Reconstructing Land Discourse: A Perspective of the Zeme Tribe of Northeast India

As the Zeme society was predominantly a subsistence-based economy, land was an asset for them. In contextualising, this study employs Polanyi’s ‘Embeddedness’ to examine how the notion of land is dictated by the social obligation and moral context in the Zeme society and how Zeme society perceives and evaluates the land values. The article locates the land settlement system, changes in land practices, types of land and land taboos vis-à-vis customary law locating the influence of Western education. Furthermore, the article analysed how English-educated individuals with salaried jobs maintain their interest in village land causing a decline in the customary law of the landownership. This study is based on primary and secondary sources and aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on land.