Labour Exchange in Shifting Cultivation: The case of the Tangkhul Naga Tribe in Manipur

Labour exchange is an integral component and one of the common features among the tribal communities who basically depends on shifting cultivation. It not only serves as an important source of labour force that gathers the labour requirement in this labour intensive form of agriculture system but it also represent an important social and economic phenomenon in the life of the people. But due to steady increased in migration of rural population especially young people to other towns and cities for better education or in search of job followed by increased market integration in shifting cultivation due to improvement in road connectivity and other means of communication, the practice of labour exchange is declining steadily among the tribal society as it is being replaced by the daily wage labour system- a labour system without any social and cultural significance.