A path-breaking book that explores the current status of Adivasi women in the four states of eastern India, with high percentages of Adivasis – Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal – Debasree De engages with the recent paradigm of ‘development and displacement’ and Adivasi women’s marginalization and cultural silencing. Extensive field surveys are used covering tea-gardens, stone-crusher and brick kiln and construction industries. New material is available on the extremist villages of Jangal Mahal, Koraput, Malkangiri, and Niyamgiri Hills.

Linking tribe and gender, the author points to the Adivasi forest economy as the women’s economy, and forcible eviction for new industries led by multinationals that has led to severe displacement and the near destruction of the tribal world, along with intensification of witch hunting and trafficking of girls.