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Paper short abstract:

Rural and Tribal women are leading a changing lifestyle under new social environment. They continue facing the biggest challenge for their survival and livelihood due to establishment of different development projects in their areas which create many issues and problems.

Paper long abstract:

Development as a complex process involves the social, cultural, political and economic betterment of people. It is a cultural construct as well as brings new socio-economic order for people.

Women being half of the world's population are the integral part of development processes and they cannot be ignored from development strategies. Government has been implementing development projects, plans, and programs in the rural and tribal areas to improve the quality of life of the people which leads to displacement, resettlement, and even migration of people to various urban sectors. As a result, their socio-cultural and economic lives are influenced and affected in different ways. Any issue relating to women is always culture specific. In case of displacement, the compensation package given to a family is not being utilized properly because of the dominance of the male counterparts in tribal and rural communities.

The displaced women are neither able to assimilate completely with the new environment nor are they successful in maintaining their traditional social position and culture like; family structure, marriage pattern and kinship ties etc. Their traditional agrarian and forest economies undergo changes which are forcing them towards a new occupational structure. Of course, these development projects do give opportunities in the field of employment by paving ways of economic and political empowerment for women but also make them vulnerable to different kinds of exploitation for which their social position remains a big question today.