After political reforms and the completion of the Karakoram Highway in the 1970s, farming systems in the mountains of northern Pakistan have been subject to major transformations. Among other changes, there has been a significant shift from subsistence agriculture to the commercial production of cash crops, while farming practices have become less important to the diversified livelihoods of the local population. Based on original field research in Nagar, Gilgit-Baltistan, this book provides a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the actors and factors responsible for these changes in manifold ways. By applying a novel conceptualisation of agriculture as social-ecological assemblage, this work also investigates how these local dynamics relate to broader processes of political, social, and environmental change.
Since the early 1980s, very little research has been done in the high mountain community of Nagar, located between Gilgit city and the better-known Hunza district. With detailed chapters on the environmental and societal history of Nagar, enriched by numerous photographs, maps, and illustrations, this book provides the first comprehensive study about this remote mountain community available in the English language.