Population pressure, mobility, and socio-economic change in mountainous environments: regions of refuge in comparative perspective.

This paper examines demographic and socioeconomic forces in high isolated parts of the world. These regions were not always isolated; they were once the centers of their own particular worlds which, in some cases, were complex civilizations. It is their relegation to the very periphery of the modern world that is the principal theme of this paper. Population migration, both into and out of these areas, has played a vital role in linking mountainous regions to the wider world. Particular attention is paid to the part played by the traditional mobility patterns and by the resource base of the mountains in the transformation of integral, self-sufficient cultures into dependent, subservient part-cultures, the regions of refuge. The effect of population pressure and the development of outmigration from the Andes of Peru is examined first and the analysis extended to the highlands of Papua-New Guinea and to several regions in the Himalayan arc to provide the background for a comparative study of regions of refuge.