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Research in Southeast Asia has played a major role in developing our understanding of swidden agriculture. This paper reviews work that has appeared since the 1960s, and other recent reviews. It considers definitions and variations, changing theoretical styles, swiddening as a cultural form, and how ecological composition interfaces with social dynamics. It discusses the subject through dominant and contesting political discourses, and in the context of environmental conservation. It examines changes in the context of policy and recent history, and asks why swidden cultivation persists when the prevailing view has long been that it will rapidly disappear.