Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://localhost:4000/handle/123456789/1926

Browse

Now showing 1 - 15 of 15

The Cornered Talks- Discussing Gendered Communication in Tribal Development in India
(Book Enclave, 2020) Nandigama, Sailaja
Displacement, migration, and resettlement: reading the Mahabharata as a palimpsest of DIDR model
(Springer, 2024-10) Nandigama, Sailaja
Development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) has been a topic of discussion since times immemorial. The Mahabharata registers grave environmental concerns which portend mass destruction due to rampant human intervention and over-exploitation of the earth. The epic, a palimpsest of the times, repeatedly informs, advises, and cautions us against our utilitarian, abusive, and anthropocentric way of life. When the Khandava Vana was burnt by Arjuna to clear land for resettlement, thousands of animals met with a brutal end while trying to escape the blaze. All the denizens of the forest—the snakes, the elephants, the lions, the deer, the birds, and the tribal communities—were mercilessly dispatched to the other world. The Adi Parva describes how the hunger of Agnideva was satiated by the “nectar-like stream of animal fat.” This conflict between the settled communities trying to extend their boundaries at the cost of the lives of the aborigines is a recurring theme in the saga of the so-called development. This study seeks to analyze the displacement of communities by juxtaposing the politics of development in the alibi of Dharma to find common vistas that have remained unaltered for centuries. The multiple layers that form the epic embed messages that are figurative and deeply metaphorical. This paper utilizes the narrative research methods and the postmodern theory of deconstruction to examine selected accounts of displacement from The Mahabharata, to decipher the real meaning of development apropos this ancient narrative.
Food, fields and forage: A socio-ecological account of cultural transitions among the Gaddis of Himachal Pradesh in India
(Elsevier, 2021-07) Bhattacharya, Sankar Kumar; Nandigama, Sailaja
Traditional food systems of many ethnic communities in India directly depend on their symbiotic relationship with the surrounding natural resources and the local socio-ecological and cultural dynamics. However, in the light of development activities resulting in drastic socio-ecological changes, these communities are oftentimes found stranded with over-simplified and unsustainable food systems. Using an ethnographic methodology, we present the case of Gaddis – an agro-pastoral community of Himachal Pradesh in India. In this paper, we documented the on-going trade-offs in traditional livelihoods of the Gaddis and their land use patterns that cause a significant transition in the traditional food systems. Based on our observations, we argue that mapping the shifting political ecology of resources enables a better understanding of transitioning food systems and the consequent eco-cultural changes. While doing so, we emphasize the need for revisitng the existing praxis of tribal development in India with an urgent focus on holistic socio-ecological approaches.
Global Virtual Exchange as a Sustainable Higher Education Practice: Developing Innovative Teaching and Learning Strategies Using Online Collaboration among Four International Universities
(SSRN, 2022-02) Nandigama, Sailaja
In the international higher education context, there have been several challenges as well as opportunities arising due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Covid crisis has adversely impacted almost all the spheres of academic life. The international academia also suffered due to the entire teaching-learning system coming under pressure. Consequently, some path-breaking international collaborations have been started for developing sustainable teaching and learning practices using online resources. This paper presents one such innovative collaboration by the ILDP programme of the Hiroshima University, Japan and the Global Virtual Exchange initiative by the University of Texas at Austin, USA along with the BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus and the Tribhuvan University of Nepal. The insights discussed in this paper are directly drawn from my experiences as a lead professor in the ongoing international collaboration for promoting high-quality research and academic work across the four universities mentioned above. A total of 28 students (postgraduate level), 5 TAs and a group of 6 professors, along with several external resource persons have collaborated in delivering and co-creating content on selected themes around Agriculture and Climate Change adaptations by small farm families across all the 4 countries. In this original research paper, I will be highlighting the teaching and learning practices that were used by the international team for enhancing the efficacy and effectiveness of such global level virtual collaborations as well as for promoting their sustainable practice in the foreseeable future.
Introduction: South Asian Feminisms and Youth Activism: Focus on India and Pakistan
(Bridgewater State University, 2022) Nandigama, Sailaja
These are turbulent times for the many countries that form the Global South. South Asian nation-states are no exception; the last half century has ushered in liberalization of economies, forced structural adjustments, climate chaos, criminalization of indigenous and lower caste populations, and rapid technological changes. All these forces have resulted in massive upheavals often manifested in political, economic, and social crises. Experts observe that in times of instability, the most marginalized groups, already the target of social violence, are disproportionately subjected to enormous stress, anxiety, and insecurity. In South Asia, women, as one such group that faces multiple intersectional oppressions depending on class, caste, religious locations, etc. have been active participants on the frontlines of struggles for social justice and equity. In the new era of hardened nationalism and militarism, they have also been the targets of violence and brutality.
Invited spaces and informal practices in participatory community forest management in India
(Springer, 2013) Nandigama, Sailaja
This chapter shows how the formal participation of men and women in a community-based forest management project shapes and is shaped by informal practices. The gender analysis is based on an ethnographic case study of a village in Andhra Pradesh, India. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the gendered practices of participation in a highly stratified community structure. The chapter explores how women’s participation is influenced by the prevalent notions and self-images of femininities and masculinities and by their everyday roles in informal practices. It observes that actors adapt the functioning of formal spaces of participation to suit their local situations. The chapter demonstrates that focusing on formal spaces is insuficient to understand gendered participation. Instead, the findings show that despite being marginalised in their formal roles, the women used the project intervention to increase their bargaining power, and to gain visibility and status in the community
Managing political space: authority, marginalised people’s agency and governance in West Bengal
(Liverpool University Press, 2018) Nandigama, Sailaja
This paper investigates governance reform which aims to ‘move the state’ closer to people, arguing that greater attention needs to be paid to two questions: how does political decentralisation affect the ways in which authority is exercised? And what spaces does it leave open for poor people’s agency? It focuses on West Bengal, an Indian innovator of decentralisation through panchayati raj (‘rule by local councils’) in the late 1970s, investigating the everyday practices through which rural political space was being managed through in-depth qualitative evidence gathered from two panchayats towards the end of the Left Front government’s long rule (1977–2011). This work indicates the ways in which patronage, coercion and surveillance were melded by those exercising political power in the Bengali countryside, and the limited political opportunities which these practices left open to the poor. The ostensibly democratic structures of panchayati raj thus coexisted with the informal exercise of power and the reproduction of new forms of ascribed political identity for poorer and marginal groups. This in turn raises critical questions about programmes of governance reform being pursued across the global South.
Performance of success and failure in grassroots conservation and development interventions: Gender dynamics in participatory forest management in India
(Elsevier, 2020-09) Nandigama, Sailaja
Co-governance of forests, or participatory forest management, has been a wide-spread conservation and development (C&D) intervention in India for over two decades. The practice began in the 1990s as Joint Forest Management (JFM), where local communities – organised into forest protection committees (FPCs) – worked in cooperation with various state forest departments. Later on, this intervention took shape of Community Forest Management (CFM), where communities managed their forests largely independent of the forest departments. Under both the JFM and CFM models, gender mainstreaming – enabling equal distribution of opportunities and services across genders – held a pivotal position. This study shows that despite continued marginalisation, female FPC members often performed as if initiatives were successful. Thus, the central question investigated in this paper is: "Why women performed success in participatory forest management interventions while experiencing marginalisation in the FPC?” This paper adopts an ethnographic case study methodology (immersion), utilising in-depth ethnographic case studies from three states of India for analysing performances of success and the resulting dynamics of participation, to explain the gendered nuances of the grassroots conservation and development interventions. The concept of 'situated agency' of community actors is explored to understand the practices around the performances of success in C&D interventions in forest-dependent communities in India. The paper argues that these performances hold the promise of a slow, but steady progress towards the creation of a gender-sensitive system in an otherwise patriarchal social structure
Performing Participatory Citizenship – Politics and Power in Kerala's Kudumbashree Programme
(Taylor & Francis, 2011-08) Nandigama, Sailaja
This article examines the operation of Kudumbashree, the Poverty Eradication Mission for the Indian State of Kerala. Kudumbashree operates through female-only Neighbourhood Groups, which aim to contribute to their participants' economic uplift, and to integrate them with the activities and institutions of local governance. As such, Kudumbashree echoes poverty alleviation programmes elsewhere in the Global South designed to link poverty alleviation to ‘active citizenship’. This article evaluates the programme, looking in turn at its impacts on women's participation in public space, its attempts to engineer participatory citizenship through engagement with the local state, and the wider consequences of its particular linking of participation and poverty alleviation for processes of exclusion within Kerala. It argues that although the programme has undoubtedly been successful in its scale and in supporting women's public participation, questions remain over both the autonomy of the ‘invited spaces’ it has created, and the underlying vision of poverty alleviation it embodies.
Puhals: Outlining the Dynamics of Labour and Hired Herding among the Gaddi Pastoralists of India
(Springer, 2022-08) Bhattacharya, Sankar Kumar; Nandigama, Sailaja
Pastoral practices throughout the world are in a state of flux, and Gaddi pastoralism in India’s Western Himalayas is no exception. Often in literature and common parlance, these practices are predicted to end with the current generation of practising pastoralists. For Gaddi, an agro-pastoral community located in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh in India, these gloomy predictions have remained persistent over decades. Irrespective of these claims, pastoralism continues to remain a viable livelihood option for many within the community even today. However, the institutional dynamics in which these practices are embedded have undergone several changes. In this paper, we discuss the changes in Gaddi pastoralism and its resilience by stressing a critical aspect of labour, often referred to as puhals in their vernacular dialect. Out of the various contextual meanings, we adopt the applied translation of this term as hired herders to understand their role in the larger socio-ecological system amidst the on-going livelihood shifts and declining interest among the Gaddi youth to pursue pastoralism. The data presented in this paper was collected through ethnographic fieldwork conducted during 2018–2019 at Bharmour region of Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh, India. Qualitative tools including in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and participant observations were administered. We discuss various aspects of puhal practices among the Gaddis including their recruitment process, need for hiring, involved negotiations over remunerations, skill sets and access to the resources, to highlight the institutional dynamism. Our findings suggest that hiring herders remains a crucial adaptation for the continuation and sustenance of pastoral practices that are facing contingent external pressures. It also facilitates transmission of local knowledge, livelihood and income diversification, accumulation of wealth, social mobility and cultural continuity. We conclude that hired herding, in the face of increasing labour shortages among the Gaddis, offers an innovative proposition to halt the decline in pastoralism and shape its future.
A snapshot of Significant Issues in Tribal Development in India
(Book Enclave, 2021) Nandigama, Sailaja
Struggle for Living: The Story of Irular Tribe and The Forest Rights Act (FRA) Implementation in Tamil Nadu
(Book Enclave, 2020) Nandigama, Sailaja
Transformations in the Making: Actor-networks, Elite-control and Gender Dynamics in Community Forest Management Intervention in Adavipalli, Andhra Pradesh, India
(Shaker Publishing, 2009) Nandigama, Sailaja
Water woes: understanding climate change adaptations through small family farms’ perceptions and responses to water shortages in India and Nepal
(Springer, 2025-02) Nandigama, Sailaja
Climate change is impacting agricultural practices across the globe and water crisis emerges as one of the key concerns, especially for the small farm holders. Oftentimes, they do not have the capacity to overcome the water shortages induced by these ever-increasing calamities. This chapter explores the experiences and perceptions of the small family farms in dealing with the emerging water crisis that looms large over their farming futures. The question on how small-scale farmers perceive and adapt to water shortages is addressed through comparative case studies conducted during May to July of 2021 in Rajasthan, India, and Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The findings show that farmers face variable levels of water uncertainties that further determine how they perceive, address, and adapt to climate change. Notably, Nepalese small family farms demonstrate superior access to institutional support and incentives compared to their Indian counterparts. It highlights a potential model for effective climate adaptation strategies that can safeguard small family farms against the looming threat of water scarcity. While contributing to the advancing understanding of climate change, emphasis should be on the need for cross country learning and sharing of good practices that could prevent the impending demise of small family farms.
Women's agency and pastoral livelihoods in India: a review
(BePress, 2022) Nandigama, Sailaja
The role of women in promoting and sustaining pastoral livelihoods remains an under-researched area across the world. Often, studies discuss pastoralism as a male-oriented enterprise, thus overshadowing or ignoring the part played by women in such livelihood practices. In India, where pastoralism itself is essentially a neglected area of research, such discussions remain even sparse. Pastoral communities depending on migratory livestock rearing practices for their livelihoods exhibit gender-based diﬀerences in their everyday life in terms of division of labour, mobility patterns, and rights over resources. Women play diﬀerent roles and responsibilities at the household and community levels that remain intertwined with their pastoral livelihoods. Drawing from the available literature, we aim to synthesize the situated agency of these pastoral women in their everyday lives and their collective activism in the face of mainstream models of development. We engage in a thorough analysis from a gender perspective in this paper to discuss speciﬁc cases of Indian women and their inﬂuence on pastoral livelihoods and interests. We aim to reframe and undo the invisibility women in pastoralism have faced thus far by re-telling their stories from a gendered perspective.