ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on movement away from the (remote) countryside and on the ethical issues this provokes and raises interesting questions about the materialization of ethics. It deals with some of the same issues but from the perspective of the big cities where rural migrants arrive. The book deals primarily with ethics in situ and especially with the question of moral evaluation as it unfolds among adults living in close-knit rural communities. It also deals with moral evaluation in the countryside. The book includes extended passages of direct speech taken from interviews with informants. It focuses on what might be called a traditional 'technique of moralization' and links this both to intimate family life and to the wider political economic landscape against which it plays out.
