Issues in population pressure,land resettlement,and development: The case of Nepal

This analysis considers the question of whether resettlement schemes really relieve population pressure or help achieve a better regional balance between population and resource distribution in a manner consistent with Nepal's national objective of agricultural growth with social justice. The 1st part of the analysis discusses population pressure, followed by the conceptualization of ecodemographic relations and sociodemographic relations. The 2nd part of the analysis considers Nepal's agrarian economy along with a case-study examination of its contemporary resettlement project in Chitwan district. Finally, information is presented from a field survey conducted in Chitwan in 1979, which support the assertions that: the sociodemographic relations -- not population pressure as such -- are the primary roots of agrarian development problems in a country like Nepal; and resettlement schemes, when implemented without due consideration of the pervasive sociodemographic relations, are a deficient technical fix to imbalances in ecodemographic relations. Nepal provides a typical example of ecodemographic imbalances in the regional distribution of population and resources. Although the Hill and Mountain regions make up almost 60% of Nepal's total population, they share less than 30% of the total land under cultivation. The Tarai region, which is the northern extension of the Gangetic Plain in India, occupies over 70% of the cultivated land and supports only slightly over 40% of the population. As the case study illustrates, development strategies such as land resettlement are invariably formulated and implemented as a technical solution within the framework of ecodemographic relations. Little attention is directed to addressing the social dimension of these programs, i.e., the structual problems directly associated with the existing sociodemographic relations. Development, or land resettlement in the present case, is not simply a technical issue concerned with land reclamation and its management. It is also a social issue, because the sociodemographic relations determine significantly the direction (or directions) that resettlement programs take. When development policies make little effort to tackle the underlying forces of these relations, resettlement schemes result in the reconstitution of class divisions and disparity in the ownership of resources in newly resettled areas.     

The Pendleton Riot: a political sociology

Two unlikely legislative bedfellows have recently defined a new terrain upon which conflicting political approaches to the criminalisation of ‘precarious’ (Lea, 2013) young people are being played out.     

Under construction: Brain formation, culpability, and the criminal justice system

Should adolescents be held as culpable for their behavior as adults? Adolescence is a tumultuous time, full of change and transformation. This paper examines the development of brain functions and cognitive capabilities of teenagers. It explores the effect of alcohol use on brain development and the fundamental cognitive differences between adolescents and adults. This knowledge, coupled with the assessment of developmental perspective, suggests that the adultification of youth (or waiver to adult court) is unduly harsh for youth whose brains have not fully formed.