regional settings generate some common hunter-gatherer traits, but this remains challenging. At one level, foragers can be defined as people who collect rather than cultivate food, and who also valorize this food collecting as a laudable lifestyle. But even this simple definition is complicated by the fact that many of these forager groups gather food not to just consume it locally, but also to exchange it with outsiders for grown food. This i certainly not a new phenomenon, and ongoing genetic, linguistic, and archaeological work across the region indicates that these kinds of forager-farmer contacts are highly complex and probably of considerable antiquity, but this important topic needs much more research. Related debates have questioned whether foragers can actually maintain viable settlement in the region's tropical forests without access to supplementary carbohydrate sources, which only local horticulturalists can provide, generally in exchange for products gathered from the forests. As noted above for many African groups, if long-term occupation of tropical forests requires interaction with farmers, then foragers could only begin to move into and sette these ecosystems if they had reliable exchange networks linking them to farmers. This would sug gest a situation of mutual interdependency from the outset. If so, can these groups really con titute genuine and authentic foragers, and if yes, how best to classify and understand them?
As hunter-gatherer research expanded and diversified in the wake of the 198os Kalahari Debate, the foragers of East Asia become increasingly important examples o modern hunter-gatherers who provide a sustained critique Eurocentric notions of pure hunter-gatherers. They also serve to highlight the historical contingency of many foraging adaptations, as well as the importance of culture-contact and the widespread management of wild resources. Increasingly, these groups are seen as forager bricoleurs, possessing the ability to create sustainable composite economies that they can adjust quickly with great flexibly and skill, a capacity that is important in regions increasingly characterized by resource-depleted environments. Often, these highly flexible strategies are not commer- cially motivated-trade is for subsistence, but not necessarily to maximize profit. Much more research is needed to understand better these relations between local cultures and diverse outsiders, and development and conservation work is also needed to ensure they retain access to protected areas of traditional resources. Broadly similar patterns to these identified in South-East Asia can also be noted in the study of hunter-gatherers from southern Asia (see Morrison and Junker 2002)