unequal knowledges in jharkhand, india: de-romanticizing women's agroecological expertise

Unequal Knowledges in Jharkhand, India:De-Romanticizing Women's Agroecological Expertise

Sarah Jewitt

ABSTRACT

Taking the Jharkhand region of India as a case study, this article uses

empirical data to intervene in `women, environment and development' and

ecofeminist debates regarding women's environmental knowledge. The article

first outlines the adoption of gender/environmental issues into development

planning and considers the dangers of overestimating women's agroecological

knowledges and assuming that they can easily participate in development

projects. It then highlights the local complexities of environmental knowledge

possession and control with reference to gender and other variations in

agricultural participation, decision-making and knowledge transfers between

villagers' natal and marital places. Particular emphasis is placed on the

economic, socio-cultural and `actor' related factors that supplement gender as

an influence on task allocation, decision-making, knowledge distribution and

knowledge articulation. The article concludes that given the socio-cultural

constraints women face in accumulating and vocalizing environmental know-

ledge, simplistic participatory approaches are unlikely to empower them. In-

stead, more flexible, site-specific development initiatives (coupled with wider

structural change) are required if opportunities are to be created for women to

develop and use their agroecological knowledges.

INTRODUCTION

In spite of academics' attempts to question ecofeminist discourse aboutwomen's `subsistence perspective' and well-developed agroecological know-ledges, such ideas have maintained widespread appeal. Indeed, ecofeministviews about a `special women±environment link' have been taken on boardby `women, environment and development' (WED) approaches and adoptedthereafter by development policy-makers and donors `which see the interestsof women and the environment as coterminous' (Jackson, 1993a: 398). Indeed,Jackson has traced the translation of these ideas by donor agencies suchas the World Bank into `win±win' policies (World Bank, 1992: 2) whichidentify `synergistic interventions' that `can effectively tackle poverty

I would like to thank two anonymous referees for their extremely useful and constructivecomments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Development and Change Vol. 31 (2000), 961±985. # Institute of Social Studies 2000. Publishedby Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK.

alleviation, women and development, and environmental conservation goalssimultaneously' (Jackson, 1993a: 398).

This trend has been particularly noticeable in those sustainable develop-ment discourses which stress women's key role in achieving environmentally-sensitive development and argue that they will be empowered by participationin such projects. The World Resources Institute argues that `for reasons ofboth equity and sustainable development, [women] must be given the oppor-tunity to become full and equal participants in their societies and economiesand in all development efforts' (WRI, 1994: 43±4). Similarly, PrincipleTwenty of the 1992 Rio Declaration states that women `have a vital rolein environmental management and development. Their full participation istherefore essential to achieve sustainable development' (quoted in DfID,1997: 13).

Although the adoption of gender±environment issues by developmentdonors and policy-makers is a major step forward, there is a risk thatthe `mainstreaming' of gender issues (Razavi and Miller, 1995) will concealthe problems women face in obtaining environmental knowledge andparticipating in development projects. WED approaches have already beencriticized for their `tokenism', undifferentiated emphases and simplisticassumption that one `can read off women's interests from their currentresource activities' (Locke, 1999: 278). A major response to such concernhas been to call for wider investigations into the socio-political factorsaffecting women's interaction with local environments and their power todevelop and articulate agroecological knowledge (Agarwal, 1998; Braidottiet al., 1994; Jackson, 1993a).

To date, however, relatively few field-based studies have tried to examineclosely the `social relations which limit [women's] power to form environ-mental knowledges, or the right to express them and operate to excludewomen from direct property relations' (Jackson, 1994: 133). The mainexceptions to this are Bina Agarwal's work on land rights in India (Agarwal,1994, 1998), Melissa Leach's (1991) research on resource management in theWest African forest zone and Cecile Jackson's work on conjugal contractsin Zimbabwe (Jackson, 1995) plus a variety of empirical studies on genderand forest management in India (Hobley, 1996; Kelkar and Nathan, 1991;Locke, 1999; Sarin, 1995; Shah and Shah, 1995). Yet, alarmingly, a significantbody of this work has shown how women's drudgery can be increased bydevelopment programmes which assume that they want and have time tobe involved in environmental management (Agarwal, 1997, 1998; Locke,1999; Sarin, 1995; Shah and Shah, 1995). The work of Bina Agarwal andCatherine Locke, in particular, cautions against assuming `a necessarycongruity' between women's interests and environmental concern, or con-structing women as `fully fledged agents' and viewing them instrumentally.

With these concerns in mind, this article aims to examine current WED/ecofeminist discourse in the light of empirical data from the Jharkhand regionof eastern India on variations in agroecological knowledge possession,

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articulation and distribution. Fieldwork in an adivasi (Scheduled Tribe)1

dominated (Oraon) village (which I shall call Ambatoli) in Bero Block,Ranchi District between 1993 and 1999 provides the main context for theresearch. The following section provides some background to this empiricalwork by outlining the complexity of gender±environment issues and thedangers of simplistic policy-making. This is followed by a more detaileddescription of the study village and the research undertaken. The article thengoes on to examine gender divisions of labour in the research area and theextent to which these vary between women from different community,economic and age groups. Particular emphasis is placed on the difficultieswomen face in obtaining and articulating agroecological knowledge aswell as transferring it between their natal and marital villages. This sectionalso aims to test the ecofeminist/WED hypothesis that women have betterdeveloped agroecological knowledges than men because of their `special'link with nature.

CRITIQUES OF GENDER±ENVIRONMENT POLICY-MAKING

A major problem with the translation of simplistic WED/ecofeminist dis-course into development rhetoric and policy is that while the gender divisionsof labour which give women responsibility for `subsistence production' areusually recognized, the socially constructed nature of these responsibilities isoften missed (Braidotti et al., 1994; Jackson, 1993a). Consequently, it isassumed that increasing women's participation in environmentally-orienteddevelopment projects will help to both empower women and solve environ-mental problems. Yet this ignores the constant renegotiation of resource useand management as a result of intra- and inter-household (and gender)bargaining strategies and power relationships based on factors such as region,ethnicity, socioeconomic standing and age (Agarwal, 1992; Jackson, 1993a;Mayoux, 1995). It also glosses over the uneven distribution of environ-mental knowledge; frequently resulting from inequalities in land ownershipor resource management systems which influence people's ability to utilizeor expand their knowledge bases (Bebbington, 1994; Scoones and Thompson,1994a).2 Indeed, there is increasing concern that ecofeminist/WED approaches

1. Adivasi means òriginal inhabitant' and India's tribals are widely regarded as the original

settlers who were displaced into the forests and hills by later invaders. Each state has a list

of tribes that are officially recognized and notified as `Scheduled Tribes'. Likewise, caste

groups formerly known as ùntouchables' are officially notified as `Scheduled Castes'.

Both groups are allowed certain privileges including access to `reserved' government sector

jobs.

2. The `beyond farmer first' (Scoones and Thompson, 1994a) school seeks to address such

difficulties by adopting a more politically and sociologically differentiated view of

development and an àctor-oriented' approach which analyses the role of `situated agents'

as well as wider structural factors (Long and Long, 1992).

Unequal Knowledges in Jharkhand, India 963

have seriously overrated women's environmental interest while effectivelyìnvisibilizing' men and their environmental knowledges (Leach et al., 1995: 3).

In India, for example, taboos against women doing key agriculturalactivities such as ploughing help to enforce wider gender inequalities.Similarly, the predominantly patrilineal land inheritance and patrilocalresidence patterns usually discourage women from developing long terminterests in (or knowledge about) their parents' land (Agarwal, 1994).Customs of dowry-giving, meanwhile, further reduce women's autonomy,èconomic value' and opportunities for financial independence while simul-taneously increasing their dependence on their husbands (Boserup, 1970;Harriss and Watson, 1987).

Significantly, research in India by Dyson and Moore (1983) indicateda negative relationship between marriage distance and women's autonomywithin the household. Generally speaking, distant marriages are morecommon amongst the higher castes/classes which place a premium onstrategic marriage alliances, look further for marriage partners and pay (orexpect) larger dowries. As Jackson points out, however, such alliances areàt least partly purchased at the cost of individual women's security andpower' (Jackson, 1993b: 1956). The situation is often exacerbated by thetendency of these higher income and community groups to practice purdah(female seclusion) and discourage women from working outside the home.Often, the ènvironmental dislocation' (Jackson, 1993a: 410) that character-izes distant marriages, coupled with socially constructed behaviour patternsemphasizing women's `soft speech, deference to male elders, etc.' (Agarwal,1997a: 44) ensures that women have little freedom to move outside the house-hold and fairly limited autonomy within it. Amongst the poorer classes/castes, by contrast, marriage distances tend to be shorter and householdscan rarely afford to practice purdah. Such women therefore tend to sufferless dislocation upon marriage and have greater autonomy within the house-hold and mobility outside it: a situation that tends to make them more activein household decision-making.

Unfortunately, the influence of these socio-cultural and `material realities'on women's agroecological knowledge possession and `dependence on andactual use of natural resources for survival' (Agarwal, 1992: 149) is oftenconcealed by ecofeminist/WED emphases on women's innate relationshipwith nature. Many ecofeminist discourses also ignore the difficulties womenface in acting on (or even articulating) the knowledge that they do possess inareas where cultural restrictions discourage women from speaking out inpublic (Agarwal, 1997, 1998).3

3. Women's `mutedness' is usually less pronounced in hill and tribal areas where women `still

maintain a reciprocal link with nature's resources . . . that stems from a given organization

of production, reproduction, and distribution, including a given gender division of labour'

(Agarwal, 1992: 150).

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In an effort to overcome these shortcomings, there have been proposalsfor a wider examination of gender (instead of just women or men) withindifferent social contexts. Bina Agarwal has proposed `feminist environ-mentalism' (Agarwal, 1992) and Cecile Jackson (1993a, 1993b), amongstothers, advocates a `gender analysis' approach that treats women (and men)not as undifferentiated categories but as actors (and actresses) in their ownright. Yet despite frequent emphasis on context-specific and socio-politicallygrounded research (Agarwal, 1992, 1998; Braidotti et al., 1994; Jackson,1993a; Leach et al., 1995), in-depth work on gender variations in agro-ecological knowledge is still very limited and gender±environment policy-making remains disturbingly simplistic.

BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH AREA

Jharkhand is situated predominantly within the Chota Nagpur plateau andupland Santhal Parganas regions of South Bihar plus neighbouring Districtsof West Bengal, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. The region has an adivasi(Scheduled Tribe) population of around 30 per cent. Various ScheduledCaste and Scheduled Tribe sadans (artisan castes) constitute up to 50 percent of the region's population (Kelkar and Nathan, 1991: 21) and haveclose cultural links and reciprocal economic relationships with the dominantScheduled Tribes (Roy, 1915, 1928).

Ambatoli, the village in which I did most of my fieldwork is large (1574hectares), with seven hamlets and around 1750 inhabitants. Agriculture isthe primary occupation for most villagers, although average land holdingsare quite small (under five acres) and only 41 per cent of Ambatoli'shouseholds grow enough food for their basic annual requirements. Mostfamilies therefore supplement farming with seasonal migration and casuallabour. Monsoon season paddy is the main crop grown on lower-lyingland and crops such as upland paddy, ragi (Eleusine corocana) and urad(Phaseolus roxburghii) are grown on drier uplands. The village's limitedirrigation potential restricts winter cultivation somewhat although thehigh prices fetched nowadays for early vegetables have encouraged villagerswith wells or ponds to grow potatoes, peas, tomatoes and cauliflowers:an activity from which many have profited. Most households also growvegetables such as peas, tomatoes, potatoes, okra, gourds, aubergines andmaize in well manured and watered homestead gardens.

Ethnically and socioeconomically, the village is quite diverse with a Sched-uled Tribe population of 76.5 per cent,4 a Scheduled Caste sadan population

4. Of these, 64 per cent are Oraons who are mostly cultivators and have considerable pride in

their agricultural prowess. The rest are made up mainly of Mundas (who in status and

occupation are on a par with Oraons) and Scheduled Tribe sadans such as Mahlis (basket

weavers) and Lohras (blacksmiths) who tend to have poorer quality land.


of 17.5 per cent and a Backward Caste population of 6 per cent. The latterare regarded as the wealthiest group in the village and have prosperedprimarily from shopkeeping, liquor selling and vegetable cultivation.5 At theopposite extreme are a number of income deficient adivasi and ScheduledCaste families (plus one female-headed Backward Caste household) whichown little land and survive from seasonal migration. The relationshipsbetween these different communities are quite cordial on the whole, althoughBackward Castes Ð because they belong, nominally, to the mainstreamHindu population Ð think of themselves as (relatively) `well-to-do'.

Gender relations in Jharkhand are fairly egalitarian and adivasi womenespecially have quite a high social status and `economic value'. They alsotend to have a fair degree of autonomy, particularly if they live in nuclearhouseholds. Purdah is virtually unknown amongst adivasi (and ScheduledCaste) women who are heavily involved in marketing, agriculture andforest-related work. They also marry relatively late (in their late teens) andbrideprice is commonly given instead of a dowry. Marriage distances areoften relatively short and adivasi women tend to maintain close contactwith their natal place after marriage.6 In the wealthiest Backward Castehouseholds, by contrast, dowry-based arranged marriages with relativelyyoung brides are the norm and attempts to secure strategic marriagealliances often mean that daughters move far from their natal places.Consequently, their visits home tend to be less frequent.

Although Jharkhandi land inheritance patterns are patrilineal andresidence patterns are predominantly patrilocal, adivasi women are entitledto a share of the produce grown on their family's land and may manage landon behalf of male relatives should they be widowed (Kelkar and Nathan,1991; Roy, 1928). Significantly, the importance of male children is not aspronounced amongst adivasis compared to other communities, as it is quiteacceptable for parents without sons to get a daughter married in the matri-local ghar jamai fashion. In such cases, the adopted son-in-law moves to hiswife's village and farms her family's land; the idea being that the marriagewill ultimately produce a son and heir to inherit the property (Roy, 1915).

5. Fourteen of the sixteen Backward Caste households in my sample were regarded, along

with several Oraon families, as the `wealthiest' households in the village with land

ownership and income from businesses or salaried work being identified in wealth

rankings as the most important factors. Ambatoli's sixteen Backward Caste households

possess an average of over 6 unirrigated acres and 0.54 irrigated acres, which is

significantly greater than the village average of around 4 unirrigated acres and 0.5 irrigated

acres. The wealthiest adivasi and Scheduled Caste villagers have (reserved) government

sector jobs. Nevertheless, even the `wealthiest' villagers live in predominantly mud houses

and have no electricity or piped water.

6. A woman's first baby is usually delivered at her parents' home although there is no such

formality with subsequent births. Nevertheless, many adivasi women return frequently to

their natal place and while they may be accompanied by their husbands on short visits,

they usually stay on alone during longer visits.

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Nevertheless, the influx of Hindu culture is steadily eroding these prac-tices and many adivasis have adopted the customs of dowry giving andarranged marriages (Kelkar and Nathan, 1991). Another problem is the fearof witchcraft which can have serious gender implications, as it is usuallywomen rather than men who are declared witches. In fact, tribal widowsoften suffer from witchcraft accusations made by male relatives attemptingto stake claims on their property. According to Kelkar and Nathan, theever-present threat of witchcraft helps to reinforce men's power over womenand provides a means of restricting women's `non-conformism or deviance'(ibid.: 99) from accepted social norms.

THE FIELDWORK

The main body of empirical data on which this article is based was collectedas part of my doctoral fieldwork in Ambatoli village in 1993 (see Jewitt,1996), although it has been updated and expanded during return visits be-tween then and March 1999. The empirical data used here comes primarilyfrom eighteen female interviewees (chosen from one hundred sample house-holds) with whom I developed a particularly good rapport (see AppendixTable 1). After ensuring that all major age, ethnic, educational and socio-economic groups were represented amongst these women, I revisited themfor in-depth interviews on gender divisions of labour, environmental know-ledges, decision-making strategies and transfers of agroecological know-ledge between natal and marital villages. More general information on themarital practices common amongst different communities was also collectedduring the course of the fieldwork.

The following section forms the empirical core of the article and seeks toemphasize the wider political economy and socio-cultural factors (as well asthe role of individual actors) that lie behind inequalities in agroecologicalknowledge possession, vocalization and transfer. It first outlines typicaladivasi gender divisions of labour and draws attention to deviations fromthis pattern amongst Scheduled Caste and Backward Caste villagers. Gendervariations in agroecological knowledge possession and the role of women inagricultural decision-making are then investigated as a means of examiningecofeminist/WED claims that women have better-developed environmentalknowledges than men. This is followed by an examination of the extent towhich women transfer agroecological knowledge from their parents' villageto that of their husbands.

Gender Divisions of Labour

Although adivasi gender relationships are fairly egalitarian, Jharkhandisociety is nevertheless characterized by quite well-defined divisions ofagricultural labour (Kelkar and Nathan, 1991; Roy, 1915). Some tasks are


very strictly gendered and are enforced by taboos (or concern aboutpotential witchcraft accusations) which, because they usually apply only towomen, help to `legitimise male control over the production process'(Kelkar and Nathan, 1991: 62) and maintain the subordinate position ofwomen. The most significant taboo affecting women's agricultural par-ticipation is the prohibition on ploughing which is common throughoutSouth Asia. In Ambatoli, most adivasi women believe that if they tried toplough, a whole series of major calamities would occur. Local perceptions ofwhy this taboo exists seemed to relate more to the lesbian connotationsbehind a woman `penetrating Mother Earth' than to gender-based strugglesfor control over agricultural production.7 Nevertheless, one adivasi womandid come forward with the more cynical interpretation that `women wouldno longer be men's property if they could plough' (Sila Lohrain, interview,1993). Other tasks that are taboo to adivasi women include roofing a house,driving a bullock cart and carrying items on a shoulder pole.

Most other agricultural tasks are not gender specific in theory, althoughin practice they usually reflect intra-household negotiating power as well aswider `social patterns of disadvantage of women' (Joekes et al., 1994: 139),in that men can command access to transport such as bullock carts or cyclesmore easily than women. Generally speaking, land preparation work in-volving bullocks is done by men, while manual field preparation is oftendone by women. Hoeing is a predominantly female task, both within andoutside the research area (Boserup, 1970). Transplanting and weeding areconsidered to be `female tasks' throughout the Indian subcontinent, but inAmbatoli, men will occasionally help out when female labour is short.Paddy harvesting, threshing and winnowing are usually carried out by menand women although when the grain is transported home, women carry iton their heads while men bring it on a shoulder pole, cycle or bullock cart.Husking is a predominantly female task as it is carried out at home and caneasily be combined with household work. In keeping with traditional`women in development' emphases on women's characteristic double workburden (Boserup, 1970), most adivasi women carry out household chores inaddition to doing agricultural work. Indeed, many of the poorest womenhave a triple burden in that they also undertake periodic wage labour tobalance the household cash budget.

Non-adivasi gender divisions of labour have strong parallels with thepatterns described above. In particular, the main taboos on ploughing,driving a bullock cart and carrying items on a shoulder pole hold forBackward and Scheduled Caste women in the fieldwork area, as well as

7. Several women commented that ploughing was strictly a man's job and one elaborated

that `Mother Earth is female and we worship her as a female goddess. It would be

unnatural for a woman to plough. Only a man can plough Mother Earth without

`̀ damaging'' her' (Gandri Orain, interview, 1993). These comments were accompanied

with giggles, nudges and knowing smirks as their sexual implications were quite clear.

968 Sarah Jewitt

throughout much of South Asia. Although women from better-off familiesoften hire daily labourers to help them with (or alleviate them from doing)the most tiresome tasks, the main exceptions to typical adivasi patterns arefound amongst Ambatoli's wealthier Hindu Backward Caste households.Perceiving themselves to be at the top of the village socio-cultural andeconomic hierarchy, these families often opt for strategic marriage alliancesand attempt to maintain a loose form of purdah. This usually means thatfemale household members avoid working in the fields or making trips tothe forest, but the reality is usually affected by economic factors Ð notablythe extent to which the families in question have (or can afford to buy in)labour to replace that of female household members. In the wealthiest Back-ward Caste households, women's agricultural work is usually restricted toactivities such as vegetable cultivation that can be carried out close to thehomestead. In poorer Backward Caste households, meanwhile, economicrealities make purdah impractical and women usually undertake the sametasks as adivasi and Scheduled Caste women. Nevertheless, the general per-ception amongst Ambatoli's adivasis is that `Sahu and other Backward Castewomen only do housework while Scheduled Tribe women do field-based agri-cultural work as well as forest-based gathering' (Goindi Orain, interview, 1993).

In addition to economic and labour-related influences on task alloca-tion, gender divisions of labour in Ambatoli, as elsewhere (Hobley, 1996;Jackson, 1993a), are subject to constant renegotiation in accordance withintra-household economics and power relations. In joint households wheremarried sons (and their wives) live with their parents, intra-gender bargain-ing over work allocation can be very significant with age, marital status andindividual assertiveness having an important influence on the householdpecking order. Where socioeconomic circumstances (and labour resources)permit, senior women and their daughters commonly `bag' the best jobs andallocate the most tiresome and repetitious tasks to the youngest marriedwomen. Many of my interviewees admitted to feeling intimidated by theirmothers-in-law when they first arrived in the village and found themselveswith larger workloads than they had had in their parents' households.Indeed, eleven of the eighteen women with whom I conducted in-depthinterviews said that their mothers-in-law made them substantially re-learnhow to cook and do housework. A typical comment was: `I felt unhappyand uncomfortable here for the first two or three years . . . Although mymother taught me how to cook and do housework I had to relearn every-thing when I came here. Sometimes my mother-in-law scolded me and orderedme about' (Rahil Orain, interview, 1993).

The tendency for young married women to be intimidated by theirmothers-in-law was particularly pronounced amongst women who had haddowry-based, arranged marriages and felt the need to justify their worthwithin the household. Niramala Sahu, a twenty-six-year-old BackwardCaste woman who came from over a 100 km away and could not under-stand the local language commented: `I was very upset when I first married


and cried because I missed my family . . . I wanted to run back home, butwhat could I do? My family paid a big dowry to get a good husband for me'(Niramala Sahu, interview, 1993). In most cases, the autonomy of youngmarried women within the household increased significantly after havingchildren. Many women also experienced a much greater degree of inde-pendence when their family structure changed from joint to nuclear. JitanManjhi, a forty-five-year-old Scheduled Caste sadan (basket weaver) womantold me: `my mother-in-law used to dictate what I should cook, but I gotmore independence when we became separate households. I much prefer tobe in charge of my own household' (Jitan Manjhi, interview, 1993).

Gender Variations in the Possession of Agroecological Knowledge

Before going on to examine ecofeminist/WED claims about women's agro-ecological knowledge being better developed than men's, it is importantto recognize that gender is only one influence on knowledge possession. Asthe above section demonstrates, intra-gender power struggles as well aswider socio-cultural, economic and community factors can influence villagers'abilities to delegate, avoid or buy themselves out of the most arduous andtime-consuming tasks. Given that task allocation is constantly being chal-lenged and renegotiated, corresponding variations in the possession andcontrol over agroecological knowledge can only be expected. Within ruralcontexts, inequalities in land ownership or resource management systemscan also substantially affect the extent to which local people can expandtheir knowledges. It is very important, therefore, to view rural people as`situated agents' whose knowledge acquisition and articulation takes placein `cultural, economic, agroecological and socio-political contexts that areproducts of local and non local processes' (Bebbington, 1994: 89). Inrecognition of this, the following highlights how knowledge possession isaffected by socioeconomic status, community, culture, age and personalcircumstances as well as by gender.

The main starting point for this analysis is the ongoing debate betweenecofeminists and their critics over gender differences in environmental know-ledge possession. One of the most prolific ecofeminist writers, VandanaShiva, argues that Indian women possess greater agroecological knowledgesthan men and act as major agricultural innovators as well as being the main`selectors and preservers of seed' (Shiva, 1992: 210). In contrast, Kelkar andNathan (1991) suggest that even in areas like Jharkhand where genderrelations are significantly more egalitarian than in plains Hindu society,men not only possess better-developed ecological knowledges but are alsoprimarily responsible for agricultural decision-making. Moreover, patri-linearity guarantees men a long-term vested interest in land, whereas womenusually have only indirect access to land and a correspondingly limited long-term concern for its condition (Agarwal, 1994; Joekes et al., 1994).

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Evidence from Ambatoli largely supports Kelkar and Nathan's findingsas it is usually men, as the main landowners, who conduct agriculturalexperiments, have dealings with (usually male) agricultural extensionofficers and Block Development Officers. Men are also usually the first tolearn about new seeds, agricultural techniques, marketing strategies and soon, and consequently make most agricultural decisions. Even in share-cropping households, decisions on what to grow are usually made by menfrom the owner's or the share cropper's family and in landless families, itis usually men, as heads of household, who decide whether householdmembers will seek paid agricultural or other employment.

Many women are therefore heavily dependent on men to determinewhether and to what extent they will contribute to field-based agriculture.The degree to which Ambatoli's Backward Caste women can develop agro-ecological knowledge, for example, is dependent on how far their husbandsand parents-in-law can afford to buy them out of agricultural work. Mostadivasi and Scheduled Caste women, meanwhile, usually know plenty aboutthe tasks that they undertake but still tend to view field agriculture as theirhusbands' responsibility.

An additional factor which reduces women's ability to develop locallyspecific agricultural knowledge is the prevalence of patrilocal residencepatterns in the region. These mean that men are not only much morefamiliar with the specific agroecology and pedology of the land that theyfarm, but also possess a lifetime of experience in growing different crops onit and using different combinations of inputs. Most married women, bycontrast, have to learn these things from scratch when they move to theirmarital villages: a particularly difficult task for women coming either fromtown-based, non-agricultural families or from households that cultivateddifferent crops. Indeed, of my eighteen interviewees, four felt unable tomake any suggestions about agriculture in Ambatoli for many years becausethey had learned everything they knew about farming from their husbands'families. Sila Lohrain, an adivasi woman who grew up in Ranchi's suburbs,for example, said: `when I first came to the village . . . I didn't know anythingabout agricultural work . . . I learned most things about crop cultivationfrom my mother-in-law and I learned the rest by watching local women'(Sila Lohrain, interview, 1993).

These broad inequalities in agroecological knowledge possession are oftencompounded by the problems that many women face in articulating theknowledge they do possess or in contributing to household decision-making.Significantly, only six of my eighteen interviewees regularly played a rolein agricultural decision-making.8 Echoing Bina Agarwal's (1992) findings onvariations in women's mutedness according to region and ethnic community,

8. Their most common suggestions related to sowing times, the acreage of crops that they

had the labour to cultivate and the possibility of growing new crops.


however, Ambatoli's women varied significantly in the extent to which theywere willing to vocalize their viewpoints. Generally speaking, adivasi andScheduled Caste women were rather more assertive about agriculturaldecision-making than Backward Caste women, primarily because theyundertake plenty of field-based agricultural work and have more directexperience on which to base their suggestions.

Although the relative autonomy of Backward Caste women withinAmbatoli's households was certainly influenced by the extent to which theyobserved purdah, it is important to recognize factors other than community-based ones that may influence women's role in agricultural decision-making.Notable examples include variations in age, socioeconomic status, intra-household power relations, individual circumstances and personalities.Generally speaking, recently married women from all communities wereanxious to make a good impression and actively avoided questioning theirhusbands' or in-laws' decisions. Most of my interviewees said that theyfelt unsure of themselves in their new surroundings and would not havedreamed of making agricultural suggestions. One woman commented:`when I first came to Ambatoli, I was sixteen and I was very shy abouttalking to people. I was frightened of my mother-in-law and tried hard notto annoy her or my husband. Even though I had cultivated vegetables andworked in the fields at my parents' place, I didn't feel able to make anysuggestions about agriculture here. My husband's family have been farmingthis land for years. What could they learn from me?' (Neera Lohrain,interview, 1993).

Despite a general perception in Ambatoli that women's role in householddecision-making increased as they got older and especially after havingchildren, ten of the twelve interviewees who did not contribute to agri-cultural decision-making had been married for over five years and hadchildren. One woman (Jitan Manjhi) said simply that she preferred to leavethe agricultural decision-making to her husband while another two (JatriOrain and Laki Mahli) gave a lack of good quality land as the main reasonfor not making agricultural suggestions. Jatri Orain said: `I would like togrow vegetables but I don't want to suggest it as we don't have any goodirrigated land' (Jatri Orain, interview, 1993). Three of the four women whohad grown up in urban areas (Rahil Orain, Binita Manjhi and NiramalaSahu), meanwhile, still felt that they knew little about agriculture comparedto their husbands.

Nevertheless, it seems surprising that women who had both practisedagriculture in their natal villages and had been married for over five years,still felt unable to contribute to agricultural decision-making. Indeed, evenamongst the more assertive women, there was often a feeling that agriculturewas not a domain in which they could interfere as the land belonged to theirhusbands. One of my most self-confident interviewees, for example, com-mented that: `in the past, I have tried to make suggestions to my husbandabout sowing times and what crops to grow, but he doesn't listen to my

972 Sarah Jewitt

views. He says that I don't do proper work, only housework, so why shouldhe listen to me? He tells me that he would take more notice of what I say ifI were earning a wage' (Sila Lohrain, interview, 1993). Similarly, a very self-confident and articulate Oraon woman who had grown sugar cane andmaize in her natal village said: Ì don't feel able to suggest growing thesecrops in Ambatoli because my husband would only laugh at me or beannoyed with me for interfering' (Hiramuni Orain, interview, 1993). Ona similar note, two tribal sadan women of the Mahli (basket weaving)community who did ask their husbands to grow vegetables were greetedwith the response: Ì don't know how to grow vegetables, I only know howto do basket work' (Pairo and Sanicaria Mahli, interviews, 1993).

To some extent, the impasse faced by these four women stemmed from thefact that they were all married to men for whom farming was a secondaryoccupation.9 On the other hand, although these women were quite capableof managing the family's agricultural land, their husbands would not givethem the financial backing to do this. As a result, the only place that thesewomen felt able to put their agricultural interest and knowledge to good usewas in their homestead vegetable gardens. Significantly, however, Sila, Pairoand Sanicaria all lived in nuclear households and Hiramuni's mother-in-lawwas very old, so they had almost complete authority (their husbands rarelyinterfered) over what they grew in these gardens and how they grew it. Inmost joint families, by contrast, homestead gardens were clearly the domainof the older household women (and their daughters) who delegated many ofthe more tiresome and monotonous tasks to their daughters-in-law.

The fact that only six of my eighteen interviewees actually contributed toagricultural decision-making therefore seems rather at odds with ecofeministemphases on an innate women±environment link and Shiva's claim that Indianwomen live in harmony with the natural environment as àgriculturalistsand water managers, the traditional natural scientists' (Shiva, 1988: 41).Instead, evidence from Ambatoli suggests that women's environmentalinteractions are severely constrained by socio-cultural and wider structuralfactors. Patrilinearity and patrilocality have a particularly significant impacton women's ability to access land to develop their environmental knowledgewhile wider restrictions on mobility and speaking out in public are im-portant in discouraging their active participation in agriculture.

Gender Variations in the Transfer of Agroecological Knowledge

The best-known theory of knowledge diffusion over space is the `distance±decay' model (Abler et al., 1971) which predicts that proximity is all

9. Hiramuni's husband runs a flour mill, Sila's husband is a blacksmith and Pairo and

Sanicaria are married to basket makers.


important in controlling the likelihood of an innovation spreading. Foragroecological knowledges, however, the converse could also operate asdistance brings changes to environmental conditions and can act as astimulant for the diffusion of agriculture-related knowledge and innova-tions. Linking this argument with ecofeminist/WED ideas about women'sspecial link with nature and their role as `selectors and custodians of seed'(Shiva, 1992: 211), one might expect women to be responsible for majortransfers of agroecological knowledge when they move to their husbands'villages after marriage. Moreover, given that Hindu (particularly BackwardCaste) women typically come from quite distant villages, it could be pre-dicted that they would generate larger knowledge transfers than ScheduledTribe women who tend to marry more locally and often within the sameagroecological zone. Knowledge transfers by men, by contrast, should befewer, in theory, as men have not usually had the same long-standingexposure to different agroecological characteristics and knowledge bases.The main exceptions to this are ghar jamai marriages where it is thehusbands rather than the wives who go to live with their in-laws when theymarry (Roy, 1915).

Broadly speaking, interview data from Ambatoli supports the theory thatdistance brings both environmental change and different farming practices10

and there is some quantitative evidence from my eighteen interviewees toconfirm that a linkage exists between marriage distance and communitygroups (see Figure 1). The three Backward Caste women moved an averageof 79 km from their natal places, the two Scheduled Caste women moved anaverage of 28 km and the thirteen Scheduled Tribe women moved anaverage of just under 21 km.

In spite of this linkage, however, there is little evidence to indicate eitherthat women from distant natal villages transfer more agroecological know-ledge than `local' women or to suggest that women are responsible forgreater knowledge transfers than men. Of the eighteen women interviewed,for example, only five transferred either seeds or agricultural knowledgefrom their natal villages and all of these grew up in villages within 24 km ofAmbatoli with very similar cropping patterns and agroecological conditions.Instead, factors such as community background, socioeconomic status,parents' involvement in agriculture, husbands' occupation and personalcharacter appeared to be far more important than distance and environ-mental change. Both of Ambatoli's ghar jamai men, by contrast, made quite

10. Ambatoli has quite a low proportion of irrigated land compared to Bero Block and

Ranchi District as a whole, but is quite market-oriented; particularly regarding vegetables.

Most villages in the neighbouring Blocks of Sisai, Chanho, Bandhra and Kara have quite

similar edaphic conditions and cropping patterns. Sisai and Kara have rather limited

irrigation potential but a strong market orientation. Bandhra and Chanho are somewhat

flatter and fairly well irrigated (Sanjay Kumar, Conservator of Forests, Ranchi; pers.

comm.).

974 Sarah Jewitt

Ranchi

TimraLapung

Duru

AmbatoliVerno

Boda

HesmniRaghunathpur

Kullu

Ulti

Kanjo

Mahuari

Bargaon

Kamta

Kanke

Lohardaga

Kanchi Nadi

Jumar Nadi

Karo

Nad

iSouth Koel R.

South Koel R.

South Koel R.

➛

Hazaribagh 55 km

➛

Suissa47 km

Bero

Roads

Rivers

Railways

Towns

➛

N

Ratantoli

0 10 km

Natal villages

Distances travelled by married women

Diatances travelled by Ghar jamai men

Katanga

Masia

Chachkopi

Figure 1. Respondents' Natal Villages

UnequalKnowled

ges

inJharkhand,India

975

important knowledge transfers and although one did not move far from hisnatal village, both travelled quite widely and this was clearly a significantfactor influencing their knowledge transfers.

In many ways, the reasons given by the thirteen `non-transferring' womenfor not bringing seeds or agroecological knowledge from their natal villagesecho the patterns of agricultural knowledge possession and decision-makingnoted in the previous section. Four of the thirteen said that there was nopoint in transferring seeds or knowledge because their husbands were notvery interested in agriculture and would laugh at their ideas (HiramuniOrain, Sila Lohrain, Pairo Mahli and Sanicaria Mahli). Two were womenwho came from town-based non-agricultural households and did not feelable to contribute to agricultural decision-making (Rahil Orain and BinitaManjhi), and two said that they did not have any good land on which to grownew crops (Jitan Manjhi and Jatri Orain). The two wealthiest BackwardCaste (Sahu) women, Niramala and Rina, had been brought up in house-holds which (in an attempt to maintain a loose form of purdah) discouragedthem from undertaking field-based agricultural work. Despite the fact thatthey came from the two most distant and agroecologically different natalplaces and usually returned from visits there laden with food and other giftsfrom their families, both claimed that they never brought seeds with them;their explanation being that `the crops grown there were exactly the sameas those grown in Ambatoli' (Niramala and Rina Sahu, interviews, 1993).Similarly, the three remaining non-transferring adivasi women commentedthat the agricultural techniques and crops in their natal villages were `thesame as in Ambatoli, so there was no point in making any transfers' (GandriOrain, Neera Lohrain and Laki Mahli, interviews, 1993). In Gandri's case,this was not unexpected as her natal village, Boda, is only 5 km away.Neera's and Laki's statements were surprising, however, as their natalvillages are both 32 km away and have a higher proportion of irrigated landthan Ambatoli and a wider variety of crops. Even despite Ambatoli's limitedirrigable potential, one would expect some kind of `distance-increaseddiffusion' to occur, if only to the women's well-watered homestead gardens.

Nevertheless, the fact that five women did transfer either seeds or agri-cultural techniques from their natal villages does lend some support toWED/ecofeminist emphases on a special women±environment link as wellas Shiva's claim that women are `selectors and preservers of seed'. The mostimpressive knowledge transfer was made by Silamuni Orain who was born24 km away in Kanjo village, Bandhra Block. Silamuni used to grow manyvegetables in her natal village and claims to be the first person to havebrought gongra (squash gourd) and jhingi (Luffa acutangula) seeds toAmbatoli. She also helped to encourage the spread of these vegetables bygiving seeds to villagers who were interested in growing them. Her next planis to be the first person to plant sugar cane in Ambatoli and she intends toask her parents' advice on where to cultivate it as it requires frequentirrigation.

976 Sarah Jewitt

Second to Silamuni's claim is that of Nauri Orain from Ratantoli village,14 km away. Nauri says that she is the first person in her hamlet to havegrown jhingi and gongra with seeds given to her by her mother. She alsoclaims to have been the first person to grow lokee (bottle gourd) in Ambatoliand, like Silamuni, Nauri encouraged its cultivation by giving spare seeds tovillagers who wanted them. The third best `seed transfer claim' comes fromSattan Lohrain who brought bean cultivation to Ambatoli from Katangavillage, 13 km away (near Bero). She learned a lot about vegetable cultivationfrom her parents as they sometimes grew beans, okra, potatoes, lokee andgongra for sale at Bero market. Sattan claims that when she first broughtbeans and cucumbers to Ambatoli from her parents' house, many peoplecame to look as they had never seen them before. A number of villagersasked her for bean seeds and advice on how to grow them.

The only other interviewee who brought new seeds to Ambatoli from hernatal village was Etwari Bhaktain who comes from Masia village, just 5 kmaway. Etwari brought jhingi, bean, sweet potato, cauliflower and cabbageseeds to Ambatoli from her mother's vegetable garden and although shedoes not claim to be the first person to have grown any of these, none of herhusband's family had grown them before. Etwari also reintroduced her in-laws to wild vegetables known locally as chimtisag, cherasag and kattaysagthat she had learned about from her mother but which have been largelydisplaced by cultivated vegetables.

The only woman claiming to have transferred an agricultural techniquewas Fagni Pradhan who said that she was the first person to bring ragi(Eleusine corocana) transplanting to Ambatoli from Timra village, 18 kmaway in Kara Block. Although Fagni comes from a Backward Caste house-hold, her family was too poor to practise purdah and in spite of her earlymarriage, she was able to learn a lot about field-based agriculture from herparents. In addition to transplanting ragi on her husbands' fields, she hasencouraged the spread of this technique by teaching other villagers how todo it.

So, although there is little concrete support for a `distance-increaseddiffusion' of women's agroecological knowledge, some interesting observa-tions can be made about the influence of gender, community and class-basedfactors on the movement of knowledge between people and over space.Firstly, of the five women who did transfer seeds or techniques from theirnatal villages, four were Scheduled Tribes and none came from particularlydistant villages Ð a situation that even with the limited data available,suggests that factors other than marriage distance are more important. Anobvious explanation for the failure of the two Sahu women to transferknowledges and the success of four adivasi women in growing seeds broughtfrom nearby villages lies in the different degrees of gender equality andfemale autonomy within these communities. As noted in the previoussection, the relative freedom of Ambatoli's adivasi women seems to result, inlarge part, from their high `economic value' coupled with few socio-cultural


restrictions on their ability to obtain both field- and garden-based agro-ecological knowledge from quite an early age. Ambatoli's better-off Back-ward Caste women, by contrast, grew up with Hindu customs of dowrygiving, arranged marriages and a belief in purdah where economic circum-stances permit: all factors that prevented them from gaining much agri-cultural experience or feeling confident in articulating their views in front oftheir husbands or parents-in-law. Nevertheless, these factors do not accountfor why these four particular adivasi women brought seeds from their natalvillages and the only transfer of an agricultural technique was made by aBackward Caste woman. Clearly, an `actor oriented' perspective can behelpful in examining the more personal (and personality-related) factorsworking within broader socio-economic and political structures.

Certainly, one factor that stood out amongst the five `transferring women'was that they were all assertive characters who had considerable autonomyboth within and outside the household, and who had their husbands'backing to contribute to agricultural decision-making and experimentwithin the homestead garden. What is more, they had all grown up infamilies which practised field-based agriculture and were married to menwho took a keen interest in agriculture and encouraged them to do the same.Perhaps just as importantly, however, all five women were interested inagriculture and tried hard to experiment with new garden crops wheneverpossible. This interest was something I found lacking amongst two of thethree adivasi women (as well as the two Sahu women) who claimed thatagriculture and homestead gardening were exactly the same in their parents'villages as in Ambatoli. Before concluding that women who are experiencedand interested in agriculture (in addition to having greater autonomy andfreedom to air their views) are likely to transfer new crops and agriculturaltechniques, though, the women's transfers will be compared with thosemade by Ambatoli's ghar jamai men.

As noted earlier, both of Ambatoli's ghar jamai men transferred agri-cultural techniques from their natal villages and in addition to this, thewidow of Ambatoli's third ghar jamai man told me that he regularly used tobring both paddy and vegetable seeds from his parents' home, 13 km awayin Chachkopi. In contrast to the women, who mainly transferred homesteadgarden seeds, the knowledge transfers made by the ghar jamai men seem toreflect their greater responsibility for field-based agriculture although someof their experiments with vegetable seeds were carried out in garden plots forgreater supervision. Tila Oraon, an ex-serviceman from Duru village (5 kmaway) is not, strictly speaking, a ghar jamai man (although he is widelyregarded as one), as he moved to Ambatoli after his marriage and boughtland there in 1971 with his Army savings. Despite a long Army career, heis regarded as an expert farmer and he attributes much of his expertise tohaving travelled widely and seen different agricultural practices. Althoughthis supports the idea of `distance-increased diffusion', his main knowledgetransfer claim is that he learned ragi transplanting from his mother and

978 Sarah Jewitt

taught it to his wife in Ambatoli over thirty years ago, well before FagniPradhan arrived in the village.11

Interestingly, the second ghar jamai man that I interviewed, Etwa Mahli,also claimed to have introduced ragi transplanting to Ambatoli, but as hecame more recently to the village, he probably introduced the technique justinto his own hamlet: Deepatoli. Etwa was born about 30 km away in Ulthivillage, Bandhra Block, but worked for a while in Ranchi before moving toAmbatoli thirteen years ago at the request of his wife and parents-in-law. Heillustrates the occurrence of `distance-increased diffusion' quite well as whenhe worked in Ranchi, he became curious about the many different kinds ofpaddy and vegetables available there and now tries to bring seeds back fromRanchi market whenever possible.

Qualitative data on knowledge transfers from eighteen women and twoghar jamaimen (plus the widow of a third ghar jamaiman) in Ambatoli doesappear to indicate that natal to marital village transfers of seeds andagricultural techniques can be important in agroecological knowledgediffusion. Although factors other than natal village distance seem to bemore important in influencing women's knowledge transfers, the ghar jamaimen provide some support for `distance-increased diffusion', rather than theconventional `distance±decay' model; although this appears to reflect theirexperience of travelling to (as much as being born in) distant places.However, a good deal more data on the diffusion of agroecologicalknowledges from natal villages with different environmental conditionswould be necessary to test this hypothesis further.

Without trying to belittle the agroecological knowledge transfers made bymy female interviewees, however, it is important to recognize the ways inwhich they echo the patterns of female agricultural decision-making andknowledge articulation noted in the previous section. It is also worth re-emphasizing that all three of Ambatoli's ghar jamai men transferred seedsand/or new agricultural techniques into their marital villages. Men alsomake a large majority of the agriculture-related decisions in Ambatoli and,with a few exceptions, have much closer links than women with the mainsources of agricultural innovation Ð namely local agricultural `experts',extension workers, village motivators and Block Development Officers. Italso tends to be men rather than women who get opportunities to go onBlock-organized agricultural training courses. So, although women'sagroecological knowledge transfers can be important, men have greateropportunities for accumulating and vocalizing agricultural expertise and aretherefore Ambatoli's primary `selectors and custodians of seed'.

11. There is also doubt over the recent introduction of jhingi and gongra as they are all

mentioned in Roy (1915). They may, however, have fallen out of use and been re-

introduced to Ambatoli by these women.


CONCLUSIONS

Although ecofeminist discourses have been instrumental in initiating a`paradigm shift' (Scoones and Thompson, 1994b) away from traditional `topdown', male-dominated development approaches, it can be misleading toview them as a representation of reality or a guide for policy. Particularlyproblematic is their failure to distinguish between either environmentalwork and management or gendered responsibilities and rights (Jackson,1995; Locke, 1999). Indeed, as Meera Nanda points out, by romanticizingwomen's ìnvisible' work, ìn partnership with nature' (Nanda, 1991: 52),ecofeminist discourse can help to prevent a critical analysis of the repressivesocial structures that make women responsible for this work. It can alsoeffectively ìnvisibilize' (Leach et al., 1995: 3) men and their potential foraddressing environmental problems.

WED's instrumental yet undifferentiated àdd women and stir' approach(Braidotti et al., 1994), meanwhile, has obvious appeal for donors seekingsustainable development and women's empowerment but tends to over-estimate women's agroecological knowledge (and interest). It is also verysimplistic in its assumption that the barriers women face in obtaining andarticulating agroecological knowledge will be brought down simply bycreating greater opportunities for their participation in environmentally-oriented development projects. The tendency of many WED approaches togloss over both the socially constructed nature of environmental knowledgeand the underlying structures that influence natural resource use andmanagement is also a major shortcoming.

Empirical data from Jharkhand, for example, illustrates that even in anarea of relatively high gender equality and female autonomy, there is littlesupport for WED/ecofeminist claims about a special women±environmentlink. Instead, fieldwork data highlighted the importance of `material realities'(Agarwal, 1992) as well as wider community, socioeconomic and culturalrestrictions on women's abilities to accumulate, vocalize and use agro-ecological knowledge Ð notably the enforcement of certain gender divisionsof labour by taboos coupled with socio-cultural restrictions (mediated bywealth) on women's mobility. Men's greater stake in (and familiarity with)local land resources plus their greater socioeconomic freedom to accessformal sources of agricultural knowledge, by contrast, facilitated theirdevelopment and use of agricultural expertise.

This suggests, therefore, that there is an urgent need to reassess thecontribution made to development rhetoric and policy-making by undiffer-entiated ecofeminist/WED discourses and simplistic participatory approaches.A possible alternative would be a more site-specific approach that has theflexibility to investigate underlying inequalities in local property and re-source allocation rights as well as wider socioeconomic, political, gender-related and other variations in resource use, management and control.Clearly, very useful insights into agricultural decision-making and know-

980 Sarah Jewitt

ledge transfer can be gained by focusing on individual people acting inspecific places (Bebbington, 1994; Long and Long, 1992) in order to allowbroad categories like gender to reveal rather than conceal.

In practical terms, significant progress probably could be achieved withan increase in locally-recruited female agricultural extension staff and villagemotivators who would face fewer language and cultural barriers (and couldtherefore gather information more quickly) than outsiders. Such measurescould help in obtaining in-depth information about the agricultural tasksactually performed by local women from different communities, socio-economic and age groups. They would also highlight men's and women'sdifferent agroecological knowledges and any constraints that they faced inarticulating them. For one-off donor-funded development programmes,meanwhile, site surveys conducted by local (female and male) researchersand involving participatory appraisal techniques such as (single sex andmixed) wealth rankings, participatory mapping, matrices and group dis-cussions should provide a reasonably detailed (yet rapidly constructed)empirical footing on which to build environmental projects. To maintainwomen's input, culturally-sensitive participatory initiatives involving femaleproject staff and all-female working groups could then find ways to increasewomen's opportunities to develop their knowledge bases and create fora inwhich they felt happy to air their views.

In the absence of wider structural change, however, these measures aloneare insufficient to significantly empower women as they fail to address themain cause of male±female discrepancies in agroecological knowledgepossession; namely the deeper socio-cultural and political structures whichrestrict women's mobility, access to public places and control over environ-mental resources. Although measures such as India's Constitution (Seventy-Third Amendment) Act of 1992 (which specifies that a third of all seats inlocal government bodies must be reserved for women) have created theoreticalopportunities for women's empowerment, the obstacles are many andchange is likely to be slow. But now the ball has started rolling, it is im-portant to seize the opportunity with the help of flexible, locally-orienteddevelopment initiatives that can work around existing socio-cultural andpolitical structures to create real opportunities for women to expand andutilize their environmental knowledges.


Appendix Table 1. `Natal Village' Women and Ghar Jamai Men Interviewees

Natal Village Women

Name Commnunity Age Education Non-household workundertaken

Location ofMarital village

Distance tonatalvillage

Familytype

Seeds ortechniquestransferred

Number ofchildren

Yearsmarried

RahilOrain

Oraon ST 20 Primary No Lapung town 10 km Nuclear No None 3

HiramuniOrain

Oraon ST 24 Secondary `Integrated childdevelopment scheme'

Kanjo,BhandraBlock

18 km Joint No 3 daughters 6

NauriOrain

Oraon ST 29 None No Ratantoli, BeroBlock

14 km Nuclear Yes 2 sons1 daughter

9

JatriOrain

Oraon ST 30 None Casual labour Katanga, SisaiBlock

30 km Nuclear No 3 sons 10

SilamuniOrain

Oraon ST 31 None No Kanjo,Bandhra Block

24 km Joint Yes 3 sons1 daughter

13

GandriOrain

Oraon ST 40 None No Boda, BeroBlock

5 km Nuclear No 2 sons,2 daughters

24

EtwariOrain

Oraon ST 55 None No Masia, BeroBlock

5 km Nuclear Yes 1 son,3 daughters

37

NeeraLohrain

Lohra ST 22 None No Bargaon, SisaiBlock

32 km Nuclear No 1 son 6

SattanLohrain

Lohra ST 32 None Blacksmithing,casual labour

Katanga, BeroBlock.

13 km Joint Yes 6 daughters 14

SilaLohrain

Lohra ST 37 Primary Sewing work Ranchi, townSuburbs

45 km Nuclear No 2 sons3 daughters

19

SanicariaMahli

Mahli ST 23 None Basket-making,casual labour

Verno town 9 km Joint No 2 sons2 daughters

6

LakiMahli

Mahli ST 32 None Basket-making,casual labour

Raghunathpur,Chanho Block

32 km Nuclear No 1 son5 daughters

14

982

SarahJew

itt

PairoMahli

Mahli SC 33 None Basket-making Mahuari,Bandhra Block

25 km Nuclear No 2 sons1 daughter

2

BinitaManjhi

Manjhi SC 26 Secondary `Integrated childdevelopment scheme'

Mandar townsuburb

32 km Nuclear No 1 daughter 5

JitanManjhi

Manjhi SC 41 None Basket making Kullu ChanhoBlock

24 km Nuclear No 1 son1 daughter

20

FagniPradhan

Pradhan BC 37 None No Timra, KaroBlock

18km Nuclear Yes 2 sons3 daughters

22

NiramalaSahu

Sahu BC 25 Primary No Ichack,HazaribaghDistrict

100 km Joint No 2 sons1 daughter

8

RinaSahu

Sahu BC 20 Secondary No Suissa, PuruliaDistrict, WestBengal.

100+ km Joint No None 2

Ghar Jamai Men

Name Community Age Education Non-household workundertaken

Location ofMarital village

Distance ofMaritalvillage

Familytype

Seeds ortechniquestransferred

Number ofchildren

Yearsmarried

EtwaMahli

MahliST

36 Secondary Basket-making,agricultural labour

Ulthi, BandhraBlock.

30 km Joint Yes 2 daughters 15

TilaOraon

OraonST

68 Secondary Retired from Army Duru, LapungBlock.

5 km Joint Yes 2 sons 40+

GandraOraon1

OraonST

38 Secondary Government service Chackopi,Bero Block

13 km Joint Yes 4 sons1 daughter

18

Note:1. Husband of widow Bimla Orain.

UnequalKnowled

ges

inJharkhand,India

983

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York: Oxford University Press.

Sarah Jewitt is a lecturer in the Department of Geography at the School ofOriental and African Studies (SOAS), Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square,London, WC1H OXG ([email protected]). Her primary research interests aregender, environment and development-related issues in the developing worldwith particular emphasis on forest use and management in Jharkhand,India.


unequal knowledges in jharkhand, india: de-romanticizing women's agroecological expertise

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