Cardamom and Class : A Limbu Village and Its Extensions in East Nepal

By examining three historically overlapping productive processes - subsistence agriculture, cardamom cultivation, and international migration - this book shows how each productive process has contributed in different ways to the acceleration of economic differentiation and rural class formation.

In particular it focuses on cardamom, introduced to the village in 1968, which as a high-value cash-crop has provided a means to transform significantly the lives of a large section of Limbu society.

Despite the increased integration of the village with a national and global market, the continued existence of Limbu language and cultural practises emphasizes the active role villagers have played in shaping their current condition