Rural Livelihood Complexes:A Perspective on Mishing Livelihood System

North-eastern India, despite its multifaceted potential, is one of the most underrated and least explored regions of the country. In terms of natural resources, the region is identified as one of the world‟s biodiversity hotspots. This immense potential, however, is yet to be interpreted into economic prosperity. The very concept of livelihood in North-East India is related to the natural resource potentials at the sub-community level. The Mishing in Assam is a riverine tribal community living at the confluences of rivers like Brahmaputra, Subansiri and their tributaries. Their livelihood system is composed of simple resources. The main objective of the paper is that by taking an example from Mishing one examines the complexities and livelihood linkages of a rural system in order to understand the survivability aspects of rural communities in totality. The paper is mostly based on observations made from primary sources of information. The paper concludes with a broad generalisation on how rural tribal communities like Mishing realize their livelihood from a web of five main resource complexes and have survived and lived over the years by productively utilising these livelihood resources in whatever form they may be available.