Decolonizing the Gender and Land Rights Debate in India: Considering Religion and More-than-Human Sociality in Women’s Lived Land Relatedness
This article links the feminist debate on women’s land rights in India to the current academic debate on critical human-nature relationships in the Anthropocene by studying how married Hindu women weigh the pros and cons of claiming land in their natal family and how they practice their lived relate...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-03-01
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| Series: | Religions |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/3/254 |
| _version_ | 1797442817054736384 |
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| author | Catrien Notermans Luna Swelsen |
| author_facet | Catrien Notermans Luna Swelsen |
| author_sort | Catrien Notermans |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article links the feminist debate on women’s land rights in India to the current academic debate on critical human-nature relationships in the Anthropocene by studying how married Hindu women weigh the pros and cons of claiming land in their natal family and how they practice their lived relatedness to land in rural Udaipur (Rajasthan, North India). The article disentangles the complex issue of why women do not respond eagerly to Indian state policies that for a long time have promoted gender equality in the domain of land rights. In reaction to the dominant feminist debate on land rights, the authors introduce religion and more-than-human sociality as analytical foci in the examination of women’s responsiveness to land legislation. Their ethnographic study is based on fieldwork with married women in landowning families in four villages in Udaipur’s countryside. The authors argue that women have well-considered reasons not to claim natal land, and that their intimate relatedness to land as a sentient being, a nonhuman companion, and a powerful goddess explains the women’s reluctance to treat land as an inanimate commodity or property. Looking at religion brings to the fore women’s core business of making land fruitful and powerful, independent of any legislation. The authors maintain that a decolonized perspective on women’s land relatedness that takes religion and women’s multispecies perspective seriously may also offer a breakthrough in understanding why some women do not claim land. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T12:47:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0ef74b6d24094ad5b6fc2fd4a5455ef9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2077-1444 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T12:47:34Z |
| publishDate | 2022-03-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Religions |
| spelling | doaj.art-0ef74b6d24094ad5b6fc2fd4a5455ef92023-11-30T22:10:30ZengMDPI AGReligions2077-14442022-03-0113325410.3390/rel13030254Decolonizing the Gender and Land Rights Debate in India: Considering Religion and More-than-Human Sociality in Women’s Lived Land RelatednessCatrien Notermans0Luna Swelsen1Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Radboud University, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, The NetherlandsMaster’s Program International Development Studies, Wageningen University & Research, 6708 PB Wageningen, The NetherlandsThis article links the feminist debate on women’s land rights in India to the current academic debate on critical human-nature relationships in the Anthropocene by studying how married Hindu women weigh the pros and cons of claiming land in their natal family and how they practice their lived relatedness to land in rural Udaipur (Rajasthan, North India). The article disentangles the complex issue of why women do not respond eagerly to Indian state policies that for a long time have promoted gender equality in the domain of land rights. In reaction to the dominant feminist debate on land rights, the authors introduce religion and more-than-human sociality as analytical foci in the examination of women’s responsiveness to land legislation. Their ethnographic study is based on fieldwork with married women in landowning families in four villages in Udaipur’s countryside. The authors argue that women have well-considered reasons not to claim natal land, and that their intimate relatedness to land as a sentient being, a nonhuman companion, and a powerful goddess explains the women’s reluctance to treat land as an inanimate commodity or property. Looking at religion brings to the fore women’s core business of making land fruitful and powerful, independent of any legislation. The authors maintain that a decolonized perspective on women’s land relatedness that takes religion and women’s multispecies perspective seriously may also offer a breakthrough in understanding why some women do not claim land.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/3/254landland rightsgenderreligionkinshipinterspecies relatedness |
| spellingShingle | Catrien Notermans Luna Swelsen Decolonizing the Gender and Land Rights Debate in India: Considering Religion and More-than-Human Sociality in Women’s Lived Land Relatedness Religions land land rights gender religion kinship interspecies relatedness |
| title | Decolonizing the Gender and Land Rights Debate in India: Considering Religion and More-than-Human Sociality in Women’s Lived Land Relatedness |
| title_full | Decolonizing the Gender and Land Rights Debate in India: Considering Religion and More-than-Human Sociality in Women’s Lived Land Relatedness |
| title_fullStr | Decolonizing the Gender and Land Rights Debate in India: Considering Religion and More-than-Human Sociality in Women’s Lived Land Relatedness |
| title_full_unstemmed | Decolonizing the Gender and Land Rights Debate in India: Considering Religion and More-than-Human Sociality in Women’s Lived Land Relatedness |
| title_short | Decolonizing the Gender and Land Rights Debate in India: Considering Religion and More-than-Human Sociality in Women’s Lived Land Relatedness |
| title_sort | decolonizing the gender and land rights debate in india considering religion and more than human sociality in women s lived land relatedness |
| topic | land land rights gender religion kinship interspecies relatedness |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/3/254 |
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