Contents 10 Conclusions 383References 389My first thank you goes to Hedde Zeijlstra and Sandhya Sundaresan, whose guidance and support during this thesis made it possible. You both generously and humanly shared your knowledge but also your life skills in the world of academia, and I feel privileged to have had not one, but two very committed supervisors.To Hedde, thank you for your neverending patience and your kindness. You backed me up in every project (and not just by funding all my trips!) and made every opportunity seem accessible. Thank you for creating for many of us a supporting and stimulating work environment in Göttingen.To Sandhya, thank you for caring so much about our work and challenging me to do better, with a fierce attention to detail. I will be eternally grateful for allowing me to go to India on my first fieldwork, it was an incredible experience. A special thanks to Champa and Sundaresan, who made me feel so welcome in their home.To Jegan Murugesan, thank you for your patient and wise companionship during the project, and for always reminding me, when I was freaking out, that this was just a talk, just a meeting, just a thesis. Needless to say, the content of this thesis owes a lot to our project meetings discussions and to our joint discoveries about the AAE.