Towards a New Development Equilibrium among the Forest Dependent Adivasis of Central India - A Case for Agrarian Adaptive Skilling
Purushothaman, Seema and Patil, Sheetal and Ghosh, Parijat and Dibyendu, Chaudhuri and Singh, Amit Kumar and Barad, Bibhubanta and Singh, Saurabh and Jostine, A and Singh, Mahendra Kumar (2022) Towards a New Development Equilibrium among the Forest Dependent Adivasis of Central India - A Case for Agrarian Adaptive Skilling. Working Paper. Azim Premji University.
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Abstract
In a homogenized imagination of human aspirations, development interventions replicate popular models, including intensive farming in Adivasi landscapes. In the process, they try to sedentarise and individualize Adivasi communities living in the forest peripheries. Even as modernization remains an elusive target in most of the tribal belts, ethnic socio-ecological institutions become redundant, leaving the community deskilled - ecologically, socially and economically. Adivasi’s concerns about this conventional development process entailing detribalization are seldom deliberated in literature and among the community. This paper originates in the first phase of a collaborative and inclusive participatory action research undertaken by a group of development practitioners and academics with shared concerns on the impact of agricultural interventions among Adivasis. The project identified three Adivasi villages in the Central Indian Plateau based on specific criteria. It then customized participatory action research methods to align with the community’s ways of probing issues and exploring ideas. The process involved conversations in small groups, debates in village meetings and interactive walks for deliberating the actions to be carried out. The action elements that emerged during the course of the project were led and coordinated by a study group (Adhyayan group) formed in the village meetings. Collective exposure visits and annual confluence involving the three Adhyayan groups provided platforms for sharing and learning between the villages. The project elicited villagers’ perceptions about wellbeing that steered the conceptualization of a development frame anchored on three dynamic and interlinked elements –the social-ecological system, a livelihood basket and socio-cultural institutions. Overlaying the Adivasi idea of wellbeing on this trivet frame of development uncovered the central role of a continuous and informed process of adaptive skilling, including mechanisms to stimulate and sustain the process. The conceptual model that integrates people’s aspirations with the development context was approached from the vantage point of agriculture – their current mainstay in multiple ways - to highlight what is needed in terms of agrarian adaptive skilling. The project has exposed the possibilities of and requirements for social-ecological adaptive skilling. Drawing from the learning so far, the paper points to larger opportunities and specific challenges in reconfiguring development for the tribal peasantry.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Working Paper) | ||
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| Authors: | Purushothaman, Seema and Patil, Sheetal and Ghosh, Parijat and Dibyendu, Chaudhuri and Singh, Amit Kumar and Barad, Bibhubanta and Singh, Saurabh and Jostine, A and Singh, Mahendra Kumar | ||
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | adaptive skilling, Adivasi, ecological intensification, tribal development, detribalization, peasantisation, individualization | ||
| Subjects: | Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology > Groups of people > Ethnic and national groups Social sciences > Groups of people > Ethnic and national groups |
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| Divisions: | Azim Premji University > University Publications > Working Paper | ||
| Full Text Status: | Public | ||
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| URI: | http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/5307 | ||
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