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Nagas Identity and Nationalism: Indigenous Movement of the Zeliangrong Nagas in the North East India

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Abstract

Today, more than ever, the need for economic development and progress is felt much stronger by any group or community. This means that all groups or communities enter into direct or indirect competitions and conflicts at all times. As a result of this, each community is compelled to search for new technology and new cultural practices in order to acquire more wealth and prosperity. The widespread education and the process of modernization accelerates the economic growth and prosperity which ultimately connects every culture through circulating global markets, and this process helps people to come closer and increasingly found interlinked with one another. However, in such process, we see either a community being merged with the “mainstream” losing its identity or in the course of time assimilating within that same community. Therefore, this paper deals with a particular community in the quest for economic progress and search for sustaining its identity and in the process leading to identity crisis. Major factors such as migration, colonialism, religious conversion, Meitei expansionism or “Meiteization,” modernization, and globalization are identified for the causes of identity crisis which ultimately led to the emergence of distinct and independent ethnic identities such as the Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmei and Inpui from a generic identity known as the “Zeliangrong”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

    Aphun Kamei

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  1. Aphun Kamei
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Correspondence to Aphun Kamei .

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  1. Dept of Socio & Anthro, Rm 309, Univ of Canterbury Dept of Socio & Anthro, Rm 309, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Steven Ratuva

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  1. Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Steven Ratuva

  2. Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Steven Ratuva

  3. Faculty of Education and Social Work, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada

    . Airini

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Kamei, A. (2019). Nagas Identity and Nationalism: Indigenous Movement of the Zeliangrong Nagas in the North East India. In: Ratuva, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_75-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_75-2

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  1. Latest

    Nagas Identity and Nationalism: Indigenous Movement of the Zeliangrong Nagas in the North East India
    Published:
    25 March 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_75-2

  2. Original

    Nagas Identity and Nationalism: Indigenous Movement of the Zeliangrong Nagas in the North East India
    Published:
    09 February 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_75-1

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