Adam Pain has been an academic in the UK and since 2006 part time at the Swedish University for Agricultural Science. He has also worked in programme management, as a programme evaluator and as policy advisor. For much of the last thirty years his interests have been focused on the Himalayan region in Bhutan, Nepal and Afghanistan and on their rural mountain economies. Kjell Hansen is associate professor in European Ethnology and a senior lecturer in rural development at the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences. His research has focused on questions about the relationships between state, policies and local communities and cultures.