Contract farming, ecological change and the transformations of reciprocal gendered social relations in Eastern India

Debates on gender and the commodification of land highlight the loss of land rights, intensification of demands on women's labour, and decline in their decision-making control. Supported by 'extra-economic forces' of religious nationalism (Hindutva), such neoliberal interventions are producing new gender ideologies involving a subtle shift from relations of reciprocity to those of subordination. Using data from fine-grained fieldwork in Koraput district, Odisha, we analyse the tensions and transformations created jointly by corporate interventions (contract farming of eucalyptus by the paper industry) and religious nationalism in the local landscape. We examine how these phenomena are reshaping relations of asymmetric mutuality between nature and society, and between men and women.

Automated summary

Debates on gender and land commodification highlight the loss of land rights, increased demands on women's labor, and decreased decision-making control for them. Corporate interventions and religious nationalism are jointly creating tensions and transformations in the local landscape, reshaping asymmetric mutuality between nature and society, and between men and women.